Why Are Republicans, Israeli Officials Upset About the Iran Nuke Deal?

Republicans are not happy about the
deal relating to Iran’s nuclear program that was announced over the
weekend. The deal includes,
among other things, Iran halting uranium enrichment above 5
percent and neutralizing “near-20% enriched uranium”.

House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has expressed concern about the enrichment
allowed in the deal, saying “Loosening sanctions and recognizing
Iran’s enrichment program is a mistake, and will not stop Iran’s
march toward nuclear capability.”

Sen.
Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) has a statement on his website that reads
in part:

By allowing the Iranian regime to retain a sizable nuclear
infrastructure, this agreement makes a nuclear Iran more likely.
There is now an even more urgent need for Congress to increase
sanctions until Iran completely abandons its enrichment and
reprocessing capabilities.

Sen. Ted Cruz
(R-Texas) says that he agrees with Israeli President Benjamin
Netanyahu, who called the deal “a historic mistake.” A statement
from Sen. Cruz begins:

According to the interim agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear
program that was reached this weekend in Geneva, not one centrifuge
will be destroyed. Not one pound of enriched uranium will leave
Iran.

So, what is all this fuss about uranium enrichment, and why does
it matter?

Less than one percent of natural uranium is uranium-235, the
isotope needed for nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Enriched
uranium is uranium that has had the percentage of uranium-235
increased, which can be done by using centrifuges.

Low-enriched uranium (3.5
percent to 5 percent) can be used for nuclear power. In order
to develop a nuclear weapon highly enriched uranium (about
90 percent) is needed. With this in mind, it initially seems
that the requirements that Iran halt enrichment at 5 percent and
dilute or convert uranium enriched at 20 percent greatly reduces
the risk of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

However, the deal only requires Iran to not install any new
centrifuges, not have them destroyed. This means that Iran could
renege on the deal and work towards a so-called “nuclear breakout.”
According to
David Albright, president of the U.S. Institute for Science and
International Security, once the enrichment conditions of the deal
are met “the breakout time – how long it would take Iran to produce
sufficient highly-enriched uranium for one atomic bomb – would
lengthen from at least 1-1.6 months to at least 1.9-2.2 months if
the Iranians used all their installed centrifuges.”

The New York Times has a good graphic illustrating the
deal and its impact on uranium enrichment, which can be seen

here. 

The fact that Iran could still develop a nuclear weapon through
aggressive uranium enrichment once the new deal is implemented is
what has Republicans, not to mention Israeli officials, concerned.
An unnamed official from Netanyahu’s office summarized the concerns

as follows, “The agreement makes it possible for Iran to
continue enriching uranium, permits Iran to keep centrifuges that
would allow it to create fissile material for nuclear
weapons.” 

Yesterday, Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani said that his country would never seek a nuclear
weapon.

Netanyahu and some Republicans may not be happy with the deal,
which has not eliminated the possibility of Iran developing a
nuclear weapon. That said, the diplomats involved in the deal
deserve some praise for managing to come up with any deal at all
given the far from ideal relationship between Iran and the West,
particularly the U.S. 

It should not be surprising that Netanyahu isn’t a fan of the
recent deal. It is very unlikely that there are any conditions
under which Israel and Iran would realistically be able to meet to
discuss Iran’s nuclear program, especially given that
Netanyahu has said that Israel is willing to “act alone” to
ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon and has called
President Rouhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

That Republicans are critics of the deal should not be a
surprise, there is a Democrat in the White House. As
Fred Kaplan has rightly pointed out, “Had George W. Bush
negotiated this deal, Republicans would be hailing his diplomatic
prowess, and rightly so.”

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/25/why-are-republicans-israeli-officials-up
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Late-Day Let-Down Spoils NASDAQ Party As Bonds & Bullion Bid

Energized by a lower crude oil price – and collapsing JPY – equity markets hit their highs shortly after 8pmET on Sunday night, trod water thorugh the Asian and European markets and started more aggressive selling once US cash markets opened. Coincidentally (or not) when Obama started speaking around 1445ET, US equities took a dramatic dive – catching down to an already weaker signaling VIX rally. EURJPY stayed in sync through all of this priming ignition pumps right into the close as NASDAQ 4,000 close was desperately needed (but the dot-com darlings were all hit). Gold and Silver's early monkey-hammering was met with buyers which lifted then up 0.5% and 0.8% respectively on the day (and 2% off their lows). WTI crude recovered more than half of its losses (-0.6% on the day) but Brent not so much as the spread broke to new 8 month highs. VIX closed higher and Treasury yields trended lower all day from the overnight open to close practically unchanged as the USD lost half its early gains to end +0.25%.

 

Unclear what the catalyst for the mid-afternoon dump in stocks was – pre-emptive month-end rebalancing? Obama? something in precious metals?

 

 

Commodities early smackdown saw a number of bid surges up during the day around the US open, EU close, and before the equit market began to roll over…

 

Don't get too excited about the Iran peace premium…

 

Stocks tracked EURJPY once again…

 

but VIX diverged…

 

 

Today's move in context…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

Bonus Chart: Don't tell anyone but the last 3 weeks have seen gas prices in the US rise at the fastest pace in 5 months…


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/PFNO5a-yr74/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Late-Day Let-Down Spoils NASDAQ Party As Bonds & Bullion Bid

Energized by a lower crude oil price – and collapsing JPY – equity markets hit their highs shortly after 8pmET on Sunday night, trod water thorugh the Asian and European markets and started more aggressive selling once US cash markets opened. Coincidentally (or not) when Obama started speaking around 1445ET, US equities took a dramatic dive – catching down to an already weaker signaling VIX rally. EURJPY stayed in sync through all of this priming ignition pumps right into the close as NASDAQ 4,000 close was desperately needed (but the dot-com darlings were all hit). Gold and Silver's early monkey-hammering was met with buyers which lifted then up 0.5% and 0.8% respectively on the day (and 2% off their lows). WTI crude recovered more than half of its losses (-0.6% on the day) but Brent not so much as the spread broke to new 8 month highs. VIX closed higher and Treasury yields trended lower all day from the overnight open to close practically unchanged as the USD lost half its early gains to end +0.25%.

 

Unclear what the catalyst for the mid-afternoon dump in stocks was – pre-emptive month-end rebalancing? Obama? something in precious metals?

 

 

Commodities early smackdown saw a number of bid surges up during the day around the US open, EU close, and before the equit market began to roll over…

 

Don't get too excited about the Iran peace premium…

 

Stocks tracked EURJPY once again…

 

but VIX diverged…

 

 

Today's move in context…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

Bonus Chart: Don't tell anyone but the last 3 weeks have seen gas prices in the US rise at the fastest pace in 5 months…


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/PFNO5a-yr74/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Will U.S. Deal with Iran Make Israel and Saudis Become Allies?

So the U.S. (by which we mean Germany,
France, England, Russia, China, and the U.S.) and Iran are striking
a deal about nuclear development in the Peacock Kingdom and U.N.
sanctions.

One odd byproduct? An aligning of interest between Israel and
Saudi Arabia, which are hardly friendly to one another. Yet both
countries – along with a number of other Sunni-majority states in
the Middle East – are absolutely opposed to the United States
cozying up to Iran.

The Saudis now fear Obama may be tempted to thaw ties with
Tehran by striking a deal to expand inspections of its atomic sites
in return for allowing Iranian allies to go on dominating Arab
countries such as Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. That such a bargain has
never been publicly mooted from within the Obama administration has
not stopped Saudis voicing their concerns.

“I am afraid in case there is something hidden,” said Abdullah
al-Askar, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Saudi
Arabia’s advisory parliament, the Shoura Council. “If America and
Iran reach an understanding it may be at the cost of the Arab world
and the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia.”


More here.

As Ed Krayewski

noted earlier today, Israel – or at least its elected leader,
Benjamin Netanyahu – is apoplectic at the deal. And
as Matt Welch wrote, hawkish elements in the American GOP are
trying to wrap any deal with Iran in the mantle of appeasement and
Munich Redux. Given that a majority of Americans are interested in
seeing the United States play a more limited role in disputes
around the globe, it’s going to be tough sledding for hawks to push
the idea that we need to be bombing Iran even as we negotiate with
the country. Funny how a decade-plus of failed foreign wars have
made everyone but neocon hawks rethink U.S. foreign policy, isn’t
it?

Which isn’t to say that Obama is a good spokesman for American
interests. He’s a trigger-happy character himself, who tripled
troops in Afghanistan, tried to stay in Iraq past the original
withdrawal date (something he’s succeeding at in Afghanistan
incidentally), unconstitutionally dispatched American forces over
Libya, and was all set to bomb Syria until wiser, cooler heads won
the battle of public opinion.

And then there’s John Kerry, our secretary of state. As Hawkeye
Pierce once said of Col. Henry Blake, the hapless commander of the
good ol’ fashioned M*A*S*H 4077 in that awful TV series that lasted
five times longer than the Korean War, I honestly believe John
Kerry could get held up via the mail. 

Is Iran a trustworthy negotiating partner? Kind of a weird
question coming from people in a country that was bugging the phone
of Angela Merkel and other allies, but no, Iran isn’t trustworthy.
Which doesn’t mean you don’t negotiate with them – it just means
you trust but verify, as Reagan counseled with the Soviets.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/25/will-us-deal-with-iran-make-israel-and-s
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NSA Director Offered to Resign Over Snowden Revelations: Should Have Been Fired Instead

Keith AlexanderThe Hill, citing a behind the paywall
Wall Street Journal story, reports that National Security
Agent director Keith Alexander offered to resign over the Edward
Snowden revelations that Alexander had overseen a massive
warrantless surveillance program aimed against American citizens.
From
The Hill:

The National Security Agency’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander,
offered to resign from his post shortly after Edward Snowden began
leaking classified government documents, according to
The Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, the Obama administration rejected his
offer.

Snowden, a former NSA contractor, began disclosing documents
detailing the agency’s surveillance programs in June.

Top administration officials’ confidence in Alexander was
shaken, the Journal reports, because he oversaw the agency
during the security lapse, an unidentified former senior defense
official told the paper. 

But an Alexander resignation, the official added, would indicate
Snowden won, and wouldn’t solve the security problem.

Certainly wouldn’t want to be seen as admitting to violations of
the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans to remain secure in their
persons and papers against unreasonable search and seizure.

Rather than merely accepting Alexander’s resignation, President
Obama should have fired him and that
bald-faced liar to Congress, James Clapper, the Director of
National Intelligence. Frankly, it appears that President Obama
doesn’t fire incompetent and mendacious minions out of fear that it
will make him look weak. Actually, the opposite is true. In
addition, the president should immediately
pardon Edward Snowden.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/25/nsa-offered-to-resign-over-snowden-revel
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Ronald Bailey Contemplates the Inconclusive Conclusion to the Warsaw Climate Change Conference

Warsaw Logo“For the third year in a row the (member)
countries have found a new way to say absolutely nothing,” asserted
Oxfam director Winnie Byanyima, as the U.N.’s annual climate change
conference limped inconsequentially to its end on Saturday in
Warsaw. The 19th Conference of the Parties (COP-19) to
the U.N. Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) was
supposed to set out a roadmap toward completing a global treaty
that would bind all countries to some kind of commitments to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions after 2020 at the Paris COP-21 in
2015. No commitments were made and no clear roadmap was adopted at
the Warsaw talks. Reason Science Correspondent Ronald
Bailey looks forward to achieving similar results when the U.N.
climate change conference convenes next year in Lima, Peru.

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/25/ronald-bailey-contemplates-the-inconclus
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Ron Paul Asks “Can Karzai Save Us?”

Submitted by Ron Paul via the Ron Paul Institute,

After a year of talks over the post-2014 US military presence in Afghanistan, the US administration announced last week that a new agreement had finally been reached. Under the deal worked out with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the US would keep thousands of troops on nine military bases for at least the next ten years.

It is clear that the Obama Administration badly wants this deal. Karzai, sensing this, even demanded that the US president send a personal letter promising that the US would respect the dignity of the Afghan people if it were allowed to remain in the country. It was strange to see the US president go to such lengths for a deal that would mean billions more US dollars to Karzai and his cronies, and a US military that would continue to prop up the regime in Kabul.
 
Just as the deal was announced by Secretary of State John Kerry and ready to sign, however, Karzai did an abrupt about-face. No signed deal until after the next presidential elections in the spring, he announced to a gathering of tribal elders, much to the further embarrassment and dismay of the US side. The US administration had demanded a signed deal by December. What may happen next is anybody’s guess. The US threatens to pull out completely if the deal is not signed by the end of this year.

Karzai should be wary of his actions. It may become unhealthy for him. The US has a bad reputation for not looking kindly on puppet dictators who demand independence from us.
 
Yet Karzai’s behavior may have the unintended benefit of saving the US government from its own worst interventionist instincts. The US desire to continue its military presence in Afghanistan – with up to 10,000 troops – is largely about keeping up the false impression that the Afghan war, the longest in US history, has not been a total, catastrophic failure. Maintaining a heavy US presence delays that realization, and with it the inevitable conclusion that so many lives have been lost and wasted in vain. It is a bitter pill that this president, who called Afghanistan “the good war,” would rather not have to swallow.
 
The administration has argued that US troops must remain in Afghanistan to continue the fight against al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda has virtually disappeared from Afghanistan. What remains is the Taliban and the various tribes that have been involved in a power struggle ever since the Soviets left almost a quarter of a century ago. In other words, twelve years later we are back to the starting point in Afghanistan.
 
Where has al-Qaeda gone if not in Afghanistan? They have branched out to other areas where opportunity has been provided by US intervention. Iraq had no al-Qaeda presence before the 2003 US invasion. Now al-Qaeda and its affiliates have turned Iraq into a bloodbath, where thousands are killed and wounded every month. The latest fertile ground for al-Qaeda and its allies is Syria, where they have found that US support, weapons, and intelligence is going to their side in the ongoing war to overthrow the Syrian government.
 
In fact, much of the US government’s desire for an ongoing military presence in Afghanistan has to do with keeping money flowing to the military industrial complex. Maintaining nine US military bases in Afghanistan and providing military aid and training to Afghan forces will consume billions of dollars over the next decade. The military contractors are all too willing to continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the productive sectors of the US economy.
 
Addressing Afghan tribal elders last week, Karzai is reported to have expressed disappointment with US assistance thus far: “I demand tanks from them, and they give us pickup trucks, which I can get myself from Japan… I don’t trust the U.S., and the U.S. doesn’t trust me.”  
 
Let us hope that Karzai sticks to his game with Washington. Let the Obama administration have no choice but to walk away from this twelve-year nightmare. Then we can finally just march out.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/N5hPgRI_QTM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Ron Paul Asks "Can Karzai Save Us?"

Submitted by Ron Paul via the Ron Paul Institute,

After a year of talks over the post-2014 US military presence in Afghanistan, the US administration announced last week that a new agreement had finally been reached. Under the deal worked out with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the US would keep thousands of troops on nine military bases for at least the next ten years.

It is clear that the Obama Administration badly wants this deal. Karzai, sensing this, even demanded that the US president send a personal letter promising that the US would respect the dignity of the Afghan people if it were allowed to remain in the country. It was strange to see the US president go to such lengths for a deal that would mean billions more US dollars to Karzai and his cronies, and a US military that would continue to prop up the regime in Kabul.
 
Just as the deal was announced by Secretary of State John Kerry and ready to sign, however, Karzai did an abrupt about-face. No signed deal until after the next presidential elections in the spring, he announced to a gathering of tribal elders, much to the further embarrassment and dismay of the US side. The US administration had demanded a signed deal by December. What may happen next is anybody’s guess. The US threatens to pull out completely if the deal is not signed by the end of this year.

Karzai should be wary of his actions. It may become unhealthy for him. The US has a bad reputation for not looking kindly on puppet dictators who demand independence from us.
 
Yet Karzai’s behavior may have the unintended benefit of saving the US government from its own worst interventionist instincts. The US desire to continue its military presence in Afghanistan – with up to 10,000 troops – is largely about keeping up the false impression that the Afghan war, the longest in US history, has not been a total, catastrophic failure. Maintaining a heavy US presence delays that realization, and with it the inevitable conclusion that so many lives have been lost and wasted in vain. It is a bitter pill that this president, who called Afghanistan “the good war,” would rather not have to swallow.
 
The administration has argued that US troops must remain in Afghanistan to continue the fight against al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda has virtually disappeared from Afghanistan. What remains is the Taliban and the various tribes that have been involved in a power struggle ever since the Soviets left almost a quarter of a century ago. In other words, twelve years later we are back to the starting point in Afghanistan.
 
Where has al-Qaeda gone if not in Afghanistan? They have branched out to other areas where opportunity has been provided by US intervention. Iraq had no al-Qaeda presence before the 2003 US invasion. Now al-Qaeda and its affiliates have turned Iraq into a bloodbath, where thousands are killed and wounded every month. The latest fertile ground for al-Qaeda and its allies is Syria, where they have found that US support, weapons, and intelligence is going to their side in the ongoing war to overthrow the Syrian government.
 
In fact, much of the US government’s desire for an ongoing military presence in Afghanistan has to do with keeping money flowing to the military industrial complex. Maintaining nine US military bases in Afghanistan and providing military aid and training to Afghan forces will consume billions of dollars over the next decade. The military contractors are all too willing to continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the productive sectors of the US economy.
 
Addressing Afghan tribal elders last week, Karzai is reported to have expressed disappointment with US assistance thus far: “I demand tanks from them, and they give us pickup trucks, which I can get myself from Japan… I don’t trust the U.S., and the U.S. doesn’t trust me.”  
 
Let us hope that Karzai sticks to his game with Washington. Let the Obama administration have no choice but to walk away from this twelve-year nightmare. Then we can finally just march out.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/N5hPgRI_QTM/story01.htm Tyler Durden