iran deal - Page 13

White House press secretary Josh Earnest took a swipe at a rally held by Concerned Women for America on Thursday in Lafayette Park, according to a press release from the organization.

Democrats in both the House and Senate – during Congressional hearings Thursday – referenced GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, attempting to take jabs at the GOP frontrunner.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee hosted experts on the Middle East on Thursday to examine the new Iran deal and its consequences for U.S. national security and foreign policy. Committee chair Ed Royce (R-CA) put the question to expert witnesses and fellow representatives: “[A]re temporary constraints on Iran’s nuclear program worth the price of permanent sanctions relief?”

Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew are making the rounds on Capitol Hill in an effort to sell the Iran deal. Their appearance at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday did not go well, as the three men struggled to answer basic questions and objections to the substance of the deal, as well as the process through which it had been rushed to the UN Security Council before coming to Congress. There were several new revelations at the hearing. Here are the 5 most important.

Journalist Ari Shavit is one of Israel’s most celebrated left-wing voices. He is celebrated in the United States as a voice for political change in Israel and an advocate for concessions to the Palestinians. His recent memoir, My Promised Land: The Triumph

If the Iran deal were any good, the Obama administration would not have to lie about it. Yet Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz continue to do just that. The latest example is a joint op-ed in the Washington Post, in which the Laurel and Hardy of American diplomacy attempt to defend the nuclear deal using a series of half-truths and blatant lies that is worth decoding concisely, in full.

Politifact is at it again. The so-called fact-checking authority has given Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) a “false” rating for his claim that President Barack Obama promised to “dismantle Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for dismantling the sanctions” at the outset of negotiations. However, it is Politifact that has its facts wrong.

Breitbart News is carrying the livestream of the Stop Iran Rally from Times Square in New York City today beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET.

The Obama administration has sent the Iran nuclear deal to Congress for a 60-day review provided by the Corker bill. However, President Barack Obama has pre-empted Congress by going to the UN Security Council first, which has already voted to end international sanctions and accept the deal. Furthermore, even if Congress rejects the deal, it will struggle to muster a two-thirds majority to override the president’s veto. There is one effective way, however, that the Iran deal can be rejected: states and local governments can refuse to comply with it.

“I think it’s an outrage, I think it’s done by people of gross incompetence, I think it’s a tremendous win for Iran and many of our enemies and I think it’s something that shouldn’t be allowed,” Trump said in a phone interview that came before his spat with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) escalated. “It’s outrageous that a deal like this is going forward and can be allowed to go forward. With proper negotiators we could have had a great deal.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that he is “disturbed” by the tone set by Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei in his speech over the weekend to commemorate the end of Ramadan, an Islamic holy month. In his address, the despotic ruler of the Islamic Republic called for the destruction of the state of Israel and asked fellow Muslims to resist the wishes of the “arrogant” world powers.

On Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) delivered a strident speech on the Senate floor supporting the Iran nuclear deal. The speech is very important, for three reasons. First, Durbin is one of the Senate’s most powerful Democrats. Second, Durbin owes

President Barack Obama boasted last week that his administration forced Iran to accept an eight-year delay in the lifting of ballistic missile sanctions, when Iran wanted those restrictions canceled immediately. (Never mind that Iran made the demand at the last minute, raising a “non-nuclear” issue of the sort Obama says the U.S. could not make with regard to American captives.) Now, Obama’s brag turns out to have been a lie. There are no ballistic missile restrictions in the deal: Iran is merely “called upon” to refrain, voluntarily, from such technology.

Secretary of State John Kerry told Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya television on Monday that Iran’s repeated threats to the United States in the aftermath of the Iran nuclear deal were “very disturbing,” but that they did not necessarily mean that Iran intended to attack America. He also suggested that despite the $150 billion in sanctions relief that Iran will receive, the Arab states of the Gulf region can unite to resist Iran.

The United Nations Security Council voted 15-0 on Monday to pass Resolution 2231, which endorses the Iran nuclear deal–“the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] signed in Vienna by the five permanent members of the Council, plus Germany, the European Union and Iran.” However, there are already sharp disagreements between Iran and the rest of the world as to what that deal actually means.

While en route to Israel to assuage concerns about the recently-struck Iran nuclear deal, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told reporters that the deal does not remove the military option as a potential strategy for the U.S. to remove Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Iran’s parliament, the Islamic Constituent Assembly, or Majlis, holds the power to revise or delay key parts of the nuclear deal with Iran–even as President Barack Obama and world powers seek a UN Security Council resolution before the U.S. Congress can review the deal.

In sum: as a purely nuclear deal, the Iran agreement is very weak but debatable, depending on whether you believe it can be enforced. The non-nuclear part of the deal, however, concerning the arms and ballistic missile provisions, is a complete disaster.

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz once promised “anywhere, anytime” access to Iran’s nuclear sites, known and unknown. In the end, he and the rest of the crack Obama administration negotiating team gave up on that pledge. Instead, they accepted a limited inspections system that will allow Iran to delay disputed inspections by at least 24 days. On Sunday, Moniz made the rounds of the talk shows, claiming that 24 days would be sufficient to detect whatever traces were left of nuclear activity. That is partially true, but does not actually solve the problem.

There are defensible reasons for such reluctance–such as the virtual certainty that such a decision would lead Iran to withdraw from a deal, and the fact that constant reversals of U.S. foreign policy from one administration to another undermine America’s international credibility. But neither of those were the reasons that Bush gave to an audience in Nevada.

The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), an organization that exists to boost Jewish support for Democrats, has announced its “strong support” for the nuclear deal with Iran. Not “cautious support,” or even “support.” Strong support.

In the weeks before the Iran deal, a bipartisan group of policy experts–including several former Obama administration officials–issued an open letter stating that the negotiations “may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a “good” agreement.” They laid out five criteria for a deal to meet, and White House spokesman Josh Earnest promised the deal would meet them. After the deal was done, the White House issued talking points along those lines, which Democrats are citing widely. Unfortunately, these talking points are false.

This weekend, I shed tears over the Iran deal–literally, and publicly. It happened during a discussion among congregants at my synagogue about President Barack Obama’s capitulation to the Iranian regime.

President Barack Obama’s announcement that he will approach the UN Security Council to approve the nuclear deal with Iran, and rescind past resolutions and international sanctions, before Congress approves the agreement, came as something of a surprise to many. When Congress passed Sen. Bob Corker’s Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, and President Obama signed it into law in May, the public understanding was that Congress would have the final say.

A new poll published by the Israeli newspaper Maariv and cited by the Times of Israel reports that a plurality of Israelis support a military strike against Iran in the wake of the lopsided agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama’s team with Iran in Vienna this week.

Garrett asked President Barack Obama a real question. And the Iran deal demands more questions than his colleagues have cared to ask, thus far. Why, for example, is Obama going to the UN Security Council before going to Congress, as promised?

On Tuesday, President Obama signed an agreement that equates to a $1,300 impact on every family in America — one of the largest stimulus packages in history.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had strong words for British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond at a joint news conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, telling him that western powers had failed to achieve a deal that prevented Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“I believe that we can get a veto-proof majority,” he told Breitbart News. “Yesterday [Tuesday] was the best day that his deal will have. And I don’t believe it was a very good day.” He said that in addition to a handful of Democrats who already opposed the deal, others are expressing misgivings.

During Wednesday’s national press conference about his Iran deal, President Obama played the media like a fiddle. It was a situation where the media was so compliant the questioners were hand-picked by the White House beforehand, the president filibustered throughout,

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential pro-Israel group in the U.S. and one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington, told key leaders on a conference call Wednesday that it would fight the Iran deal “with the entirety of our institutional resources.” AIPAC had said the day before that it needed time to study the details of the 159-page Iran nuclear agreement.

Several Republican presidential candidates have already reacted to the Iran deal by declaring that they will “terminate” it immediately upon reaching office. That may be an effective way of conveying the depth of GOP opposition to an agreement that facilitates Iran’s emergence as a regional hegemon and potential nuclear power. It is also a constitutionally valid policy, since President Barack Obama has absurdly declared that the Iran deal is an executive agreement, and not a treaty, to minimize scrutiny and opposition. It is not, however, the best response.

Following the news that the United States had reached an agreement with Iranian negotiators regarding the production of nuclear power, pictures from Tehran emerged on social media that show Iranians dancing in the street and even, surprisingly, praising the United States. The deal, which includes a lifting of most sanctions on Iran, is expected to greatly benefit the nation’s economy.

Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s political opposition, whose visceral dislike of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is well-known, has declared that he supports Netanyahu in his efforts to oppose the Iran deal, which the U.S. Congress is about to consider. “I had a meeting yesterday where I learned about the deal and I think it is bad for Israel. [Netanyahu and myself] will certainly cooperate when it comes to the security of Israel. As an Israeli patriot, this deal is dangerous,” Herzog said in an interview quoted by the Times of Israel.

It might seem odd that 15 years after 9/11, the U.S. seems determined to surrender to terrorists and the radical regimes that support them. Yet that is what the Iran deal represents–the latest in a string of lopsided deals, from the Bergdahl swap with the Taliban to the one-sided détènte with the Castro regime.

The nuclear deal reached with Iran on Tuesday is clouded by uncertainty about whether the Iranian regime will live up to its relatively weak commitments. One outcome is almost certain, however: Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran, hoping to weaken the regime and stop, or slow, its nuclear program.