Behind that Cheshire Cat grin one can detect, if listening closely, the sound of neocon godfather Bill Kristol gritting his teeth. The neocons pulled out all stops to scuttle any kind of Iran deal. They even called in a foreign leader in the person of kindred spirit Benjamin Netanyahu to repudiate President Obama’s efforts to negotiate with Iran instead of bomb Iran. A foreign leader on their own soil to repudiate their own government!
With today’s announcement of a Framework Agreement in the P5+1 talks with Iran, neocons are approaching nervous breakdown mode.
Kristol is still grinning, to be sure. But his first Tweet after the announcement that a framework agreement has been reached with Iran carries with it the slight whiff of concern. The mask of supreme confidence slips ever so slightly:
Every member of Congress should do his duty, and act to kill the proposed deal.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 2, 2015
So strong is Kristol’s wish that any deal that does not include the total capitulation of Iran be negated, he would risk what may well be the end of US global leadership (his most cherished thing) to explode the agreement before it is birthed. He would have the US shown to the world as a country that could not be trusted as a partner, whose negotiating team comes home with a deal only to have partial-birth aborted by Congress. That is dedication!
There may be a silver lining for non-interventionists in Kristol’s “nuclear option,” as this means the end of the empire as we know it.
Speaking of the nuclear option, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is so unnerved at the news of a framework agreement that he predicts lifting sanctions on Iran would “doom… the Middle East to yet another war.”
What will Congress be doing about the announcement? “We should be a reviewing presence to see how this unfolds,” Kirk said, adding: “Which we all know is going to end with a mushroom cloud somewhere near Tehran.”
Does he mean the US should or will use another nuclear weapon against a city full of non-combatants? Or that he hopes Israel will do such a thing? Unclear but also unhinged.
The Framework Agreement clearly calls for all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran to be terminated upon IAEA confirmation that Iran has lived up to its end of the bargain. Congress may well be able to prevent this from happening, in which case it will be the US and not Iran that is in violation of the agreement. There is no word of the consequences if the US violates its obligations under the agreement.
