Tom’s Opinion: The Iran Agreement
The Iran Nuclear Agreement is currently being pondered by our Congressional leaders. According to most sources it’s a done deal and 58 percent of the American people are all for it.
It will be signed, sealed and delivered to the president who will sign it and add it to his resume of accomplishments as president.
Was It A Good Deal?
That’s like showing your new car to someone and they ask you, “Did you get a good deal?” I guess you think you got a good deal because you bought the car. You might find out later someone paid less or someone paid more for the same car.
That’s the problem with agreements, treaties, and other "cat and mouse" games governments play with each other. You only discover whether it was good or bad at a later date.
So only time will tell if this is a good deal or not. Bill Clinton went after a similar deal to slow down North Korea's pursuit of nukes. We’ve seen how well that turned out.
Every president since Eisenhower has tried to broker some kind of peace deal in the Middle East to no avail.
The Paris Peace Talks that ended America’s involvement in the Vietnam War resulted in thousands, perhaps millions, of South Vietnamese deaths. And our MIA’s were one of the bargaining chips and we are still waiting for missing to be accounted for.
Keeping The Bargain
History shows us that some treaties and agreements were good while others were bad. Most people would think that American Indians got the short end of the stick with their agreements and treaties with a benevolent American government.
Agreements are seldom a win-win for both sides. Most parties come out with a homogenized agreement at best. Compromise along with give and take.
It all comes down to who gives or takes the most that makes a deal good or bad for each party.
Government Follow-Ups
The agreement calls for vast numbers of inspections, safeguards and “snapbacks.” I was surprised that snapback is even a word that all parties could understand. I suppose that the Iranian language has a snapback word somewhere in their language texts. Snapback is not in the text but there is reference to the infamous “24 days.”
Is there any government in the world that has set a high bar for following up on what they said they were going to do?
The "P5+1" (the five council veto holders China, Russia, France, US and UK plus Germany) are running the show.
Any suspicion of a violation will result in the sanctions “snapping back.” Really?
Do they send out a memo to the world? “Hey, Iran’s off limits again.”
Since China and Russia seldom vote with us a new resolution would have to be put in place to remove the sanctions and the US could veto that if Russia and China don’t go along.
Five of the eight parties in the agreement have to agree on a violation before any “snapback” can be permanent.
Iran has 14 days to address any violations that are found, if they do not then 7 days for the governing bodies to bring a charge then Iran has three additional days to make good on whatever violations need to be corrected. 24 days.
Some Final Thoughts
My theory on this agreement is that Iran really has no interest in getting a bomb. If they really wanted one I’m sure Russia or China would be happy to oblige.
I think that’s a smokescreen. But they are getting what they really wanted all along — at our expense.
The sanctions lifted.
Which I believe will be worse than them getting a bomb. They just took us to the cleaners and got everything they were after and have us high fiving all over the halls of congress like we are the big winners.
This agreement reminds me of surprise locker inspections during high school. They were always threatened but seldom occurred.
Anytime government messes with the natural order of things unintended consequences always occur. This agreement will not be immune to those consequences because it seems there are some side deals that no one wants to share. Stay tuned.
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