Obama secures Majority for Iran – P5+1 Deal

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Obama secures Majority for Iran – P5+1 Deal

September 3rd, 2015

Awake Goy

nsnbc : U.S. President Barack Obama secured a domestic victory on US foreign policy when Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski voted for the Iran – P5+1 agreement on Iran’s nuclear energy program and the lifting of sanctions against Iran.

Mikulski’s vote gives Obama the margin that would enable Obama to uphold a veto of a congressional resolution of disapproval later this month. The multilateral agreement has been sharply criticized by Israel as well as by, primarily, Republicans.

The Iran – P5+1 agreement puts a series of limitations to Iran’s nuclear energy program and makes Iran subject to IAEA controls in exchange for relief from sanctions that are worth billions of dollars. Some analysts argued that the US economy stands to gain from the lifting of the sanctions.

Others would note that Iran, Russia, the UK, China and the United States, as IAEA members, all promote nuclear energy while the adverse impact on health and the environment has been and continues to be swept under the rug by all of the negotiating parties.

The deal does particularly limit Iran’s possibilities to develop a nuclear weapon and prolongs the estimated 6 – 7 months Iran would have needed to produce sufficient fissionable material to produce a nuclear weapon.

The official Iranian PR in Western media is that Iran does not have any nuclear weapons ambitions. Ayatollah Rouhani has in general terms declared all nuclear weapons as illegal and inhumane. Reading Parsi media however, suggests a quite different posturing within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

One of the points that has largely been omitted, and a point that is especially being omitted by US Republicans is that Israel does not only have a nuclear energy program but an estimated 200 – 400 nuclear warheads plus delivery systems. Israel does not allow IAEA inspections of its Dimona nuclear facility.

Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski justified her support for Obama and the Iran – P5+1 deal, stating:

“I have concluded that this Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the best option available to block Iran from having a nuclear bomb. For these reasons, I will vote in favor of this deal.”

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, for his part, will be sending a letter to all members of Congress. The letter will outline U.S. security commitments to Israel as well as to the Gulf states. The letter follows a policy speech Wednesday in Philadelphia that focused on how the international agreement makes the U.S. and its allies safer and how the deal is being mis-characterized by some opponents.

CH/L – nsnbc 03.09.2015