Iran Nuclear Deal Reached

[superbeets]

Well Iran did send a monkey into space.

28 Jan 2013

Arabic-language channel Al-Alam and other Iranian news agencies said the monkey returned alive after travelling in the capsule to an altitude of 120 kilometres (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight.

Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said: "This success is the first step towards man conquering the space and it paves the way for other moves", but added that the process of putting a human into space would be a lengthy one.

"Today's successful launch follows previous successes we had in launching (space) probes with other living creatures (on board)," he added.

"The monkey which was sent in this launch landed safely and alive and this is a big step for our experts and scientists."


Iranian state television showed still pictures of the capsule and of a monkey being fitted with a vest and then placed in a device similar to a child's car-seat.



A previous attempt in 2011 by the Islamic republic to put a monkey into space failed. No official explanation was ever given. :cryingcry


Iran says it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation, improve telecommunications and expand military surveillance in the region. :wink:


Western powers are concerned that the long-range ballistic technology used to propel Iranian satellites into orbit could be used to launch nuclear warheads. :scared1:


Tehran denies such suggestions and says its nuclear activity is for peaceful energy only. :wink:


The Security Council has imposed on Iran an almost total embargo on nuclear and space technologies since 2007. :nono5:


Tehran has repeatedly denied that its nuclear and scientific programmes mask military ambitions. :wink:



Iran's previous satellite launches were met by condemnation from the West who accused Tehran of "provocation".

 

[superbeets]

And Iran did make a monkey out of the West.

 

[The Guesser]

Clearly the monkey was sent up there to spy on Israel and lay the seeds for Iran putting Nukes in space to attack Israel and the US, and maybe even Canada, eh.
It just amazing how these wingnut loons think. :discuss:

 

[superbeets]

 

[Ricboff]

Well Iran did send a monkey into space.

28 Jan 2013

Arabic-language channel Al-Alam and other Iranian news agencies said the monkey returned alive after travelling in the capsule to an altitude of 120 kilometres (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight.

Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said: "This success is the first step towards man conquering the space and it paves the way for other moves", but added that the process of putting a human into space would be a lengthy one.

"Today's successful launch follows previous successes we had in launching (space) probes with other living creatures (on board)," he added.

"The monkey which was sent in this launch landed safely and alive and this is a big step for our experts and scientists."


Iranian state television showed still pictures of the capsule and of a monkey being fitted with a vest and then placed in a device similar to a child's car-seat.



A previous attempt in 2011 by the Islamic republic to put a monkey into space failed. No official explanation was ever given. :cryingcry


Iran says it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation, improve telecommunications and expand military surveillance in the region. :wink:


Western powers are concerned that the long-range ballistic technology used to propel Iranian satellites into orbit could be used to launch nuclear warheads. :scared1:


Tehran denies such suggestions and says its nuclear activity is for peaceful energy only. :wink:


The Security Council has imposed on Iran an almost total embargo on nuclear and space technologies since 2007. :nono5:


Tehran has repeatedly denied that its nuclear and scientific programmes mask military ambitions. :wink:



Iran's previous satellite launches were met by condemnation from the West who accused Tehran of "provocation".

WTF, the good chap from across the pond snapped ? ......not overly worried about Iran, don't like the agreement but USA must be okay it with for a reason (cheaper oil ).....China is by far a more dangerous foe. USA opened that door, Wall Street owns them. fuxjing country can't help herself. BUT , China, go Fuxk urself ur military toys are substantially weaker .....beets USA has become a shit show ,the planet needs her, with ya .

 

[superbeets]

Obama officials insist they're no fools.

 

[ScottL]

U.S. boxes in Israel, not Iran: Surrender in Geneva
By Mark Steyn

"Iran, U.S. Set To Establish Joint Chamber Of Commerce Within Month," reports Agence-France Presse. Government official Abolfazi Hejazi tells the English-language newspaper Iran Daily that the Islamic Republic will shortly commence direct flights to America. Passenger jets, not ICBMs, one assumes - although, as with everything else, the details have yet to be worked out. Still, the historic U.S.-Iranian rapprochement seems to be galloping along, and any moment now the cultural exchange program will be announced, and you'll have to book early for the Tehran Ballet's season at the Kennedy Center ("Death To America" in repertory with "Death To The Great Satan").

In Geneva, the participants came to the talks with different goals: The Americans and Europeans wanted an agreement; the Iranians wanted nukes. Each party got what it came for. Before the deal, the mullahs' existing facilities were said to be within four to seven weeks of nuclear "breakout"; under the new constraints, they'll be eight to nine weeks from breakout. In return, they get formal international recognition of their enrichment program, and the gutting of sanctions — and everything they already have is, as they say over at Obamacare, grandfathered in.

Many pundits reached for the obvious appeasement analogies, but Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal argued that Geneva is actually worse than Munich. In 1938, facing a German seizure of the Sudetenland, the French and British prime ministers were negotiating with Berlin from a position of profound military weakness: it's easy to despise Chamberlain with the benefit of hindsight, less easy to give an honest answer as to what one would have done differently playing a weak hand across the table from Hitler 75 years ago. This time round, a superpower and its allies, accounting for over 50 percent of the planet's military spending, were facing a militarily insignificant country with a ruined economy and no more than two-to-three months' worth of hard currency — and they gave it everything it wanted.

I would add two further points. First, the Munich Agreement's language is brutal and unsparing, all "shalls" and "wills": Paragraph 1) "The evacuation will begin on 1st October"; Paragraph 4) "The four territories marked on the attached map will be occupied by German troops in the following order." By contrast, the P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China plus Germany) "Joint Plan of Action" barely reads like an international agreement at all. It's all conditional, a forest of "woulds": "There would be additional steps in between the initial measures and the final step…" In the post-modern phase of Western resolve, it's an agreement to reach an agreement — supposedly within six months. But one gets the strong impression that, when that six-month deadline comes and goes, the temporary agreement will trundle along semipermanently to the satisfaction of all parties.

Secondly, there are subtler concessions. Explaining that their "singular object" was to "ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon," John Kerry said that "Foreign Minister Zarif emphasized that they don't intend to do this, and the Supreme Leader has indicated there is a fatwa which forbids them to do this." The "Supreme Leader" is not Barack Obama but Ayatollah Khamenei. Why is America's secretary of state dignifying Khamenei as "the Supreme Leader"? In his own famous remarks upon his return from Munich, Neville Chamberlain referred only to "Herr Hitler." "Der Führer" means, in effect, "the Supreme Leader," but, unlike Kerry (and Obama), Chamberlain understood that it would be unseemly for the representative of a free people to confer respectability on such a designation. As for the Fuhrer de nos jours, Ayatollah Khamenei called Israel a "rabid dog" and dismissed "the leaders of the Zionist regime, who look like beasts and cannot be called human." If the words of "the Supreme Leader" are to be taken at face value when it comes to these supposed constraints preventing Iran from going nuclear, why not also when he calls Jews subhuman?

I am not much interested in whether "the Supreme Leader" can be trusted. Prudent persons already know the answer to that. A more relevant question is whether the U.S. can be trusted. Israel and the Sunni monarchies who comprise America's least-worst friends in the Arab world were kept in the dark about not only the contents of the first direct U.S./Iranian talks in a third-of-a-century but even an acknowledgment that they were taking place. The only tip-off into the parameters of the emerging deal is said to have come from British briefings to their former Gulf protectorates and the French getting chatty with Israel. A couple of days ago, Nawaf Obaid, an adviser to Prince Mohammed, the Saudi Ambassador in London, was unusually candid about the Americans: "We were lied to, things were hidden from us," he said. "The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva but how it was done."

"How it was done": Some years ago, I heard that great scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis, caution that America risked being seen as harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend. The Obama administration seems to have raised the thought to the level of doctrine. What has hitherto been unclear is whether this was through design or incompetence. Certainly, John Kerry has been unerringly wrong on every foreign policy issue for four decades, so sheer bungling stupidity cannot be ruled out.

But look at it this way: It's been clear for some time that the United States was not going to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. That leaves only one other nation even minded to keep the option on the table: Israel. Hence the strange new romance between the Zionist Entity and the Saudi and Gulf Cabinet ministers calling every night to urge them to get cracking: In the post-American world, you find your friends where you can, even if they're Jews. But Obama and Kerry have not only taken a U.S bombing raid off the table, they've ensured that any such raid by Israel will now come at a much steeper price: It's one thing to bomb a global pariah, quite another to bomb a semi-rehabilitated member of the international community in defiance of an agreement signed by the Big Five world powers. Indeed, a disinterested observer might easily conclude that the point of the plan seems to be to box in Israel rather than Iran.

If it were to have that effect, the Sunni Arab states would be faced with a choice of accepting de facto Shia Persian hegemony — or getting the Saudis to pay the Pakistanis for a Sunni bomb. Nobody in Araby believes the U.S. can "contain" Iran, even if it wants to. And, since the Geneva deal, nobody's very sure the U.S. wants to.
Meanwhile, through the many months they kept their allies in the dark, Washington was very obliging to the mullahs. According to the Times of Israel, among the Iranian prisoners quietly released by the U.S. as a friendly predeal gesture is Mojtada Atarodi, arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire nuclear materials. Iran has felt under no pressure to reciprocate. America is containing itself, in hopes of a quiet life.

Will it get one? The Guardian reports that, last Saturday night at the Geneva InterContinental, the final stages of the P5+1 talks were played out to the music bleeding through from the charity bash in the adjoining ballroom. At one point, the band played Johnny Cash:

"I fell into a burning ring of fire I went down, down, down and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire . . . ."
​

So it does.

 

[Cheers]

Obama and team have got to be the most naive, pollyannaish and abstract group to ever occupy the White House...A real wishin' and hopin' crowd that history will not treat kindly.

 

[The Guesser]

Obama and team have got to be the most naive, pollyannaish and abstract group to ever occupy the White House...A real wishin' and hopin' crowd that history will not treat kindly.

History is gonna treat him very kindly on this one, if the 6 month testing period goes well, and leads to a long term agreement. Got Iran to peacefully give up building a nuclear bomb, and avoided war. Those are good things, except in the War Monger loon crowd, where you can never talk to your enemies and war is the only desired conclusion.

 

[Cheers]

History is gonna treat him very kindly on this one, if the 6 month testing period goes well, and leads to a long term agreement. Got Iran to peacefully give up building a nuclear bomb, and avoided war. Those are good things, except in the War Monger loon crowd, where you can never talk to your enemies and war is the only desired conclusion.

Hope you're right and not just wishin' and hopin'. (We've had great relations with Iran over the decades so there's no reason whatsoever that things will not work out...Right. They have made a quick about face which makes one wonder...)

 

[The Guesser]

Hope you're right and not just wishin' and hopin'. (We've had great relations with Iran over the decades so there's no reason whatsoever that things will not work out...Right. They have made a quick about face which makes one wonder...)

We haven't talked to them for decades, except when Reagan was sending them weapons. We should have just kept that up because it's been working out so well. G-d forbid we try something new. !

 

[Cheers]

We haven't talked to them for decades, except when Reagan was sending them weapons. We should have just kept that up because it's been working out so well. G-d forbid we try something new. !

I suppose they will stop sponsoring Hezbollah and terrorism now that we are all one happy family. Within a year I expect our US military and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be conducting joint military operations. Friends at last and overnight no less. At the very least you are disillusional. I bet that if Charles Manson got a pardon from his life sentence you would be quite happy to have him spend his first night of freedom sleeping over at your house.

 

[The Guesser]

I suppose they will stop sponsoring Hezbollah and terrorism now that we are all one happy family. Within a year I expect our US military and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be conducting joint military operations. Friends at last and overnight no less. At the very least you are disillusional. I bet that if Charles Manson got a pardon from his life sentence you would be quite happy to have him spend his first night of freedom sleeping over at your house.

You certainly fit the naive and delusional description with your Manson and Iranian army nutiness. They are and still will be our enemy until proven otherwise. At least we are talking to them now, and holding their feet to the fire, with the help of other world powers, instead of letting them build to the Nuke unfettered. But that is what you loons want, so eventually your War fantasies can be realized. While Obama is a war monger, at least this time he's getting it right, and trying to avoid one.

 

[superbeets]

 

[superbeets]

[h=1]2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel[/h]Iranian military personnel seized 15 Royal Navy personnel during 2007 and held them for 13 days. On 23 March 2007, 15 British Royal Navy personnel, from HMS Cornwall, searching a merchant vessel were surrounded by the Navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and subsequently detained off the Iran-Iraq coast. In the course of events, the British forces claimed that the vessel was in Iraqi waters, but the Iranian side insisted that they were in Iran's territorial waters. The 15 personnel were released on 4 April 2007

[h=1]UK naval crew describe their capture and detention by Iran[/h]

Friday, April 6, 2007

At a press conference held Friday at the Royal Marine Base Chivenor in Devon, first-hand details of the fifteen UK Royal Navy crew's capture and detention by Iran were revealed.
The fifteen navy crew, eight from the Royal Navy (RN) and seven from the Royal Marines (RM), arrived by helicopter at the base on Thursday. Following a period of debriefing and rest, the crew spoke at a press conference on Friday. Captain Christopher Air, RM, and Lieutenant Felix Carman, RN, spoke for the group.

Carman and Air thanked the staff of the British Embassy in Tehran, the Foreign Office, and Ministry of Defence for securing their release. In addition, Air stated that the crew "would like to thank the very many members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines who have been working so hard over the last 2 weeks supporting our families and friends and for arranging our return to here."
Carman provided details of the navigational equipment and hand held GPS used by the UK crew. A support helicopter also provided continuous navigational confirmation. The boarding crew were linked electronically to HMS Cornwall, which monitored the crew's position continually. "Let me make it absolutely clear," said Carman. "Irrespective of what has been said in the past, when we were detained by the IRG we were inside internationally recognised Iraqi territorial waters and I can clearly state we were 1.7 nautical miles from Iranian waters."

	Let me be absolutely clear, from the outset it was very apparent that fighting back was simply not an option
—Captain Christopher Air, Royal Marines​

Having boarded an unidentified merchant vessel in the Shatt Al Arab waterway, the crew were stopped by two Iranian boats, which prevented them from leaving. "When we tried to leave, they prevented us by blocking us in," explained Air. "By now it was becoming increasingly clear that they had arrived with a planned intent.


Some of the Iranian sailors were becoming deliberately aggressive and unstable.

They rammed our boat and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs and weapons on us."



Six other Iranian boats arrived. "We made a conscious decision to not engage the Iranians and do as they asked," said Air. "They boarded our boats, removed our weapons and steered the boats towards the Iranian shore."




On arrival at an Iranian naval base, the UK crew were stripped of their gear, blindfolded, and led to an interrogation room.

The following morning the group was flown to Tehran and transported to a prison where they faced "constant psychological pressure." The crew were stripped and dressed in pajamas. According to Carman, "the next few nights were spent in stone cells, approximately 8'x 6', sleeping on piles of blankets. All of us were kept in isolation."



They were interrogated most nights and offered two options. "If we admitted we had strayed, we would be on a plane back to the UK soon," said Carman. "If we didn't we faced up to seven years in prison." The crew were kept in isolation until the last few nights, when they were allowed to gather together for a couple of hours at a time.

On the subject of deciding to resist the Iranians or not, Air was adamant that it would have made the situation worse. "Let me be absolutely clear, from the outset it was very apparent that fighting back was simply not an option," said Air. "Had we chosen to do so then many of us would not be standing here today."

 

[Cheers]

You certainly fit the naive and delusional description with your Manson and Iranian army nutiness. They are and still will be our enemy until proven otherwise. At least we are talking to them now, and holding their feet to the fire, with the help of other world powers, instead of letting them build to the Nuke unfettered. But that is what you loons want, so eventually your War fantasies can be realized. While Obama is a war monger, at least this time he's getting it right, and trying to avoid one.

Events over the next year will prove one of us to be a fool on this issue. I hope that I turn out to be the fool in this case. In the mean time, I really suggest that you keep your pet boa constrictor away from the kids. I know the snake loves you but...

 

[festeringZit]

[h=1]Iran enrichment capacity expanded dramatically on Obama's watch[/h]

By James Rosen
Published December 04, 2013FoxNews.com


Facebook287 Twitter284 LinkedIn1



Before he paused to allow reporters to ask questions about the nuclear deal with Iran that he had just announced in Geneva, Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to anticipate one line of criticism about the accord -- that it effectively cedes to the Islamic regime the right to enrich uranium, despite half a dozen U.N. Security Council resolutions declaring the activity illegal. And he moved, preemptively, to address it.
"In 2003, when the Iranians made an offer to the former administration with respect to their nuclear program, there were 164 centrifuges," Kerry said in a news conference held in the early hours of Nov. 24. "That offer was not taken. Subsequently, sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing."
In essence, the secretary of State was suggesting the staggering number of centrifuges that Iran now has effectively forced the hand of the P5+1 negotiators at the talks, making the placement of restrictions on Iran's nuclear program the only realistic prospect the negotiators could pursue. Kerry also suggested that had only President George W. Bush done the right thing a decade ago, the United States and its allies in the P5+1 -- Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia -- wouldn't have found themselves in such a precarious negotiating posture.
Yet a Fox News review of reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and analyses prepared by leading research institutions -- including the Arms Control Association, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Federation of American Scientists -- shows that the vast majority of Iran's enrichment capability came online during the Obama administration.
It is known that by late 2007, Iran possessed about 3,000 centrifuges. Over the course of Bush's final 12 to 15 months in the White House, it can be assumed safely that Iran added to, but probably did not fully double, the number of centrifuges it had installed. A fair estimate would accordingly place the number of the spinning machines that Iran had on hand at the beginning of 2009 at 5,000.
This would mean that roughly 25 percent of the regime's current total of centrifuges had been installed when the Bush-Cheney era ended. Put another way: Roughly 74 percent of the centrifuges Iran now has on hand were installed since the Obama-Biden team assumed office. Analysts say 10,000 of the total are actively enriching uranium to low levels, inconsistent with nuclear weapons production but well suited to the task should a decision be made to pursue that goal.
Yet in a series of interviews he gave before leaving Geneva, Kerry expanded on his theme, telling ABC News' George Stephanopoulos: "In 2003, Iran made an offer to the Bush administration that they would, in fact, do major things with respect to their program. They had 164 centrifuges. Nobody took that [deal] -- nothing has happened. Therefore, here we are in 2013 -- they have 19,000 centrifuges and they're closer to a weapon. You cannot sit there and pretend that you're just going to get the thing you want while they continue to move towards the program that they've been chasing....You can't always start where you want to wind up."
Kerry's concise history of the Iranian nuclear program, which encompassed only the years 2003 and 2013, naturally omitted quite a lot. Determining exactly when the regime crossed a given technical threshold can be difficult, given the opacity of the government and the complex of commercial, military, and scientific institutions that have contributed to the program over the last two decades. The secretary plans to testify before Congress on Iran, for the first time since the deal was announced, in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Dec. 10 -- an opportunity to provide more clarity.
A spokesman for Kerry professed ignorance of the exact numbers involved. "We have not questioned the fact that Iran has made progress on enrichment and on developing a nuclear weapon," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Dec. 2. "That's one of the reasons why we stepped up sanctions over the past couple of years."
But when confronted with the notion that at least 70 percent of the expansion in Iran's centrifuge program took place on President Obama's watch, Psaki countered: "I think what we're focused on at this point is the fact that we're now at a point where we are halting and rolling back the progress of their program and we're working towards a comprehensive agreement to bring an end to it."

 

[Dave007inVegas]

History is gonna treat him very kindly on this one, if the 6 month testing period goes well, and leads to a long term agreement. Got Iran to peacefully give up building a nuclear bomb, and avoided war. Those are good things, except in the War Monger loon crowd, where you can never talk to your enemies and war is the only desired conclusion.

Are you sure you didn't mean WHEN? Or are you hedging you bet?

 

[Dave007inVegas]

I suppose they will stop sponsoring Hezbollah and terrorism now that we are all one happy family. Within a year I expect our US military and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be conducting joint military operations. Friends at last and overnight no less. At the very least you are disillusional. I bet that if Charles Manson got a pardon from his life sentence you would be quite happy to have him spend his first night of freedom sleeping over at your house.

If Charles Manson got a pardon and came to Guesser's house he would have a Geraldo Rivera moment.

 

[superbeets]

One less enemy

Hassan Al Laqis


Gone to service the Vestal Virgins

:thumbsup2: