Someone has to pinch me. The statements coming out of the US
are beyond belief. They would be funny if this were not for real. What happened
to the checks and balances of the American political system? I feel I’m reading MAD magazine, not to be
confused with this blog:)
As if they have not been doing precisely that all along! What
a warped logic! Is anyone in the US still awake? They all still think it is Israel’s
problem and could not care less.
Despite
that, he stressed that there is no distance between Israel and the United
States.
How can Kerry come up with this kind of Orwellian WAR IS PEACE,
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH statement and not be asked to
resign?
How can
a politician in the West so explicitly lie? I once used to think only in
communist countries could they do that since nobody challenged them. But now I
see that many in the US are so ignorant that they cannot tell the difference or
they do but just could not care less.
After Kerry Briefing, Senators Slam White House Over “Chamberlain”-Style Iran Deal & “Anti-Israel” Statements
After Kerry Briefing, Senators Slam White House Over “Chamberlain”-Style Iran Deal & “Anti-Israel” Statements
Posted
By TheTower.org Staff On
November 13, 2013 @ 6:25 pm In Diplomacy,Iran
Senators
walked out of a Banking Committee briefing given by Secretary of State John
Kerry this afternoon expressing renewed dissatisfaction with the
administration’s approach to negotiations with Iran, and blasting
administration officials for attacking the credibility and concerns of both of
U.S. allies and of other U.S. lawmakers.
Speaking on
his way out of the meeting, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) told reporters that when he
asked Kerry about assessments he received from Israel earlier in the day
that the latest deal the Obama Administration was prepared sign with Iran would
only “set back the [Iranian nuclear] program about 24 days,” Kerry repeatedly
told senators to “disbelieve everything that the Israelis had just told [us].
“The
Israelis gave that to me this morning,” Kirk said, “and the administration very
disappointingly said discount what the Israelis say and I think that was wrong
as a policy matter. I think the Israelis have a very good intelligence service.
“This
administration like Neville Chamberlain is yielding a large and bloody conflict
in the Middle East involving Iranian nuclear weapons that will now be part of
our children’s future. And the best way to prevent that from happening is to
continue sanctions which Secretary Kerry goes on and on about how effective.”
Lawmakers
from both sides of the aisle have expressed deepening skepticism regarding
administration calls to delay sanctions. Writing in USA Today on Monday, Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez wrote that [1]“tougher
sanctions will serve as an incentive for Iran to verifiably dismantle its
nuclear weapons program” and that “when Iran complies, sanctions can be unwound
and economic relief will follow.”
Menendez
also gestured toward broad criticism [2] over
the State Department’s overall approach to Iran talks – Foggy Bottom has been criticized [3] for
consistently seeming overeager to take any deal – telling ABC News [4] “we
seem to want the deal almost more than the Iranians. And you can’t want the
deal more than the Iranians, especially when the Iranians are on the ropes.”
On the other
side of the aisle, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) had told NBC’s “Meet The Press” on
Sunday that Congress was “very concerned” that the Obama administration would
“deal away” leverage acquired through successive Congressional sanctions
resolutions.
According
to Politico [5],
following today’s hearing, Corker, a member of the Senate Banking panel
who is also the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee told
journalists, “I was very disappointed in the presentation. It lacked
content..I was stunned that in a classified setting, when you’re trying to talk
with the very folks that would be originating legislation relative to
sanctions, there would be such a lack of specificity.”
A Senate
aide familiar with the meeting told BuzzFeed’s [6] Rosie
Gray that “every time anybody would say anything about what would the Israelis
say, they’d get cut off and Kerry would say ‘you have to ignore what they’re
telling you, stop listening to the Israelis on this.’”
Wendy
Sherman, the State Department’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs, also
faced harsh criticism for downplaying the risks of Iranian breakout and for her
role in crafting a similar and failed policy with North
Korea [7]in the 1990s and early 2000s. “I started
questioning Wendy Sherman about her record on North Korea and she surprisingly
defended it to me,” Kirk said. ”Wendy led the effort to give North Korea
nuclear reactors and food, her record on North Korea is a total failure and an
embarrassment to her service,” Kirk explained, recalling that U.S. cut a
deal and reduced sanctions on North Korea, only to later have the country
violate the agreement, shutting-off IAEA video monitoring devices, breaking the
seals on nuclear material, and constructing nuclear weapons.
Below is a
full transcript of Kirk’s remarks to the media after the closed-door,
classified briefing:
Sen. Kirk:
…that it was fairly anti-Israeli that I was supposed to disbelieve everything
that the Israelis had just told me. And I don’t. I think the Israelis probably
have a pretty good intelligence service.
Question:
What did the Israelis just tell you?
Sen. Kirk:
They told us that the total changes proposed set back the program about 24 days.
Question: Oh
wow. And in exchange they get what?
Sen. Kirk:
They get billions in gold.
Question:
Billions in gold and also humanitarian stuff?
Sen. Kirk:
What I’m going to start doing is add up the financial incentives and divide it
by the number of Iranians and seeing how much money per Iranian is it. I asked
the Secretary if you add it all, how much per Iranian citizen is this? He
didn’t know. The one thing I did, I started questioning Wendy Sherman about her
record on North Korea and she surprisingly defended it to me.
Question:
Really? What’s her defense? I’m wearing my North Korea flag pin today.
Sen. Kirk:
There is no defense. After Wendy led the effort to give North Korea nuclear
reactors and food, her record on North Korea is a total failure and an embarrassment
to her service.
Question:
And you think that speaks to her handling of the Iran…?
Sen. Kirk:
Yea, she started to defend using very precise legal words, saying “we haven’t
had any plutonium production in..”
Question: So
you’re saying that the administration is not representing…?
Sen. Kirk:
The point that Wendy wants you to forget her service on North Korea. You
shouldn’t allow her to.
Question:
Okay I won’t. What about, do you think the administration has lost credibility
on this?
Sen. Kirk: A
lot, very low credibility, I would say.
Question:
What about sanctions on the defense bill?
Sen. Kirk:
I’ll use every method I have as a Senator.
Question: Do
you think the banking committee will move forward?
Sen. Kirk: I
think today is the day in which I witnessed a feature of nuclear war in the
Middle East in the future someday that will be part of our children’s heritage.
This administration like Neville Chamberlain is yielding a large and bloody
conflict in the Middle East involving Iranian nuclear weapons that will now be
part of our children’s future. And the best way to prevent that from happening
is to continue sanctions which Secretary Kerry goes on and on about how
effective. What I told Bob Menendez was the administration is sitting at a
negotiating table that was built by the Congress. Without the Congress having
tough sanctions, the Iranians would walk away.
Question: Do
you think there’s the votes in the Senate to attach Iran sanctions to the
defense authorization bill?
Sen. Kirk: I
do in fact. I think overwhelmingly if it was given a vote 90% of the Senate
would vote for it as they did last time. All we would do is remind Senators
that every single Senator voted for Menendez-Kirk
.
Question:
What made you move to the conclusion that we witnessed the beginning of the
potential nuclear war in the Middle East?
Sen. Kirk:
That the administration is not going to act in the best way to prevent nuclear
war in the Middle East. Right when the Iranians are…you know, how do you define
an Iranian moderate? It’s an Iranian who is out of bullets or out of money.
Question:
What was the exact source for the 24 days, can you elaborate?
Sen. Kirk:
That was the Israelis, the Israelis gave that to me this morning. And the
administration very disappointingly said discount what the Israelis say and I
think that was wrong as a policy matter. I think the Israelis have a very good
intelligence service.