Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Do "We" Really Know What is in the Iran Deal?

I went through our fact sheet on the Iran deal and concluded it is a bad deal for us. Iran denies it is even that good.

Seriously? Are we so inept that we can't even accurately transcribe an agreement we supposedly negotiated? The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman begs to differ with our fact sheet:

“What was released on the White House website as the Fact Sheet was a one-sided interpretation of the text agreed on in Geneva and some descriptions and terms in this sheet are inconsistent with the text of the Joint Action Plan,” Afkham said on Tuesday.

Following the announcement of the Iran-Sextet agreement, titled the Joint Action Plan, the White House released a fact sheet explaining the deal and the US efforts in the negotiations.

“Unfortunately, certain media outlets have translated and released this fact sheet, which is contrary to the reality, as the text of the Geneva agreement,” she added.

The Iranian government will prove to be far less willing than Congressional Republicans to let President Obama amend by executive action this agreement the way he is used to amending our domestic laws on his own.

Seriously, what did we agree to? And what do the Iranians think they agreed to? I mean other than the obvious difference between this deal paving the way for a ban on Iranian nuclear weapons and a deal paving the way for Iranian nuclear weapons.

UPDATE: Huh, here's a little point of disagreement already:

Iran will pursue construction at the Arak heavy-water reactor, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was quoted as saying on Wednesday, despite a deal with world powers to shelve a project they fear could yield plutonium for atomic bombs.

Fancy that. In the business, this would be known as a "glitch," I suppose.

UPDATE: Wait. What?

“We will refrain from constructing new enrichment sites over the next six months, and the fact [of the matter] is the administration has had no such plans for the six-month period,” the Iranian foreign minister said.

He also said the final step in negotiations between Tehran and the Sextet- Britain, China, France, Russia the US and Germany- is to normalize Iran’s nuclear case and not merely the removal of sanctions imposed against the country by the UN Security Council (UNSC).

So Iran agreed to "halt" something they weren't planning to do. Ah, Kerry! Master diplomat!

And Iran sees the interim agreement as paving the way for the West to accept Iran's existing nuclear program (remember, Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons).

This will work out swell.