• CLIMATE CHANGE AND GOP STUPIDITY

    Jon Stewart Rips Right-Wingers A New One
  • RIGHT-WINGERS BLAMING THE VICTIMS

    When Unarmed Blacks Are Killed By Cops
  • STILL NO SCANDAL

    No Wrongdoing With Benghazi
  • EBOLA AND ISIS

    Right-Wingers Fuel Racism And Paranoia

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Yep, The Adults Are In Charge

Today Lindaman complains about how Iran stating they have a second nuclear reactor is somehow indicative of leftists catering to Iran. Based on nothing, of course.

They are legally allowed to operate that facility under the Non-proliferation treaty. Ever heard of that? Why would we punish Iran for not breaking international law? As long as they're open with the inspectors, who cares?

"This installation is not a secret one, which is why we announced its existence to the IAEA," Ali Akbar Salehi said.

"When I took over the job in July, I committed myself to accelerate cooperation (with the International Atomic Energy Agency) and, within the existing framework of regulations and of our cooperation with the IAEA, we announced the existence of this installation to the agency."

Salehi did not say how long the facility had been under construction or whether it is finished.

Iranian officials say Tehran is only obliged to inform the UN watchdog of the existence of any new site 180 days before putting radioactive materials into it.

Before that, they insist, Iran does not need to say anything about building new nuclear sites
.


Also:

Iran last month accepted long-standing requests by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for greater access to two key nuclear facilities, diplomatic sources said in August. The move appears to represent a shift in Iran's willingness to cooperate with the agency, which has expressed increasing concern with Tehran's lack of transparency on certain activities.

Tehran allowed IAEA inspectors to visit its heavy-water nuclear reactor under construction at Arak, the first such visit in nearly a year. After being barred from the reactor last fall, the agency was forced to rely on satellite imagery. The completion of the reactor containment structure and roofing over other buildings soon made that monitoring ineffective.
...
Iran also reached an agreement with the IAEA to expand monitoring at its commercial-scale uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. For the last several months, the IAEA has held discussions with Iran regarding improvements in the agency's monitoring activities at the facility in light of Iran's expansion of the plant.


The funniest part is how Lindaman talks about how strong George W. Bush was on foreign matters. You mean like how he wrote an ass-kissing "We're SO SORRY!" letter to Red China after we crash landed in their country, due to one of THEIR planes causing us to crash?

Obama didn't hesitate about rescuing hostages off the coast of Somalia, scuttling Bush's stupid missile shield, making health care reform a priority, or passing a stimulus bill. You see, he's actually getting things done.

Obama supports multinational sanctions on Iran in response to their nuclear arms program. Our position on Iran has gotten stronger because of Obama. He managed to get Sarko, Brown, Merkel all on one page as far as embarrassing Ahmagiantdouche this morning and publicly call him out on his horseshit on a very global stage. And in the last 3 days he's managed to get Vlad/Dimitri Putin/Medvedev to sound like they'd be open to helping enforce them. The Russians and French are on board. No other (Arab) country in the region wants Iran to have nukes. Obama's succeeding where Bush epically FAILED.

The "bottom line", Lindaman, is that Iran has a right to nuclear power, and no one has said otherwise.

Even the Russians and Chinese seem open to sanctions. Why do you think that is?

The reason Iran went public, apparently, was that Obama was reportedly ready to go public with the knowledge that they had a second plant; or they must have believed he was about to, and went on the defensive. Obama told Medvedev earlier this week. The whole timeline seems entirely orchestrated by Obama, since there is a P5+1 meeting on Oct 1 and he has trips to China and Russia planned for November, right when sanctions might be expected to make it to the UN Security Council.

What has happened here, if you are completely unobservant, is that the US has spent this whole year maneuvering internationally to isolate Iran (while talking the talk about reaching out to negotiate) and North Korea, and find common ground with Russia and China on the nuclear security problems in their neighbourhood. The more magnanimously they've talked about negotiation, the more they've backed Iran into a corner where concessions are their only option. It also makes it more blatantly obvious why they have been a little cool towards Israel when Israel is threatening airstrikes on Iran. Israeli airstrikes would not force concessions at all, not the way three major powers bringing down the hammer of economic sanctions on Iran would.

This is called using diplomacy to solve problems, you right-wingers.

And it's funny how right-wingers are quiet on Israel hiding nuclear weapons. But hey, they still thinks Iraq had WMD's. lol