[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Textbook case of what Bismark is talking about when he cautions against listening to people who don’t know anything about foreign affairs:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I’m still wondering what we got out of this deal?[/quote]
Nothing. Not a damn thing. We got a promise that they will not try to make a bomb for 15 years.[/quote]
No. As I wrote a page ago (it has been slightly altered):
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
150 inspectors in the country, IAEA technical monitors and international scientists at Fordow, 98 percent reduction in uranium-stockpile size and a 3.67 percent cap on enrichment, late-generation centrifuges surrendered, Arak dispossessed of plutonium-production capacity, 25 years of IAEA monitoring of nuclear facilities. The 24 days entail some risk, particularly if the Iranians find a way to stall further, but, as Moniz said, this is not a matter of dishwashing (and the extant nuclear facilities themselves will not be subject to any delay: they will be monitored continuously). Nuclear weapons production is heavy industry, and an interested American security apparatus is a hell of a thing to try to hide from. Again, though, it is absolutely inarguable that the agreement effectively destroys Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon for up to a quarter of a century (and, indeed, beyond: they aren’t going to get back much of what’s taken from them). There is no question about this. Perhaps we do go to war in 25, 40, 50 years; perhaps we don’t. Perhaps the Iranian regime and, more importantly, Iranian people get pushed beyond the tipping point and come to loudly say that American good will is preferable to the teeth of American military might. Perhaps. This is the nature of the game. If you want a sure thing, bet against the New York Jets.)[/quote]
^ A little bit more than “a promise” and/or “nothing.” [/quote]
We’ll see. The above will depend on transparency and enforcement. 150 inspectors in country is about 4,200 square miles per inspector, that’s about triple the size of Rhode Island. That’s a lot of ground to cover per person…
[/quote]
That’s an odd way of framing it. Inspections are not carried out by dividing the country into sections of territorial square footage and then assigning an inspector to each section so that he can wander around with a particle detector. The inspectors will largely be assigned to nuclear facilities, overseeing things like the Natanz enrichment cap and the surrender of stockpiles. Here also we bump into that word “trust,” which has been used incorrectly throughout this thread. As I have said a couple of times now, and even notwithstanding the undeclared-site inspections delay (which, for reasons given, entails less risk than the reactionary propaganda suggests), there is no question as to what the concrete terms of the deal (viz. stockpile reduction, enrichment cap, late-stage centrifuge shutdown and monitored storage, IR-40 conversion, plans for Fordow) do to Iran’s ability to break out to a nuclear weapon. And, being as they are concrete and verifiable with an inspections regime in place, it will be easy to know whether these concrete terms are being observed.
Put very simply, the deal makes it much more difficult for Iran to get the bomb for up to twenty-five years (and in fact beyond that, given the confiscations); it assures an enormous increase in Western intelligence (and military) agencies’ understanding of Iran’s nuclear program and facilities and vulnerabilities and historical progress; and it offers a concrete basis for aggressive sanctioning and/or multilateral war in case of Iranian noncompliance. Compared with the state of world affairs over the last few years, there is today – and this is not a controversial point – a far smaller chance that Iran will become a nuclear weapons state, and, were they to try, a far larger chance that we would be able to successfully and efficiently intervene.