Title: Video shows successful test of Khorramshahr ballistic missile (Multiple warheads) Source:
[None] URL Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnOBdFqY5pk Published:Sep 22, 2017 Author:Staff Post Date:2017-09-22 20:42:41 by Horse Keywords:None Views:39 Comments:4
Poster Comment:
This has multiple warheads so as to evade Israeli air defenses. It is not fast like Sejil (Mach 13) and Ghadr (Mach 14). They get past Israeli air defenses because neither US nor Israel can stop anything faster than Mach 10. After these hit their targets, all the old, slow moving missiles that Hezbollah has left over from 2006 can be fired.
Trump’s ‘Principled Realism’ Is Neither Principled Nor Realist (II) Trump invoked so-called “principled realism” during his U.N. speech:
We are guided by outcomes, not ideology. We have a policy of principled realism, rooted in shared goals, interests and values.
Trump has shown before that his administration’s “principled realism” is neither principled nor realist, and he did so again earlier this week. Leading realists have been quite vocal in their rejection of the foreign policy he has conducted to date, and they have done so in large part because Trump has been in thrall to the goals of ideologues. Take his antagonism to the nuclear deal with Iran as a prime example.
An administration “guided by outcomes, not ideology” would have no problem with a deal that successfully restricted Iran’s nuclear program. They would have to acknowledge that the deal was working as intended regardless of any reservations they might have about it. It is the ideologue who insists on adding new demands and finding fault with an agreement that everyone else believes to be the best deal available. Trump is inclined to yield to the ideologues in his party because rejecting the deal lines up with his rejection of everything connected with Obama. The consequences of reneging on the deal don’t concern him, just as the benefits of remaining the deal don’t interest him. He wants to vindicate the idea that Obama made a bad deal and that he can do better. It has nothing to do with outcomes and everything to do with proving his predecessor wrong. There is no principle at work here except contempt for compromise and diplomacy. There is no realism anywhere to be found.
Tillerson repeated his bogus argument against the nuclear deal yesterday:
When one looks at…he uses the word spirit of the agreement, I use the word expectations of the agreement…that even contained in the preamble of the agreement, there was a clear expectation of the parties who were negotiating this nuclear deal that at the conclusion of the nuclear agreement, which set aside obviously a serious threat to the region and to the relationship, and that by doing so this would allow the parties to seek a more stable, peaceful region. That was the expectation of the parties. Regrettably, since the agreement was confirmed, we have seen anything but a more peaceful, stable region.
This is the same misreading of the text of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) preface that I addressed on Monday. Like the complaint about sunset clauses, this objection to the deal is without merit. Tillerson’s understanding of the agreement isn’t supported by the text. The phrase he is misquoting says only this:
They [the P5+1 and Iran] anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security.
In other words, the parties to the deal are affirming that they think the deal is good for regional and international peace and security, and they expect that it will make a positive contribution to the same. Insofar as blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons makes that positive contribution, the parties’ expectations have been met so long as Iran complies with the deal. Since Iran is complying with the deal (and no other party to the deal thinks it isn’t complying), there is no reason for the parties to be dissatisfied with a deal that is doing exactly what it was intended to do. There is no mention in the text here or anywhere else about what the parties may or may not have hoped would follow on other issues, because those other issues have nothing to do with the JCPOA. Tillerson wasn’t involved in the negotiations, so he can’t credibly speak about what U.S. negotiators may or may not have expected, and he certainly can’t speak for any of the other parties.
Like other critics of the deal, Tillerson is trying to invent problems with the deal by moving the goalposts of what the deal is supposed to do and then declaring the deal to have fallen short. It would have been ideal if the nuclear deal had also created an opening for de-escalating tensions and resolving other outstanding issues, but hard-liners on both sides of the deal were determined never to let that happen. It is galling to say the least to have opponents of the deal now use the destructive regional policies they also favor as proof that the deal has somehow failed. It’s one more nonsensical complaint that shows how desperate the administration is to find an excuse to renege on the deal. Americans should understand that they are being lied to by the administration about what the deal is supposed to do, and they shouldn’t let Trump and his officials get away with it.
Philip Gordon and Richard Nephew have written a very thorough and cogent defense of the nuclear deal with Iran:
In fact, the deal is doing exactly what is was supposed to do: prevent Iran from acquiring enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, demonstrate to the Iranian public the benefits of cooperation with the international community, and buy time for potential changes in Iranian politics and foreign policy.
Anyone who thought a deal would immediately change Iran’s regional agenda or who maintains that, if only America and its partners had insisted on such changes in the talks they would have materialized, has a misguided sense of what sanctions and diplomatic pressure can accomplish.
Two years later, the Iran deal is a success. The U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 advanced the cause of nonproliferation and greatly reduced the risk of war with Iran over its nuclear program, and Iran has been and continues to be in compliance with the terms of the deal. It is instructive to look back at the debate over the nuclear deal in order to remember how shoddy the arguments against it were (and still are). Even before the deal was completed, some hard-liners in the U.S. were already likening it to appeasement at Munich, and at least one denounced the interim agreement leading to the JCPOA as “worse than Munich.” These alarmist claims had nothing to do with the substance of the deal, and simply reflected the knee-jerk hostility of Iran hawks to any diplomatic engagement with Tehran regardless of the outcome.
Opponents of the deal repeatedly claimed that the agreement would “pave the way” for Iranian nuclear weapons. This was an outstanding example of the opponents’ bad-faith arguments, since they kept insisting that the deal would produce the one result that it definitely wouldn’t. That allowed them to pose as supporters of the goal of nonproliferation while working overtime to sabotage a nonproliferation agreement, but fortunately they lost the argument. Much of the rest of the case against the deal involved a lot of hand-waving about how the deal wouldn’t radically change Iranian foreign policy, as if there were any possible agreement that could do that. We see this nonsense again in the latest complaints from Iran hawks in the Senate. Finally, there was the deceptive and inflated claim that Iran would receive a “windfall” through sanctions relief as part of the agreement. This was deceptive in that it pretended that it was possible to achieve the goal of restricting Iran’s nuclear program without lifting the sanctions imposed on account of the nuclear issue. It was inflated in that it always overstated the amount of their own money that Iran would be able to access. There was never any chance that Iran would agree to restrictions unless they obtained sanctions relief, and criticizing the deal for providing that necessary relief showed how ridiculous and fanatical opposition to the deal really was.
Some opponents wanted to make the perfect the enemy of the good by demanding unrealistic concessions from Iran, because they overestimated how much Iran could be forced to give up. But I think a lot of them just couldn’t stand the idea of resolving the nuclear issue peacefully. For many opponents of the deal, the nuclear issue was useful for them as a talking point while they pushed for ratcheting up tensions with Iran, and to resolve the issue even temporarily would be a setback to their agitation for another war. Insofar as the deal has made war with Iran less likely, that is at least as important an achievement as the restrictions it has imposed on Iran’s nuclear program.