THE HORRIBLE IRAN DEAL – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  We don't often recommend op-ed pieces from The New York Times, but this vigorous critique of Obama's presumed Iran deal is superb.  It comes from Alan J. Kuperman, a nuclear-proliferation expert at the University of Texas: 

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S main pitch for the pending nuclear deal with Iran is that it would extend the “breakout time” necessary for Iran to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. In a recent interview with NPR, he said that the current breakout time is “about two to three months by our intelligence estimates.” By contrast, he claimed, the pending deal would shrink Iran’s nuclear program, so that if Iran later “decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go for a bomb, we’d have over a year to respond.”

Unfortunately, that claim is false, as can be demonstrated with basic science and math. By my calculations, Iran’s actual breakout time under the deal would be approximately three months — not over a year. Thus, the deal would be unlikely to improve the world’s ability to react to a sudden effort by Iran to build a bomb.

Breakout time is determined by three primary factors: the number and type of centrifuges; the enrichment of the starting material; and the amount of enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon. Mr. Obama seems to make rosy assumptions about all three.

Most important, in the event of an overt attempt by Iran to build a bomb, Mr. Obama’s argument assumes that Iran would employ only the 5,060 centrifuges that the deal would allow for uranium enrichment, not the roughly 14,000 additional centrifuges that Iran would be permitted to keep mainly for spare parts. Such an assumption is laughable. In a real-world breakout, Iran would race, not crawl, to the bomb.

And, finally:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, says that he wants 190,000 centrifuges eventually, or 10 times the current amount, as would appear to be permissible under the deal after just 10 years. Such enormous enrichment capacity would shrink the breakout time to mere days, so that Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb before we even knew it was trying — thus eliminating any hope of our taking preventive action.

Nothing in the pending deal is worth such risks. Unless President Obama can extract significantly greater concessions at the negotiating table, Congress should refuse to lift sanctions, thereby blocking implementation of a deal that would provide Iran billions of dollars to pursue nuclear weapons and regional hegemony.

COMMENT:  I doubt if any of this will influence the little man in the White House.  I doubt if he's even interested.  In 2009 he had the chance to apply moral pressure on Iran as the regime was murdering its opponents in the streets.  He barely lifted a finger.

He doesn't care.  To Barack Obama, Iran is not the problem.  America is the problem.

June 23, 2015