Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) continue to pull out all stops in attempt to scuttle the six-month interim agreement between the P5+1 and Iran. The agreement is meant to provide some space for negotiations to continue between the two sides while allowing for some confidence to be built in place of a decades-long hostile relationship.
The six month water-testing agreement is not meant as a permanent agreement nor is it a legally-binding Chapter VII UNSC resolution.
Nevertheless, the neocons, led by Messrs McCain and Graham, are determined to plant as many IEDs along the road to diplomatic resolution as possible.
Today McCain and Graham issued another joint release, this time raising the red flag over a rumor they heard that the agreement included some implementation language to which they had not yet been privy.
What has the Senators so concerned? Rumors that for the next six months:
Iran will be permitted to keep all of its nuclear facilities open, continue its enrichment of uranium, and maintain and even expand its nuclear research, including into next-generation centrifuges.
Even if this “nonpaper” has been included as part of the six-month deal, it is hardly the revelation that the Senators would have us to believe. All of these activities are already permitted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory.
Yes, Iran is already allowed to engage in these activities according to existing international treaty to which the US is also a party, meaning the US recognizes this existing right.
But the Senators are trying to make something of nothing to push their pet project: passage of Sens. Menendez and Kirk’s green light to war legislation, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act.
They conclude their hyperactive press release by pushing their real agenda:
these reports only add greater urgency to the calls from an increasing number of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to pass new bipartisan sanctions legislation as soon as possible.
As Patrick Buchanan points out today:
When the interim agreement was reached, it was denounced by neocons as “worse than Munich.” Now the War Party piously contends this Senate bill is simply an “insurance policy” to ensure that the terms of the deal are met and a final deal reached.
It is nothing of the sort. This bill is a project of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby, designed to sabotage and scuttle the Geneva talks by telling Tehran: Either capitulate and dismantle all your enrichment facilities, or face more severe sanctions which will put us on the road to war.
What terrifies AIPAC and Bibi is not an American war on Iran, but an American rapprochement with Iran.
Who are the leaders of the push for S.1881? Sens. Mark Kirk and Robert Menendez, the biggest recipients of AIPAC campaign cash.
Expect more hysterics from McCain, Graham, Menendez, and the rest of the neocons. For a handy guide to which of them is likely to scream the loudest, please consult Professor Michael Rozeff’s list here.
