Experts: 6 reasons Congress should reject Iran nuclear deal

The regime in Iran is not a permanent fixture of the Middle East landscape; the false dichotomy of war and negotiation is useful rhetoric but it makes for bad policy, argue Prof. Ivan Sheehan and Emeritus Prof. Raymond Tanter.

"History suggests that cosmetic diplomacy with dishonest partners is a recipe for proliferation not peace," the professorswrote in TownHall.com on Wednesday.

"The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 requires robust congressional oversight of the agreement prior to implementation and affords legislators an unusual opportunity to critique the deal and raise issues that may undermine effective implementation," they wrote.

"The emerging bipartisan opposition to the porous deal centers on six primary concerns:

1. Nuclear Breakout: The preliminary nuclear agreement maintains and legitimizes Iran's nuclear infrastructure, with some caps for the next 10 to 15 years. But it allows the regime to build an industrialized nuclear program with few limitations in about a decade. Under the agreement the time to nuclear breakout is neither reduced nor is the goal of a nuclear weapons free Iran realized.
   
2. Managed Access: The agreement fails to provide unfettered – anytime, anywhere – access to suspect nuclear sites, including military installations. Managed access might work in declared sites but not in secret ones. In fact, two years of negotiations yielded not a single specific arrangement to inspect sites that have already been sought by the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA.
   
3. Research & Development: Neither is the regime prevented from research and development on advanced centrifuges. The managed nature of access that is granted undermines the very purpose of the inspections in the first place. This is like allowing professional athletes with a record of cheating to control the circumstances that govern their testing for controlled substances.
   
4. Sanctions Relief: The enormous infusion of currency that will arrive with the lifting of sanctions will boost Tehran’s support of terror proxies and embolden them to expand their violent arc of influence.
   
5. Weapons and Missiles: The existing agreement provides weapons and missile trade relief in five and eight years respectively, concessions that will consolidate the regime’s influence in the broader Middle East.
   
6. Past Activities: Finally, the regime has not been pressed to account for its past nuclear activities. Verification of future agreements becomes ever more challenging when no credible baseline for weaponization thresholds crossed exists."

The professors pointed out that policymakers concerned by these – and myriad other issues – can use the oversight period to direct questions at White House officials and insist on credible explanations. Questions that they said must be raised and addressed include:

• "In light of Tehran’s record of cheating, how will world powers account for the need to verify Iran’s continued compliance? And since incremental cheating to test the resolve of the powers is more likely than a full-scale race for the bomb, how will the major powers guard against such sneakout?
  
• Will Washington push back on Tehran’s activities in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the region?
  
• Because ballistic missiles are most relevant against populations rather than armies, how will the U.S. address Tehran’s ballistic missile capabilities once an agreement is in place and what will this mean for key U.S. allies?
  
• Because Iran has used scarce funds despite falling oil prices and sanctions, how will the White House prevent Tehran from diverting funds to regional proxies and terrorist groups after sanctions are lessened?
  
• Will U.S. officials speak out on behalf of Iranian dissidents – thousands of whom are detained in Iraq at Camp Liberty – and provide for their protection in light of the extraordinary intelligence they have provided on the nuclear front?
  
• When will the American diplomats finally condemn Tehran’s egregious human rights violations?"

They added that as the U.S. Congress digs into the agreement, they should keep in mind that:

• "The regime is not a permanent fixture of the Middle East landscape. The false dichotomy of war and negotiation is useful rhetoric but it makes for bad policy.
  
• History suggests that cosmetic diplomacy with dishonest partners is a recipe for proliferation not peace.
  
• Appeasement and concessions are not the ingredients for a sustainable peace. They only embolden authoritarian leaders and create a more hostile climate."

"Legislators must also not allow the White House to dictate the terms of the public deliberation on the nuclear issue by separating the nuclear accord from simultaneous discussions of the regime’s human rights record, sponsorship of global of terror, and the destabilizing influence Tehran continues to play regionally," they added.

Dr. Ivan Sascha Sheehan is director of the graduate programs in Negotiation and Conflict Management and Global Affairs and Human Security in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore.

Emeritus Prof. Raymond Tanter is a former Member of the White House National Security Council staff and Personal Representative of the Secretary of Defense to arms control talks in the Reagan-Bush administration.

Related news:

55-year-old mother of three to be executed in Iran

NCRI – An Iranian woman in her fifties is at imminent risk of execution in a prison in the city of Varamin, south-east of the Iranian capital Tehran.

The mullahs’ regime has transferred Batool Karimi, 55, to solitary confinement in the notorious Qarchak Prison for Women in preparation for her execution.

Ms. Karimi, a mother of three, has been imprisoned for the past four years.

She is accused of a drugs-related offence.

Qarchak Prison, also referred to as ‘Qarchak Death Camp’, was used by the regime in Iran as a place to brutally torture and rape those arrested during the 2009 anti-regime popular protests. The deaths of at least four young protesters under torture in Qarchak turned into a scandal for the Iranian regime.

Iran’s regime hanged two other women at the end of July.

One of the women, identified as Pari-Dokht Molai-Far, was hanged in the notorious Qezelhesar Prison on July 29. The mother of one had been imprisoned in the notorious Qarchak Prison for the past three years and was transferred to Qezelhesar to face execution.

Another woman was hanged in Kerman's Shahab Prison, southeast Iran, on July 30.

"Iran has reportedly executed more than 600 individuals so far this year. Last year, at least 753 people were executed in the country," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said on Wednesday.

Detect new case of "blind mule" ( Drugs across border )

By the method known as "blind mule" which involves placing magnets packet with narcotics and paste below vehicles, this morning reported Saturday when a neighbor reported that three suspects placed 5.4 kilos of "glass" under his car .

According to the report of the Municipal Public Security Secretariat (SSPM), at 03:15 hours it was reported a drug bust without detainee in private fractionation Oak Hot Water Gardens in La Mesa delegation.

West Bank: father of Palestinian boy killed in arson attack dies of injuries

Dog on Front Lines of Bolivia Protests Gets Thousands of Facebook Followers

LA PAZ – The mixed-breed dog that accompanied grassroots leaders in the southwestern Bolivian city of Potosi during the recent wave of protests has become a star on Facebook, with more than 19,700 people following him on the social network.

The mutt, known as Petardo (Firecracker), joined the protests during the march by Potosi Civic Committee, or Comcipo, leaders to La Paz in early July, the organization’s president, Jhonny Llally, told EFE by telephone on Saturday.

The pooch appeared for the first time as the protesters were reaching Caracollo, a town located 193 kilometers (about 120 miles) from La Paz, Llally said.

“From there, he walked with us, but he appeared and disappeared. When we reached the La Paz stretch, he was with us permanently on the march and did not leave us until the end (of the demonstration),” the Comcipo leader said.

Petardo got his name because, unlike other dogs, he did not run away when firecrackers and dynamite charges were set off, a daily occurrence during the Comcipo street protests in La Paz over the past month.

The pooch participated in all the marches and endured tear gas and streams of water from the hoses used by riot police to disperse the crowds.

Petardo’s image was captured on the front lines in videos and photographs of the protests shot by media outlets, and pictures of the dog were shared on social networks.

The Comcipo delegation returned to Potosi on Thursday after failing to reach an agreement with President Evo Morales’s administration on 26 demands they were making for the region. And Petardo went home with them.

Comcipo is demanding major public works projects for Potosi, including the construction of a hydroelectric power plant, hospitals, highways, glass and cement factories, and an international airport.

The Facebook page “Petardo: Potosino y Federalista,” created in late July, had 19,797 “likes” as of Saturday and numerous comments praising the mutt for his loyalty to Potosi’s cause.

Police Seize 6 Tons of Marijuana in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES – Six tons of marijuana hidden in a truck were seized and two suspects arrested in an operation over the weekend in Entre Rios, a province in central Argentina, a police spokesman told EFE on Monday.

More than 7,000 bricks of marijuana weighing a total of 6,084 kilos were confiscated, said the police chief of the city of Villaguay, Carlos Fabian Perez.

This was “the largest (seizure) ever made in an operation in the province,” Perez said.

The seizure was made on Saturday, when officers from the Entre Rios provincial police force spotted an overloaded truck from the northern province of Misiones.

The truck, which was headed to Buenos Aires, was carrying two Argentine men, ages 34 and 24.

Officers stopped the vehicle “because the cargo it was carrying exceeded what is allowed,” Perez said, adding that “police personnel noted that the driver was a bit nervous and ready to go.”

Officers called the “Villaguay police department for assistance” and “drug enforcement officers and a dog were sent, confirming the presence of the drugs in the truck,” the police chief said.

Investigators found that the truck, which had been reported stolen, had a false registration and its engine and body had been modified.

The suspects were taken to the city of Concepcion del Uruguay, where they were turned over to judicial officials.

Iran regime amputates hand, foot of 2nd prisoner this week

NCRI - For the second time this week, Iran's fundamentalist regime has amputated the hand and foot of a prisoner.

Authorities in a prison in Mashhad, northeast Iran, on Tuesday amputated the right hand and left foot of Mehdi R. as other prisoners were forced to watch.

The sentenced was carried out one day after another man, identified only as Rahman K., had his right hand and left foot severed by the authorities in the same prison, the state-run daily Shahr Ara wrote on Wednesday.

Both men were accused by the regime of committing a bank heist and were pronounced by the authorities to be “moharebeh,” or “waging war on God.”

According to the state-run daily Khorasan both men will continue to serve an extended prison sentence as well.

Also on Tuesday, at least seven prisoners were hanged in the Iranian cities of Yazd and Rafsanjan.

At least 64 prisoners, including two women, have been executed in Iran, in some cases in public squares, within a two week period.

On Saturday, the mullahs' inhuman regime sentenced a 27-year-old man only, identified by his first name Hamed, to be blinded.

Hamed had told the regime's court that in March 2011, when he was 23 years old, he unintentionally caused an eye injury to another young man in a street fight, according to the official state-run Iran newspaper.

On June 28 this year the fundamentalist regime amputated the fingers of two prisoners in Mashhad.

The Iranian regime's judiciary officials have publicly defended limb amputations, eye gouging, and even stoning to death as a very real part of their judicial law.

Mohammad-Javad Larijani, the head of the Iranian regime's 'Human Rights Council', said on April 10, 2014: “The problem is that the West does not understand that Qisas (law of retribution) is different from execution. We are not ashamed of stoning or any of the Islamic decrees.”

“No one has the right to tell a judge to avert some sentences because the United Nations gets upset. We should firmly and seriously defend the sentence of stoning.”

He has also said: "Retaliation and punishment are beautiful and necessary things. It’s a form of protection for the individual and civil rights of the people in a society. The executioner or the person administering the sentence is in fact very much a defender of human rights. One can say that there is humanity in the act of retaliation."

Since Hassan Rouhani took office as president of the clerical regime in 2013, more than 1,800 people have been executed and hundreds more have been subjected to degrading and inhumane punishments such as amputation, flogging in public and being paraded in streets.

A statement by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Wednesday said: "Iran has reportedly executed more than 600 individuals so far this year. Last year, at least 753 people were executed in the country."

In May 2015, a high ranking Iranian cleric, who is the representative of the regime’s Supreme Leader in Hormozgan province (southern Iran), called for more inhumane punishments of hand amputations to be carried out.

While visiting Mashhad, Ghulam-Ali Naeem Abadi said: “If the hands of a few of those who commit theft in society are cut off, they would serve as examples for others and security will be restored.”

“Security would be restored in society by amputating a few fingers; why then are such punishments not being fully implemented?” he asked.

Last December, the United Nations General Assembly slammed the flagrant violations of human rights by the Iranian regime. The resolution criticized the Iranian regime's use of inhuman punishments, including flogging and amputations. The UN’s 61st resolution on human rights abuses in Iran also censured the mullahs’ dictatorship for the rise in executions, public hangings and the execution of juveniles.

The Iranian regime unveiled a terrifying device in 2013 which is uses to chop off fingers. The device that looks like something devised for a grisly horror movie operates as a circular saw that guillotines prisoners’ fingers.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has repeatedly condemned the medieval punishments carried out by the clerical regime in Iran and has called for the referral of the regime's appalling human rights record to the UN Security Council.