Apparently resulting from sanctions, the Iran economy has fallen more than 5% according to some reports but is expected to grow as much as 1.8% in 2015 and about 2% in 2016. The U.S levied sanctions after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and expanded in 1995. In 2006, UN Resolution 1696 imposing additional sanctions was passed by the Security Council when Iran refused to suspend or reduce their uranium enrichment activities. Recent negotiations in 2013, 2014 and 2015 have relaxed some sanctions and discussions have dragged on about details of releasing frozen Iranian assets, coordination of relaxing and/or releasing sanctions and the disposition of uranium stockpiles.
Recently it was learned from several sources that Iran may be only a few months away from building an inventory of weapons-grade nuclear materials. Our government has been telling us that negotiations have focused around ten years of a weapons-grade ban for Iran plus a one year development term. Talks with Iran have been going on since October 2009. A meeting with Iran in Geneva in December of 2013 regarding The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) included Britain, China, European Union, France, Germany Russia and the United States.
The world doesn’t need a nuclear rogue nation that sponsors terrorism. Do we need to be reminded that Islamic leaders were stalwart advocates of Hitler’s quest of coercing people of the Jewish religion, culture and ethnicity into extinction? The difference in 2015 is that there are groups like ISIS that also feel that Christians should become Muslim or accept annihilation. ISIS warriors have been practicing their evil objectives by beheadings and other forms of execution. Our President doesn’t seem to be concerned about the developing clouds of another holocaust knowing that some Iranian officials deny the holocaust of the 1930’s and 40’s.
Nations that have conducted nuclear tests prior to the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) being negotiated in 1970 include the United States, Russia, The United Kingdom, France and China. Since then, India, North Korea and Pakistan have conducted nuclear tests. Although public information may not exist, sources believe that Israel has some 80 nuclear warheads. Whatever word is more powerful than ‘holocaust’, such as inferno or devastation; that is what could happen if Iran sends a nuclear warhead toward Israel. An early warning system could intercept an airborne warhead and the result within minutes could compare with Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Iran is holding these four U.S. prisoners: Saeed Abedini (34) of Boise, Idaho who went to Iran in 2012 to visit family and was arrested and sentenced to 12 years. Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who was sent by a CIA contractor in 2007 to investigate cigarette smuggling on Kish Island, an Iranian free-trade zone. Amir Hekmati, a former active duty Marine from the Detroit area, arrested in 2011 while visiting relatives in Tehran. Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief was arrested in July 2014 and held incommunicado. In January the Iranian prosecutor stated that Rezaian would stand trial in a revolutionary court presided over by a notoriously strict judge. Are these prisoners forgotten?
The Ayatollah has said military installations are off limits for inspection. In March the Iranian navy intercepted a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz that was Marshall Islands flagged. Allowing a free hand for Iran’s aggression in Syria and Iraq will lead to their greater control in the Middle East. Iranian women are treated as property, gay people have been stoned to death; where are the women’s groups like NOW and where is the outrage from LGBT groups?
Our President and Secretary of State can negotiate with an Ayatollah who says, ‘yes, death to America’ but they can’t seem to negotiate with Congress. There is an unequivocal connection between Iran’s bad behavior and nuclear negotiations. Nuclear agreement under Iranian terms will assure that Iran will develop a nuclear stockpile and Mr. Obama will receive a second Nobel Peace Prize. That isn’t negotiating, it isn’t even appeasement; it is cataclysmic collapse. It represents abysmal failure of years of negotiations. The world will suffer the consequences of Mr. Obama’s egocentricity.
Virtue may be abandoned in the face of false promises when incompetent negotiators argue security with scoundrels.
Dick Baynton