Naïve Blunderer Feeling Sheepish

In the prelude to the 60-day congressional review of the Iranian nuclear deal, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told Secretary of State “Frenchie” Kerry on Thursday, “Not unlike a hotel guest that leaves only with a hotel bathrobe on his back, I believe that you've been fleeced.'  He also said that “Iran did a masterful job of giving you a talking point” on centrifuges used to refine fissile material for nuclear weapons.

A clearly riled up Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) further pummeled the naïve blunderer saying, “With all due respect, you guys have been bamboozled and the American people are going to pay.”

Kerry, smug asshole that he is, insisted that critics of the deal are pushing an unrealistic alternative that he dismissed as a “sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran's complete capitulation.”

Jonathan Tobin characterizes the “deal” in this manner:

“…allowing an Islamist theocratic tyranny that is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with hopes of achieving regional hegemony and pledged to the destruction of Israel to have a nuclear program is a threat. Giving its nuclear infrastructure western approval and a path to an eventual bomb is a danger to the entire region as well as the West. Handing it a massive cash bonus in the form of relaxed sanctions will enhance its ability to foment terrorism and spread violence through its auxiliaries and allies.” 

“Opponents of the deal rightly decry this embrace of Iran not just because the inspections are insufficiently rigorous, the nuclear provisions weak and will eventually expire giving the Islamist regime a clear path to a bomb. They also oppose it because despite their occasional attempts to pose as tough-minded in their approach to Iran, the basic premise of the deal is President Obama’s quest for the regime to ‘get right with the world.’”

[SKIP] 

“Iran won the lenient terms of the deal by being tough in the negotiations and convincing weak-willed interlocutors such as Obama and Kerry that they would never be moved by Western pressure or threats. Critics of the deal view it with disdain because they correctly perceive its premise to be the hope of an entente with Iran, not a treaty aimed at limiting its power. Seen from that perspective the details of the deal are not only unpersuasive, they are beside the point despite the effort of the Times and other pro-Obama media cheerleaders to depict the GOP as knee-jerk naysayers. That is why sensible Republicans and Democrats will reject Kerry’s arrogant lobbying efforts and vote a deal rooted in appeasement down.”

He Can’t Even Negotiate A Curve

Secretary of State Kerry, 71, had left Sunday morning open in case talks with the nuclear-weapons-hungry Iranians were extended. They weren’t and “Ketchup Boy” decided to dress up in his little Lycra® outfit and cycle a route that had been part of the Tour de France. 

He climbed upon his elitist bicycle that he brings with him as he globetrots the world.  According to Agence France-Presse, he was riding at a low speed at the start of a challenging climb up the Col de la Colombière and, just like that, he fall-down-go-boom.

He managed to sustain a broken femur on the same leg he had hip replacement surgery on in 2009.  It could take up to six months for him to heal.  Conspiratorially speaking, just enough time for the Iranians to get their nukes.  Wait, I just remembered…Marie Harf, State Department Valley Girl was recently promoted to Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications.  The negotiations will continue apace.

I would love to see anyone at the hospital try to stop @JohnKerry from negotiating and working while recovering from breaking his leg.

— Jen Psaki (@Psaki44) May 31, 2015

Streif at Red State saliently opined, “Like Kerry, Obama’s foreign policy hit a curb, the Middle East, while going at a very slow speed for no particular purpose; it got dumped on its ass, and is now on the way to the hospital.”

“Regardless of how one feels about the politics and performance of the unmanly, bloviating, seemingly inbred Secretary of State, people of good faith can probably agree to wish him a speedy recovery. Just as we can all hope Obama’s foreign policy is euthanized before it kills more people and does more harm.” 

Farsi Farce-y

John Podhoretz’s piece at Commentary Magazine entitled “The Tricks Obama Is Trying To Play With The Iran Announcement” maintains that Obama’s tone of triumph in his Rose Garden statement Thursday afternoon “was mixed with sharp reminders that the deal is actually not yet done—and that is entirely the point of this exercise from a domestic standpoint.  The triumph signals his troops and apologists that the time has come for them to stand with him, praise the deal sheet and pretend it’s a deal, declare it historic and generally act as though the world has been delivered from a dreadful confrontation by Obama and Kerry.”

While Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs was speaking from the dais in Lausanne, Switzerland the State Department issued a “fact sheet”.  Afterwards he tweeted this:

The solutions are good for all, as they stand. There is no need to spin using "fact sheets" so early on.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) April 2, 2015

There is no evidence of a meeting of the minds on the fundamental elements of a deal the “fact sheet” purported to describe. Two days before, Zarif rejected the White House version of the deal alleging it misleads the American public.  According to the Washington Free Beacon, “Just hours after the announcement of what the United States characterized as a historic agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, the country’s leading negotiator lashed out at the Obama administration for lying about the details of a tentative framework.”

Abe Greenwald enlightens us with these tidbits:

Iran would be allowed to continue operating 6,100 uranium-enriching centrifuges for ten years. Experts agree that’s enough to fuel one nuclear bomb per year. Before the Obama administration began talks with Iran, United Nations resolutions had prohibited Iran from enriching uranium, period.

Iran is permitted to keep its underground enrichment facility at Fordow. The administration claims it will be transformed into a “nuclear, physics, technology, research center” that won’t enrich uranium for 15 years. But as Barack Obama has previously said, “We know they [Iran] don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordow in order to have a peaceful program.” 

Any nuclear deal would not be indefinite, but time-limited. John Kerry assured the American people that a deal would not include “sunsets,” but that’s precisely what these 10-year and 15-year limits are. Extending a deal would require that the Iranians choose to extend it. 

All American and European nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will terminate at the start of a deal, not in response to Iranian compliance. If this is true, it is a dangerous American capitulation: What incentive would Iran have for keeping up its side of the bargain? If Zarif is lying, it goes to show just how far from a good-faith deal we are.The framework includes only the vaguest of language about Iran’s responsibility to detail the possible military dimensions (PMD) of its nuclear program to date. This is important because without a baseline understanding of Iran’s nuclear weaponization efforts, the United States cannot accurately confirm any progress on this front.

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer continues to demonstrate his naïveté and blindness to Tehran’s basic nature.  So desperate is he for a deal that he believes Supreme Leader Khamenei will amend his cry of “Death to America” to “Death to America for research purposes only.”

He reminds me of the model on The Price Is Right who accidentally gave away a car just hours before the Farsi Farce-y in the Rose Garden. 

Video: Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Lausanne Talks https://t.co/njqobOdx75 #IranTalks
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) April 1, 2015

BREAKING: PM Netanuahu demands that every final deal with Iran will include Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) April 3, 2015

This Is What Happens When You Get In The Way

At 3:09 PM today, CNN broke the news that the Justice Department is preparing to bring criminal corruption charges against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), alleging he used his Senate office to push the business interests of Miami-based ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, a Democratic donor and friend in exchange for gifts.

The FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department's public integrity section have pursued a variety of allegations against Menendez, who has called the probe part of "smear campaign" against him.

At a 7:45 PM presser, Menendez said "I have always conducted myself appropriately and in accordance with the law.  I am not going anywhere."

I have never liked Menendez.  I doubt I am alone in my expression of distrust of him but Menendez appears to be the victim of the shenanigans of a vindictive Administration.

Michael Warren of The Weekly Standard notes, “While the federal investigation has been ongoing, the timing of the charges is curious. Menendez has been one of the top Democratic critics in Congress of the Obama administration's negotiations and forthcoming deal with Iran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions. Earlier this year, the New Jersey Democrat said the White House's talking points on the Iran deal were "straight out of Tehran."

Last week, Menendez and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced legislation requiring President Obama to submit any nuclear agreement with Iran to Congress for a 60-day review. Back in January, Menendez also directly challenged The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer at a Democratic Senate retreat when he claimed he understood the pressure Senators were under from "donors".  Menendez rose and told him he took "personal offense" at his remarks.

This president plays for keeps and when a top Democratic Party member is critical of him you can expect ruination to be your fate.

Amazing timing, that DOJ nails Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., right after he becomes the loudest critic of Obama's Iran deal.
— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 6, 2015