I think the treaty with Iran was a typical example of Barack Obama being more concerned about his legacy than actually doing something beneficial. He is hardly unique but he has been better at being self serving than anyone in recent memory
The Shi'ite's have a long history of deception. Iran wants to be at a minimum a Mideastern power and at best a global power. I would look carefully at anything that Putin thinks is a good idea. Another sure fire indication is that Israel and Saudi Arabia both agree the treaty is bad. When was the last time you saw the Saudi's and Israeli's in agreement on much of anything?
Nuclear Physicist Earnest Moniz who has been involved in negotiation since at least 2013 has said that the the Iranians were 2 or 3 months out from having enough material for a bomb far less than the official line of the White House of several years
Iran get to continue enriching Uranium
As of February this year Iran had a 10,000 Kilograms of enriched uranium. That works out to a bit more 22,000 pounds. That's 11 tons. What they have doesn't appear to be and likely isn't weapons grade but it is a Hell of a lot of Uranium. According to the treaty all but about 300 kilograms is supposed to be exported to Russia for processing and then returned to Iran in the form of fuel pellets/rods for peaceful purposes. The treaty doesn't appear to provide any mechanism to verify shipments and shipment quantities. Having Russia and Iran working together isn't particularly comforting to me.
Iran currently has about 20,000 centrifuges running. Initially we were asking for a limit 500 to 1500 centrifuges. I was totally blow away when I found out they got to keep 6,104 centrifuges. The real cooker is that there is no apparent distinction being made between the older IR-1 centrifuges and the newer IR-8. Once the treaty goes into effect they can start using the IR-8 which are 20 times faster than the IR-1 so instead of curtailing enrichment it could increase by a factor of 5 or 6. They are supposed to be using IR-1 but they were caught with some IR-5's but I haven't been able to find out how many so it is hard to determine how much enrichment will increase.
The enrichment facility at Fordow was allowed to continue unabated. The treaty allows them to keep roughly 1,000 centrifuges there. If they are using IR-8 centrifuges their enrichment capacity on that site alone would be equal or nearly so to their total enrichment program before the treaty. For those not familiar the Fordow facility is built into a mountain. It would be impervious to conventional bombing, it would likely take a ground burst nuke to take out the facility. They have promised it will be used for peaceful purposes. If there intentions are peaceful why bury a facility in a mountain? The area is geologically unstable and is very prone to earthquakes. According to USGS there have been 43 measurable quakes in Iran in the last 7 days
The 40 megawatt heavy water reactor at Arak is continuing operation. A peaceful nuclear program doesn't need a heavy water reactor. Heavy water reactors are great for making Plutonium a better bomb material than Uranium. Plus there reactor contains about a 100 tons of heavy water
The U.S. dropped the demand that they not develop ICBM's
Most of the terms of what little control there is sunset in 10 to 15 years
We have to give them 24 days notice to do an inspection. That is laughable it it weren't so dangerous.
I can see why President Obama wanted to get this travesty on the floor of the UN before Congress got a good look at it. It will be interesting to see how many jump ship
The Shi'ite's have a long history of deception. Iran wants to be at a minimum a Mideastern power and at best a global power. I would look carefully at anything that Putin thinks is a good idea. Another sure fire indication is that Israel and Saudi Arabia both agree the treaty is bad. When was the last time you saw the Saudi's and Israeli's in agreement on much of anything?
Nuclear Physicist Earnest Moniz who has been involved in negotiation since at least 2013 has said that the the Iranians were 2 or 3 months out from having enough material for a bomb far less than the official line of the White House of several years
Iran get to continue enriching Uranium
As of February this year Iran had a 10,000 Kilograms of enriched uranium. That works out to a bit more 22,000 pounds. That's 11 tons. What they have doesn't appear to be and likely isn't weapons grade but it is a Hell of a lot of Uranium. According to the treaty all but about 300 kilograms is supposed to be exported to Russia for processing and then returned to Iran in the form of fuel pellets/rods for peaceful purposes. The treaty doesn't appear to provide any mechanism to verify shipments and shipment quantities. Having Russia and Iran working together isn't particularly comforting to me.
Iran currently has about 20,000 centrifuges running. Initially we were asking for a limit 500 to 1500 centrifuges. I was totally blow away when I found out they got to keep 6,104 centrifuges. The real cooker is that there is no apparent distinction being made between the older IR-1 centrifuges and the newer IR-8. Once the treaty goes into effect they can start using the IR-8 which are 20 times faster than the IR-1 so instead of curtailing enrichment it could increase by a factor of 5 or 6. They are supposed to be using IR-1 but they were caught with some IR-5's but I haven't been able to find out how many so it is hard to determine how much enrichment will increase.
The enrichment facility at Fordow was allowed to continue unabated. The treaty allows them to keep roughly 1,000 centrifuges there. If they are using IR-8 centrifuges their enrichment capacity on that site alone would be equal or nearly so to their total enrichment program before the treaty. For those not familiar the Fordow facility is built into a mountain. It would be impervious to conventional bombing, it would likely take a ground burst nuke to take out the facility. They have promised it will be used for peaceful purposes. If there intentions are peaceful why bury a facility in a mountain? The area is geologically unstable and is very prone to earthquakes. According to USGS there have been 43 measurable quakes in Iran in the last 7 days
The 40 megawatt heavy water reactor at Arak is continuing operation. A peaceful nuclear program doesn't need a heavy water reactor. Heavy water reactors are great for making Plutonium a better bomb material than Uranium. Plus there reactor contains about a 100 tons of heavy water
The U.S. dropped the demand that they not develop ICBM's
Most of the terms of what little control there is sunset in 10 to 15 years
We have to give them 24 days notice to do an inspection. That is laughable it it weren't so dangerous.
I can see why President Obama wanted to get this travesty on the floor of the UN before Congress got a good look at it. It will be interesting to see how many jump ship
