If you don’t think the Donald inhabits an alternative universe – just set your mandibles loose to chomp on his most recent missive. According to history’s most gifted practitioner of the Art of the Deal, only one thing really counts with respect to his Paperless Invite for Iran to join yet another round of negotiations: Namely, making good on their pledge to “never, ever” get a nuke, which they never, ever, ever actually had or had even pursued:
Trump: “This agreement is about one thing — that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Never ever ever. The rest of it is irrelevant, frankly.”
And just in case anyone missed the point, he further insisted that the real bad stuff that supposedly provoked the US/Israel attack in the first place – the 420 kilograms of 60% HEUs – and which the Donald had been on the verge sending in ground troops and Caterpillar earth-movers to retrieve, doesn’t matter so much any more, either!
Trump is backing away from getting Iran’s enriched material: “You could make the case, why even bother? It’s not very valuable stuff.”
That’s right. It is plain as day that the Donald is laying the ground work for a final “deal” with Iran that contains nothing more than a notional “No Nukes” pledge, gussied up by some variation of JCPOA Light.
That is, an agreement about:
- the length in months and years of a moratorium on Iran’s fuel grade (3.67%) enrichment operations in support of its civilian nuclear power plant.
- the scale of these civilian enrichment operations in terms of facilities and numbers and types of permitted centrifuges once they restart.
- the intrusiveness of a renewed IAEA inspection regime.
- the “snap-back” mechanisms designed to keep the mullahs on the straight and narrow of the overall Peace Plan.
Needless to say, the Obama folks will be proven to have done a far better job the first time around during their arduous negotiations of 2013-2015 than whatever cockamamie version emerges from a final deal that the Donald must and will sign in the shadows of the upcoming November Congressional elections.
Hellbound and Down 