I can’t help but wonder whether Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s foreign policy assistant (whose qualifications for the post was his ability for writing fiction) who was tasked with getting the public to support the JCPOA, knew about the IEI. After all, he did brag later of having created an “echo chamber” to fake the existence of a broad c…
I can’t help but wonder whether Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s foreign policy assistant (whose qualifications for the post was his ability for writing fiction) who was tasked with getting the public to support the JCPOA, knew about the IEI. After all, he did brag later of having created an “echo chamber” to fake the existence of a broad consensus.
The possibility of parallel but independent tracks cannot be foreclosed, but given the cross-over of personnel with Malley and both sides desire to push an agreement that seemed to undermine fundamental US interests (and should have been a treaty but lacked the required Senate support), some level of coordination suggests itself.
To this day, President Obama has never given a particularly compelling or coherent justification for his decision to embolden Iran, of which the JCPOA was only part of his larger strategy (a word I use loosely as that strategy remains opaque, at least to me).
Put slightly differently, the detailed critique given by Prime Minister Netanyahu in his speech to Congress remains unanswered. For starters, the “echo chamber” never explained how Iran could be forever barred from developing nuclear weapons by an agreement full of sunset clauses. Similarly left unexplained was how an inspection regime that exempted all Iranian military sites and providing a 24 day notice to all others, could legitimately be characterized as the most robust ever.
That Prime Minister Netanyahu was instead personally attacked for “insulting” the President by accepting Congress’ invitation to address Congress directly on the matter should have told everyone all they needed to know about the JCPOA’s merits.
And the concessions we made to Iran continue to reverberate. For instance, having agreed to allow Iran to enrich and have its own nuclear industry, it’s hard for the US to make the case to our ally Saudi Arabia that it won’t be allowed the same capabilities.
On the bright side, the JCPOA seems to have been an essential spur to the Abraham Accords and caused a significant change in the Kingdom’s public relationship with Israel.
Should all these ongoing tectonic shifts in the Israeli-Arab conflict somehow translate to Arab recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and lead to an economic renaissance in a now stabilized region, look to President Obama to attempt a victory lap and claim that was the real goal of his JCPOA all along. Don’t believe him.
"For starters, the “echo chamber” never explained how Iran could be forever barred from developing nuclear weapons by an agreement full of sunset clauses. "
I suggest that, much like foundation of body politic, it is explained by obfuscation(s) through [ab]use of the vernacular. Simply: lots of dense smoke/hot air!
I can’t help but wonder whether Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s foreign policy assistant (whose qualifications for the post was his ability for writing fiction) who was tasked with getting the public to support the JCPOA, knew about the IEI. After all, he did brag later of having created an “echo chamber” to fake the existence of a broad consensus.
The possibility of parallel but independent tracks cannot be foreclosed, but given the cross-over of personnel with Malley and both sides desire to push an agreement that seemed to undermine fundamental US interests (and should have been a treaty but lacked the required Senate support), some level of coordination suggests itself.
To this day, President Obama has never given a particularly compelling or coherent justification for his decision to embolden Iran, of which the JCPOA was only part of his larger strategy (a word I use loosely as that strategy remains opaque, at least to me).
Put slightly differently, the detailed critique given by Prime Minister Netanyahu in his speech to Congress remains unanswered. For starters, the “echo chamber” never explained how Iran could be forever barred from developing nuclear weapons by an agreement full of sunset clauses. Similarly left unexplained was how an inspection regime that exempted all Iranian military sites and providing a 24 day notice to all others, could legitimately be characterized as the most robust ever.
That Prime Minister Netanyahu was instead personally attacked for “insulting” the President by accepting Congress’ invitation to address Congress directly on the matter should have told everyone all they needed to know about the JCPOA’s merits.
And the concessions we made to Iran continue to reverberate. For instance, having agreed to allow Iran to enrich and have its own nuclear industry, it’s hard for the US to make the case to our ally Saudi Arabia that it won’t be allowed the same capabilities.
On the bright side, the JCPOA seems to have been an essential spur to the Abraham Accords and caused a significant change in the Kingdom’s public relationship with Israel.
Should all these ongoing tectonic shifts in the Israeli-Arab conflict somehow translate to Arab recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and lead to an economic renaissance in a now stabilized region, look to President Obama to attempt a victory lap and claim that was the real goal of his JCPOA all along. Don’t believe him.
"For starters, the “echo chamber” never explained how Iran could be forever barred from developing nuclear weapons by an agreement full of sunset clauses. "
I suggest that, much like foundation of body politic, it is explained by obfuscation(s) through [ab]use of the vernacular. Simply: lots of dense smoke/hot air!
As an aside Netanyahu in his recent speech to the UN called to "tear down the walls of emnity".