J-Street releases slick website embracing a bad deal with iran

J-Street is assuming that people are idiots.

They just came out with a "hail Mary" website meant to convince everyone that the deal being negotiated with Iran is wonderful. It is very slick, filled with animations, and it claims to debunk the major 8 arguments against the deal.

It fails miserably.

J-Street says:

Opponents of this agreement say Iran will cheat their way to a nuclear weapon.

Not without us knowing in time to stop them. That's why this deal is so important: by subjecting Iran to the most intrusive inspections regime in history, it leaves nothing to trust.

Inspections at all nuclear sites. 24/7/365 monitoring. Tracking every ounce of uranium. It all adds up to unprecedented assurance that Iran cannot cheat their way to a weapon undetected

No. Iran has not agreed anytime/anywhere inspections of its military sites, and never will. But they are critically important.

We have heard many assertions by Iranian officials since the P5+1/Iran framework was reached that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors will not be allowed into military sites in Iran. The blanket assertion seems to suggest that this could be the case even when the IAEA has evidence of undeclared nuclear activities at these sites. Some Iranian officials have even asserted that no country would ever let inspectors into their military sites. But what kind of agreement would that be? What better place to hide a covert centrifuge plant or a plant to develop the nuclear weapon itself? 

J-Street says:

Opponents of this agreement say Iran must admit to all its past nuclear-weapons related research.

Yet it would be foolish to sacrifice knowing what Iran is doing now and in future just to insist that it admit all it did wrong in past.

This deal ensures that we’ll know what Iran is up to now and going forward--and give us ample time to stop it--because Iran will be subject to the most intrusive inspections regime in history

This is wrong too. As summarized by Omri Ceren from the TIP mailing list:

(1) No way to have a reliable breakout estimate without PMD resolution - That information could also shape the world’s understanding of a crucial question: Iran’s “breakout time,” or the amount of time it would take Tehran to dash to a bomb if it chose to do so, said Olli Heinonen, a former IAEA deputy director now with the Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. “You need to know how far they got,” Heinonen said.
(2) No way to have a reliable verification regime without PMD resolution - On Tuesday, Kerry hinted at why the U.S. might be satisfied with such an outcome. U.S. intelligence, he implied, paints a clear enough picture of Iran’s weapons research to make Iranian cooperation unnecessary. “We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in,” Kerry said. But that statement was quickly challenged by critics of the talks. “I know of no American intelligence officer who would ever use that description to characterize what we know and do not know,” former CIA director Michael Hayden wrote in the Washington Times.
(3) Lets Iran cement its 'we did nothing wrong' narrative, kneecaping the IAEA and gutting the nonproliferation regime - Some experts said the issue is as much political as it is religious, however: Iran appears determined never to concede that it did anything to warrant punitive international sanctions, and to maintain its posture as a victim of western aggression. “Our program always has been — and always will be — exclusively peaceful,” insisted Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in April. Evidence of military research, Sadjadpour said, “can be explained away as an elaborate Mossad-CIA conspiracy.”

J-Street says:

Opponents of the agreement say that it lifts sanctions on Iran in exchange for little or nothing but promises.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Sanctions only lift when the international inspectors, part of the most intrusive program in history, verify that Iran is complying with the deal.

And if Iran is found to be violating the agreement? Sanctions snap right back into place.

Are they freaking kidding? Yes, of course they are. They know this is garbage, and they even say so in answer to a later concern:

Opponents of this agreement say the United States should impose tougher sanctions and insist on a “better deal.”

However, new US sanctions would actually result in less pressure on Iran to concessions, not more.

If Congress rejects a deal that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, we will be blamed, not Iran. China, Russian and other countries would resume their business with Iran, collapsing the tough sanctions regime, while Iran could kick out inspectors and resume concerning activities, paving the way for it to develop a bomb.

So if we can't trust Russia and China to back up the US if Congress rejects a deal, why does J-Street believe that they will snap back sanctions if Iran cheats?

Opponents of this agreement say it only lasts for 10 or 15 years.

They're wrong: after rolling back Iran's nuclear program, this deal keeps in place permanent enhanced inspections to prevent it from acquiring a bomb.

That’s a far better result than the mere two to four years experts say a military strike would set back Iran’s nuclear program.

See above - Iran will always be able to build a bomb in a secret military facility. After all, Fordow was a secret military facility that, under this deal would not be discovered by the IAEA!

J-Street says:

Opponents of the agreement argue that this deal allows Iran to still engage in some nuclear research and development.

In fact, this deal severely restricts Iran’s nuclear R&D, including by prohibiting the testing of advanced centrifuges using uranium. It also drags Iran’s R&D program out into the light of day, subjecting it to the most intrusive inspections and verification regime in history.

Iran will be able to build advanced centrifuges, as long as it tests them with non-nuclear materials. So the research is hard;y being limited at all.

And when J-Street says (repeatedly) that the deal subjects Iran to "the most intrusive inspections and verification regime in history" that is meaningless, because if the inspections aren't enough to stop a bomb, then who cares how they compare to others? As we've shown, they will not stop inspections of sites Iran deems to be military.

In recent weeks there has been serious skepticism of the Iran deal, not from right-wing critics but from mainstream media who are watching incredulously as successive State Department briefings turn into fiascoes of the government abandoning red lines to make a deal.  But J-Street, supposedly pro-Israel, shows not the slightest skepticism about the chances that the deal could provide Iran with a pathway to a nuclear weapon. So exactly what is J-Street's position?

The answer is that J-Street will always ensure that its policies are identical to those of the White House, even when the White House changes its policies. If President Obama declared tomorrow that the US is giving nuclear bombs to Iran. J-Street would back him 100%. Because the entire organization is built around a symbiotic relationship with the White House where they back Obama in return for providing him with "Jewish" cover for his anti-Israel actions.