Netanyahu Spoke Before Congress Today

Craig B said:
Yes you're right. But Daedalus was involved in the same myth, so it's maybe like saying Mordecai instead of Esther. That's no big deal, but I think the rabbis would still take a dim view of it. Rending garments, ashes on head, etc.
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:D
 
sunmaster14 said:
Not much new in the speech. Obama's on the verge of negotiating a bad deal, which is undoubtedly true. It was weird that Obama grasped at the first offer by Iran to talk, just as the economic sanctions were starting to bite (and they were biting). And now, with the price of oil having plummeted by 50% since the start of talks, the deal seems to have gotten even worse for us. Obama is either the worst negotiator on the face of the planet, or he secretly sees some sort of benefit for Iran to become a regional hegemon.

The reaction to the very fact of the speech is what is fascinating. Obama is behaving like a spoiled brat, and he is forcing other Democrats to do likewise. I can certainly understand Obama's annoyance, but the rather immature ad hominem attacks on Netanyahu and the threats of retaliation seem beneath his office. It must really burn his ass that Netanyahu received a thunderous, rapturous reception that Obama has never come close to getting at a State of the Union address, even from his fellow Democrats.
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What you people don't get is that any deal negotiated must allow Iran to have their civilian nuclear program otherwise there will be no deal and Iran will just do it anyway. Iran will not change their mind about this because the Non-Proliferation Treaty gives them the sovereign right to have one.

With a deal in place, there will be extensive monitoring of Iran's nuclear program to ensure it isn't being used to build weapons. If Iran managed to build weapons anyway, that would be a first. There have been no countries who have built nuclear weapons while under this type on monitoring.

It isn't just Obama negotiating this deal but also Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany and they all recognize this reality. Again, the people living in denial of reality are Republicans.

Bibi has zero credibility. He's been saying the same crap about Iran for decades and told Congress that there was "no doubt whatsoever" that Saddam was developing nuclear weapons. Obama, and anybody else who is sane should just ignore him.
 
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"By far the longest fellatio a Jewish man has ever received"-- Jon Stewart

ponderingturtle said:
Well I guess we can stop hearing about all this talk of how we need to fight ISIS and instead hear from right wing outlets how we need to invade Iran?
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No, no... fight both.... he said it in the speech..."the enemy of your enemy is your enemy" and received an extra long standing ovation fellatio for it.


I am going to sorely miss the only sane men in American politics... Jon Stewart and his writing staff.

Watch last night's (March 3rd) The Daily Show episode for the best commentary on the whole event.... notice minutes 4:20 to 10:15.


Also Larry Wilmore did a good job on the subject too in the new The Nightly Show.... he is starting to do better.
 
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Tony Stark said:
What you people don't get is that any deal negotiated must allow Iran to have their civilian nuclear program otherwise there will be no deal and Iran will just do it anyway. Iran will not change their mind about this because the Non-Proliferation Treaty gives them the sovereign right to have one.
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You can have a robust civilian nuclear program without having enrichment technology. Low-enriched uranium (3%-5%), which is all that is needed for a conventional reactor, is practically a commodity that is produced for export by several countries (Russia and France have the biggest market share) . It makes no economic sense to build out a massive enrichment infrastructure, with literally tens of thousands of expensive and power-hogging centrifuges, unless you want to become an exporter yourself or you want to make weapons grade enriched uranium.

Iran clearly wants the capacity to make nuclear weapons, although they may not feel any need to actually make them in the near future. All governments do cost-benefit analyses, and update them continuously. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to alter Iran's cost-benefit calculation so that they'll give up their enrichment capability. Hardship from economic sanctions can be pretty severe. In addition, it can lead to regime change.

It isn't just Obama negotiating this deal but also Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany and they all recognize this reality. Again, the people living in denial of reality are Republicans.
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Effective economic sanctions were already in place. It was Obama who made the decision to grasp at Iran's straws when in fact it was Iran which should have been grasping at straws. Obama is either a moron, or he sincerely likes the cut of Iran's jib. As for the other countries, they're probably far more willing to live with a nuclear Iran than we are. Iran doesn't call them the Great Satan after all.

Bibi has zero credibility. He's been saying the same crap about Iran for decades and told Congress that there was "no doubt whatsoever" that Saddam was developing nuclear weapons. Obama, and anybody else who is sane should just ignore him.
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If it wasn't for Israel working actively to attack Iran's nuclear program, both physically and politically, Iran might have had a nuclear capability according to Netanyahu's original timeline. I don't really think that because Israel and the US have had some success impeding Iran's nuclear ambitions in various ways that it means that projections made 20 years ago were wrong. Such projections are always based on the assumption of the world doing nothing, which has, fortunately, not come to pass.

As for Netanyahu's Iraq comments, he made them as a private citizen, who was completely out of government at the time. His knowledge was based on the determinations of various intelligence agencies, and most knowledgeable people believed exactly the same thing. Furthermore, it is almost certainly true that Saddam planned to restart his nuclear programs after the economic sanctions ended, and the economic sanctions regime was crumbling. The Iraq War actually had quite a beneficial impact on nuclear non-proliferation. It ended the potential threat from Iraq, avoided what could have been a massive arms race between Iraq and Iran (which might have drawn in other nations in the region), and led to the roll-up of the A Q Khan nuclear technology smuggling network (of which centrifuges were a big part).
 
sunmaster14 said:
You can have a robust civilian nuclear program without having enrichment technology. Low-enriched uranium (3%-5%), which is all that is needed for a conventional reactor, is practically a commodity that is produced for export by several countries (Russia and France have the biggest market share) . It makes no economic sense to build out a massive enrichment infrastructure, with literally tens of thousands of expensive and power-hogging centrifuges, unless you want to become an exporter yourself or you want to make weapons grade enriched uranium.
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Iran has tried to buy enriched uranium from France!

Iran clearly wants the capacity to make nuclear weapons, although they may not feel any need to actually make them in the near future. All governments do cost-benefit analyses, and update them continuously. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to alter Iran's cost-benefit calculation so that they'll give up their enrichment capability. Hardship from economic sanctions can be pretty severe. In addition, it can lead to regime change.
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Because they won't give up up their enrichment capacity sanctions or no sanctions as the past few decades prove. The best that can be done is monitoring them which worldwide has proven 100% effective.

Effective economic sanctions were already in place. It was Obama who made the decision to grasp at Iran's straws when in fact it was Iran which should have been grasping at straws. Obama is either a moron, or he sincerely likes the cut of Iran's jib. As for the other countries, they're probably far more willing to live with a nuclear Iran than we are. Iran doesn't call them the Great Satan after all.
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Or he lives in reality, unlike Republicans, and understands that Iran is not going to give up its rights just because he tells them to. Sanctions got Iran to the table but guaranteed they would walk if the demand was that they give up their rights.

If it wasn't for Israel working actively to attack Iran's nuclear program, both physically and politically, Iran might have had a nuclear capability according to Netanyahu's original timeline. I don't really think that because Israel and the US have had some success impeding Iran's nuclear ambitions in various ways that it means that projections made 20 years ago were wrong. Such projections are always based on the assumption of the world doing nothing, which has, fortunately, not come to pass.
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Please. They could have built the bomb by now if they wanted to.

But we're supposed to listen to Bibi now after him being wrong for 20 years. Nope, he can go screw himself.

As for Netanyahu's Iraq comments, he made them as a private citizen, who was completely out of government at the time. His knowledge was based on the determinations of various intelligence agencies, and most knowledgeable people believed exactly the same thing. Furthermore, it is almost certainly true that Saddam planned to restart his nuclear programs after the economic sanctions ended, and the economic sanctions regime was crumbling. The Iraq War actually had quite a beneficial impact on nuclear non-proliferation. It ended the potential threat from Iraq, avoided what could have been a massive arms race between Iraq and Iran (which might have drawn in other nations in the region), and led to the roll-up of the A Q Khan nuclear technology smuggling network (of which centrifuges were a big part).
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What intelligence agencies said there was no doubt that Saddam had a nuclear weapons program? I know the CIA cooked up some lies at the behest of Dick Cheney but anything else?
 
I would actually like to see the deal before making up my mind on it.

Yeah, BIBI will be satisfied with nothing less then pretty much destroying the current Iranian regime. Although no one would be happier then me to see the Islamic Republic of Iran go into the garbage heap of history, it's not going to happen anytime soon,and for the US to attempt to do it a la Iraq would be a total disaster.
On the other hand, I don't want to see Obama make a deal just for the sake of making a deal. Which is why I want the details before making up my mind. Unlike others in thei thread, who seem to have made up their minds..on both sides, without seeing the deal.
 
sunmaster14 said:
You can have a robust civilian nuclear program without having enrichment technology. Low-enriched uranium (3%-5%), which is all that is needed for a conventional reactor, is practically a commodity that is produced for export by several countries (Russia and France have the biggest market share) . It makes no economic sense to build out a massive enrichment infrastructure, with literally tens of thousands of expensive and power-hogging centrifuges, unless you want to become an exporter yourself or you want to make weapons grade enriched uranium.
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Yea no nation in the world cares about energy independence and possible restrictions and embargoes of there key resources.
 
The other bad thing is that Bibi has just given the Anti Semites in the US a huge club to use in their rants against Israel.
 
One concern I do have is that this deal needs to address things other then Iran's nuclear program if it going to accoplish anything. It needs to address Iran's support of terrorist groups in particular.

And I would like to see Iran make some demonstartion of good will. I would love to see them try to normalize relatations with Israel, for instance.
 
Crossbow said:
There are some good articles about the Netanyahu speech in Slate Magazine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ress_the_israeli_prime_minister_wants_an.html

Netanyahu’s Deadly Gambit

…

The Israeli prime minister pretended to criticize the specific deal that the United States and five other nations are currently negotiating with Iran, but it’s clear from his words that he opposes any deal that falls short of Iran’s total disarmament and regime change. He pretended merely to push for a “better deal,” but he actually was agitating for war.

…

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...a_a_big_favor_the_israeli_prime_minister.html

Netanyahu Just Did Obama a Big Favor

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Netanyahu had the chance Tuesday to offer a better plan, with the whole world watching. He failed miserably, and in so doing demonstrated conclusively that there isn’t one. To the extent that this buttresses the Obama administration’s case for a deal—and it certainly should—the American people should be grateful to him.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...te_he_intended_to_offend_president_obama.html

The Gross Hypocrisy of Benjamin Netanyahu

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So let’s be clear: Netanyahu has come here to defy Obama. He has done so because confrontation is in his nature. And he’s politicizing it. You can dismiss all his protestations that the speech shouldn’t be taken as an assault on the authority of our head of state. Because that’s exactly how Netanyahu treats criticism of his own policies back home.

…
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Yeah, Slate is such a wonderful source for objective analysis.....I don't like Bibi much more then they do, but quoting a website with a very obvious bias is not exactly the best way to make your case.
 
dudalb said:
I would actually like to see the deal before making up my mind on it.

Yeah, BIBI will be satisfied with nothing less then pretty much destroying the current Iranian regime. Although no one would be happier then me to see the Islamic Republic of Iran go into the garbage heap of history, it's not going to happen anytime soon,and for the US to attempt to do it a la Iraq would be a total disaster.
On the other hand, I don't want to see Obama make a deal just for the sake of making a deal. Which is why I want the details before making up my mind. Unlike others in thei thread, who seem to have made up their minds..on both sides, without seeing the deal.
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I agree. I'd like to know more about this deal before forming any real opinion of the whole matter. One thing I'll say for Netanyahu is that at least he makes his position clear.
 
I was following the run-up to the speech for some weeks in the Times of Israel. Consensus is that the visit is mainly for electoral purposes, and the timing so close to elections is criticized as gross posturing, aided by the willing chorus in the Republican Party, who can be counted on for this type of empty, worthless showmanship.

The split on the ToI is between those who realize it's bomb Iran every two years or make a deal, and those who hold out for a perfect world (Netanyahu 'beliebers"), just like here.

If there is any consolation to a nuclear Iran, it is the ensuing complete reliance of Sunni states in the region on US and Israeli dissuasive military power. This gives leverage to stop or slow whatever Islamic-inspired nightmare policy it is they are practicing at a given moment. That is, until they, too, decide to build nukes.

Those criticizing the US administration on this one have entirely forgotten that the US has absolutely no monopoly on any of the things Iran needs to build nuclear weapons, but does have strategic interest in keeping what goes on as visible and transparent as possible.

Leaving the table in a huff is fun, and Reps like to behave in that 'manly' table-slamming way, but that accomplishes nothing, like any other childish tantrum.

Meanwhile, it's not the nukes, it's the crazy nutjob ideology of Islam that is the threat.
 
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Seems like it's a tough choice.

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