Iran and six major world powers reached a nuclear deal on Tuesday, capping more than a decade of on-off negotiations with an agreement that could potentially transform the Middle East, and which Israel called an “historic surrender”.
Under the deal, sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and United Nations would be lifted in return for Iran agreeing long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West has suspected was aimed at creating a nuclear bomb.
Reaching a deal is a major policy victory for both U.S. President Barack Obama and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist elected two years ago on a vow to reduce the diplomatic isolation of a country of 77 million people.
But both men face scepticism from powerful hardliners at home after decades of enmity between nations that referred to each other as “the Great Satan” and a member of the “axis of evil”.
“All the hard work has paid off and we sealed a deal. God bless our people,” one Iranian diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity ahead of the official announcement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal “a bad mistake of historic proportions.”
https://twitter.com/Lizzs_Lockeroom/status/620970195054665728
and the original
https://vine.co/v/hIntHMhlaVd
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/621019269250289664
some truth from DonnaDem over at TOD:
a word from donna dem
By Liberal Librarian
Re: Iran
Let me say that President Obama is the epitome of a transformational leader. He has brought this country along (kicking and screaming at times) into a whole new era. As I watched him speak this morning about the Iran deal I sat in awe of how truly great this man really is. His vision, passion and ability to see the big picture has transformed this country from the depths of despair under GW Bush to the height of optimism under his administration. His pathway forward isn’t always obvious especially to the pundit class in this country but because of his clear vision those of us that understand his leadership abilities never lose sight of the direction he’s leading us in.
He gets judged by small things like the process and deemed a failure simply because of some roadblocks along the way. Because he’s a visionary he sees challenges as an opportunity to find a better way forward. They don’t get this about this man and they never will. A frown is indeed a smile turned upside down. He accepts the valleys he has to go through along the way because he always keeps his eyes on the prize knowing that success is just over the next hill.
Nothing our President does will ever get the approval of today’s Republicans because to quote Joe Madison: “In America, we are culturally conditioned to believe, that White is superior, Black is inferior, and the manifestation of that cultural conditioning is that Black people are undervalued, underestimated and marginalized.”
He will always be the black man that took them by surprise and showed them up (not intentionally) with his brilliance, oratory and leadership. He will drop the mic when he leaves office in January 2017 and there is nothing they will be able to do to change the beautiful history that he will leave in his wake.
Have a great O’Day Everyone!
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/07/14/a-word-from-donna-dem-3/
Why The Iran Deal Is Important
by BooMan
Tue Jul 14th, 2015 at 12:02:24 PM EST
For a while there I was beginning to doubt that it would be possible to strike a deal with Iran that all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (plus Germany) could agree to, but somehow Secretary of State John Kerry got it done. He can begin preparing for his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech right now.
Yes, there will always be critics, but the president said it best this morning.
“Tough talk from Washington does not solve problems. Hard-nosed diplomacy, leadership that has united the world’s major powers offers a more effective way to verify that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.” – President Barack Obama, July 14th, 2015
Before you get bogged down in the debate about the details of the deal, make sure that you stop to appreciate the single most important accomplishment here. We live in a world with nuclear weapons, which is a big problem. We have to have a non-proliferation strategy that the international community can agree on and make every effort to enforce. What’s key here is that the world united to say that it’s very important that we don’t sit back and do nothing while new countries get nuclear weapons. In this sense, the accomplishment isn’t really specific to Iran. The most significant thing is that we can agree that non-proliferation is the goal and come together to prevent the spread of nuclear weaponry. If Paraguay decides tomorrow that it wants a nuclear weapons program, we have a credible system in place to deter them.
This is huge.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2015/7/14/12224/9077
I know the WSJ is fast, but the deal was just announced last night. They’ve had these articles researched and written., as per ordered by the Chamber of Commerce.
https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/620968024024182785
https://twitter.com/eclecticbrotha/status/620980670140125184
Not bad for a ‘lame duck’
07/14/15 10:25 AM
By Steve Benen
November 2014 sure does seem like a long time ago, but that’s when much of the Beltway media decided Barack Obama’s presidency was effectively over. Republicans had just completed a very successful election cycle and Obama, defeated, was supposed to be relegated to irrelevance.
After all, we’ve seen the script for “lame duck” presidents, and it tends to be … dull. Obama, down in the polls, couldn’t credibly expect to do anything meaningful in his remaining time in office – not after suffering an ugly electoral rebuke – and the establishment agreed that it was time for the president to accept that ascendant Republicans would start calling the shots.
So much for that idea.
I came across the transcript recently of the president’s year-end press conference from December and this line stood out for me:
“My presidency is entering the fourth quarter; interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter. And I’m looking forward to it.”
He apparently wasn’t kidding. Have you noticed just how busy the president has been since the 2014 elections ostensibly ended his time in office?
I started sketching out some of Obama’s successes from the last nine months, and it quickly dawned on me how long the list is. Obviously, the nuclear agreement with Iran is foremost on everyone’s mind today, but since November 2014, it’s not the only foreign policy accomplishment. Obama also reached a climate agreement with China – a breakthrough few thought possible – and overhauled U.S. relations with Cuba, reversing decades of failure.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/not-bad-lame-duck
https://twitter.com/ladyc10/status/620916524551901185
Jeb Bush flubs foreign policy with ‘appeasement’ talk
07/14/15 08:47 AM
By Steve Benen
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush talked yesterday with the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens about nuclear diplomacy with Iran, and the former governor liked his comments so much, his campaign began promoting them soon after.
In a 17-second video clip, the Florida Republican raised eyebrows with his use of a specific word.
“We need to have a deeper debate about this and the recognition that past is prologue. History is full of examples of, when you enable people – regimes – that don’t embrace democratic values, without any concessions, you get a bad result. It’s called appeasement.”
Note, Bush made the comments yesterday, before the diplomatic breakthrough was announced overnight, though there’s no reason to think the GOP candidate’s rhetoric would be any different today than it was yesterday.
There are two broad problems with rhetoric like this, especially from a presidential hopeful who’s struggled with foreign policy. The first is that Bush doesn’t seem to understand that the international agreement does, in reality, include Iranian concessions. Indeed, that was the whole point of the difficult talks that dragged on for months – if Iran didn’t have to make any concessions, Iranian officials would have said “yes” quite a while ago.
But as anyone with even a passing familiarity with this story knows, Iran had to accept precisely what it was reluctant to allow: “extraordinary and robust monitoring, verification, and inspection” of their facilities from international inspectors.
As for Jeb’s “appeasement” talk – does that count as a “big-syllable word”? – the Republican candidate isn’t doing himself any favors repeating cheap rhetoric.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/jeb-bush-flubs-foreign-policy-appeasement-talk
Obama, Kerry score a generational breakthrough
07/14/15 09:44 AM
By Steve Benen
As the political world, in the United States and abroad, begins to appreciate the scope of the international nuclear deal with Iran, policymakers will have a spirited debate over the implications and efficacy of the agreement. But before that begins in earnest, it’s worth pausing to acknowledge just what an extraordinary accomplishment this breakthrough really is.
In the abstract, this deal was practically impossible.
Take two countries that are bitter enemies and which haven’t even spoken in decades. Add heightened fears about terrorism and the most dangerous weapons ever created. Add four other major, disparate countries from around the planet, each with their own interests and agendas, and some of which struggle to get along.
The negotiators’ task involved elements of economics, nuclear science, diplomacy, national security, and geopolitics. Their goal was a product that checked a series of highly complex boxes, satisfying the competing needs of six different powers, all while opening a repressive regime to international weapons inspectors for the first time.
At the start of the process, the smart money said these talks would fail. The hurdles were simply too great. Indeed, plenty of very credible observers feared that the attempted diplomacy itself might be a mistake – failure would leave the world in an even more precarious position than before the talks began.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry recognized the challenges and risks, and they took it on anyway. Their success will likely put a stop to Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, but it also marks one of the most dramatic diplomatic accomplishments in generations.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-kerry-score-generational-breakthrough
https://twitter.com/Jehwauhn/status/620926313646456833
All We Are Saying ….Is Give Peace A Chance
Never forget
Iran is NOT Afghanistan. Iran is an actual country, with a very large educated population. Not only within the borders of Iran, but those in exile who would only been too happy to help their fellow countrymen. And, they have an excellent entrepreneur class.
Folks wanna begin making serious money in Iran.
Make no mistake…the Chamber of Commerce is very happy this morning.
That’s true, there’s lots of pent up demand there just waiting to become part of the global markets.
https://twitter.com/BahmanKalbasi/status/620923860691591168
https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/620922306899128320
more twitter truth
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/620946648017928192
https://twitter.com/MuftahOrg/status/620940966988521472
Wow. I’m kind of blown away that the cartoonist is emulating and/or paying homage to the raising of the US flag at Iwo Jima. Kind of awesome, really.
https://twitter.com/ThomasErdbrink/status/620912708053958656
twitter truth
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/620933428138102784
Yeah, the wing nuts were very attached to the Bush Administration’s “Axis of Evil.” They love being told who they should be hating on, it’s so difficult to figure that out if you’re basically an idiot, which most of them are.
Anyone think that the announcement will come within the next 6 months about POTUS visiting Iran?
I feel it, Rikyrah. It’s going to happen.
I surely hope so.
https://twitter.com/theonlyadult/status/620925239690661889
https://twitter.com/hassanrouhani/status/620916661747585024
https://twitter.com/jazzmen_k/status/620918197240336384/photo/1
LOL@Cornrow West!
https://twitter.com/havewhatusay/status/620918187262115840/photo/1
Mike Allen ✔ @mikeallen
AFP: Iran state TV airs Obama live, only 2nd time to take US president since 1979 revolution – other was Obama’s April 2 framework statement
https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/620917377593700352
https://twitter.com/KeshRue/status/620923662779174913
https://twitter.com/jawillie/status/620920924326481920
https://twitter.com/TheXclass/status/620939857917947904
I read something a few months ago that the RW was so crazy about this because, of course, they wanted war. And, they knew, only Barack Obama could go to war with Iran. Even though he told them in everyway possible that he didn’t want it, they kept pushing.
This agreement with Iran is huge.
HUGE.
Literally a reset in the Middle East.
Go, Mr. President.
GO!!!
And thank you. Thank you so much.
Where’s Bibi’s freakout?
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
18-day negotiation yields landmark Iran nuclear accord
VIENNA (AP) — After 18 days of intense and often fractious negotiation, world powers and Iran struck a landmark deal Tuesday to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions — an agreement designed to avert the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and another U.S. military intervention in the Muslim world.
The accord will keep Iran from producing enough material for an atomic weapon for at least 10 years and impose new provisions for inspections of Iranian facilities, including military sites. And it marks a dramatic break from decades of animosity between the United States and Iran, countries that alternatively call each other the “leading state sponsor of terrorism” and the “the Great Satan.”
The deal “is not built on trust, it is built on verification,” President Barack Obama declared from the White House, in a statement carried live on Iranian state TV. He said all potential pathways to an Iranian nuclear weapon have been cut off.
In Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said “a new chapter” has begun in his nation’s relations with the world.
The two leaders spoke moments after the formal announcement of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, whose completion comes after more than two weeks of furious diplomacy during which negotiators blew through three self-imposed deadlines. The top American and Iranian diplomats both threatened at points to walk away from the talks.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/18-day-negotiation-yields-landmark-iran-nuclear-accord/ar-AAcUja5?ocid=HPCDHP
https://twitter.com/tparsi/status/620850953407852544
https://twitter.com/ErshadAlijani/status/620912415559954433
I woke up to seeing my President talking about the deal with Iran. This President is fabulous. Terrific seeing him and Joey B this morning – LOVED IT!
Thank you, SG2, for this post. While , we were sleeping you’re getting it done!
TY. I’m still sleepy but I didn’t want to miss anything.
Obama: “I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal.”
**************
Right wing heads explode in 3-2-1…
Full text of #IranDeal:
http://bzfd.it/1Rw5Q9s
Get ready, folks! There will be epic meltdowns from the right come daylight. Is it too early for popcorn?
bwa ha ha ha ha ha
Good morning, everyone!
Peace Wins!