European diplomats have told Israeli officials in recent days that the United States and Iran are moving closer to an agreement that would allow the Islamic Republic to keep a large number of centrifuges in return for guaranteeing regional stability, Army Radio is reporting on Tuesday.Is that how negotiations work nowadays - demanding that the other side get what they want in exchange for giving them more of what they want?
According to EU officials, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, have discussed increasing the number of centrifuges which Iran would be permitted to keep. In exchange, the Iranians would undertake an obligation to bring their influence to bear in order to ensure quiet in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.
European diplomats are quoted by Israeli officials as saying that the US in recent weeks has made significant concessions in its talks with Iran, so much so that it is willing to permit Tehran to operate 6,500 centrifuges while lifting sanctions that have hurt its economy this past decade.
The Europeans have told the Israelis that these concessions were offered in exchange for Iranian promises to maintain regional stability. According to Army Radio, the EU is opposed to the proposed linkage between the nuclear issue and other geopolitical matters. In fact, the Europeans suspect that Washington is operating behind Brussels’ back and that Kerry has not bothered to keep them in the loop in his talks with Zarif.
Israel is concerned that the Obama administration’s willingness to allow Iran to keep centrifuges would in effect render Tehran a “nuclear threshold state,” enabling it to assemble a nuclear bomb within months if it so chooses. Such a scenario is unacceptable to the Israelis.
Why would the White House trust a nation that controls the Hezbollah thugs who are destroying Lebanon from the inside, a nation that makes daily threats against Israel, a nation that only this month was further implicated in a major terrorist attack in Argentina, a nation that openly funds and arms terror groups in Gaza and says explicitly that they want to arm Arabs in the West Bank to start a new Intifada, a nation with links to terror attacks in Europe, a nation that recruits people to assassinate diplomats on American soil, a nation that is building ICBMs that can reach the US, a nation that continuously lies about its nuclear weapons program - why in the world would such a nation be trusted to promote regional stability??
Why promote a strategy to promote Shiite rule throughout the Middle East, against the wishes of the 85% of Muslims who are Sunni?
A great example of Iran's Shiite partners are the Houthis who are on the verge of taking over Yemen, These are the people whose very logo is the slogan "God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews, Power to Islam." These are the people who will guarantee regional stability?
If you want a technical analysis of why it is literally impossible for Iran to guarantee stability even if it was the most trustworthy of allies, J. E. Dyer goes into the details - and her predictions of what would result are dire. But Iran is an enemy of the US and it will remain an enemy of the US no matter how many concessions Obama makes to them. Just like Sunni extremists, Iran prefers regional chaos to calm as a means to grab more power.
Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of evil seems like the minor leagues compared to Barack Obama's.