Yes, in the case of suspected sites not on the primary inspection system it will require a request by the international inspectors. And if the Iranian authorities say no, it will go to a resolution panel where the majority of the members will represent the United States and the other Western signatories to the agreement. But the key thing is all of this must happen within 24 days.
Can anyone in their right mind really believe that Iran could build an illicit facility with tens of thousands of unauthorized centrifuges and all the rest of the bomb cycle equipment that would be required to stage a “breakout” and that this could escape discovery by U.S. intelligence satellites?
And then, if found out, be dismantled and have every trace removed within 24 days?
A GIANT TISSUE OF LIES IS NOW EXPOSED
Here’s the thing. The fulminations of Senators McCain, Graham and the rest of the GOP War Party, along with the hysterical bellowing of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his legions of lobbyists on the Potomac, have nothing to do with the actual nation of Iran and the actual leaders who signed the agreement.
The War Party is attacking a giant fiction and tissue of lies of its own making—an untruthful narrative that is grounded in pure politics, not the security interests of the citizens of either America or Israel.
Indeed, the three-decade-long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose. Namely, it has enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military mobilization.
As we described earlier with respect to the Washington branch, when the Cold War officially ended in 1991, the Cheney crowd in the George H. W. Bush White House feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the U.S. military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high Cold War levels.
Yet, as we also saw in Chapter 20, the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to come out of the Beltway.
The story is the same for the Israeli branch of the War Party, as we have also seen.
In lieu of a two-state solution in the territory of Palestine, Israeli policy has aimed to produce a chronic state of war with Hezbollah and its Iranian ally.
And that goes to the heart of Netanyahu’s Big Lie. His relentless claim that Iran is out to annihilate Israel and by implication liquidate its Jewish population is a preposterous distortion and exaggeration of Iran’s policy, as articulated by its supreme leader himself.
The real issue is the Palestinian question and the gross injustices that the Palestinian diaspora outside of Israel’s current borders, and the occupied populations pinned inside the massive settler communities of the West Bank, has suffered for decades.
But even then, Iran does not propose to seek redress for the Palestinians by dropping nuclear bombs on Israel or sending in its own feeble military or even hordes of hired terrorists.
No, the Ayatollah Khamenei has proposed to vote the present sectarian state of Israel out of existence by referendum, not A-bombs!
In one of his most recent pronouncements on the topic in March 2012, in fact, he said the following during a Friday prayer sermon calling for a multi-religious secular state in Palestine:
Holding a referendum in Palestine among the Palestinians, and all those that became refugees—if, of course, they want to return to Palestine—is a rational solution [to the problem]. Those [Palestinians], who live in Lebanon, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and elsewhere, can return home. I am not advocating forcible return of anybody. Then, [Palestinians should] hold a referendum among these who were living there before 1948, when the illegitimate state of Israel was formed, whether Muslim, or Jew or Christian, which will then decide the type of government that must be formed there.
This is democracy. Why is democracy good for others, but not for the Palestinians? Why it is that all the people of the world can decide their own fate, but not the Palestinians? There is no doubt that the present regime [Israel] took over through deception, trickery, and force. Thus, the people there have an imposed regime.
Fine! Let the people of Palestine hold a referendum to choose the type of the government that they want for themselves. That regime and that government should form and then decide what to do with the people who moved there after 1948. Whatever decision it made, that would also be the fruit of people’s vote, as well as democracy, respect for human rights, and in line with the world’s present rationale. This is a good solution that must be implemented.
Needless to say, the wizened old man who rules Iran for the time being has no right or authority to call for a referendum among peoples outside his own borders. But that he preaches the doctrine of a secular-state solution that was accepted by much of the civilized world as a plausible answer to the Palestinian question only 40 years ago is surely not evidence that Iran is led by fiendish men who plan another Holocaust.
So what is at stake in the nuclear agreement is of truly epochal importance. The Iranians have signed the agreement in good faith and have locked up any potential for development of a nuclear weapon that they do not want, and have thrown away the key.
Look at the jubilation on the streets of Iran that came after the announcement. It was owing to the prospect that the West’s brutal sanctions will be lifted, and that their country now has a pathway back into the community of nations.
Once prosperity and self-respect return to the ancient land of Persia—not this ayatollah nor any other will ever be in a position to do anything more harmful to Israel than what is embodied in the quoted paragraph above. That is, preach vainly about a history that might have been.
In the interim, Israel ought to thank its lucky stars that two flawed but inspired politicians—Barack Obama of the United States and Hassan Rouhani of Iran—found it possible to transcend 30 years of lies and enmities on both sides in order to give peace a chance.
More importantly, as Iran comes back into the community of nations and re-enters global commerce it will give the citizens of Israel an opportunity to see that they have been betrayed and jeopardized by the terrible lies, bullying, megalomania and insuperable will to power of Bibi Netanyahu.
The path to a better, safer future for Israel’s citizens does not lie in the repeal of this agreement on the floor of the U.S. Congress during the next administration, whether it is led by Hillary or The Donald.
A better future lies, instead, in a resounding repudiation of the Netanyahu government the very next time the Israeli voters have the chance to go to the polls.
Trumped! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin... And How to Bring It Back Page 46
