Who Actually Has Nuclear Capability And The Bombs To Prove It, Iran Or Israel?

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Before we move any further with this, I want to go back to November the 12^th.  Today’s the 25^th.  That’s a little shy of two weeks.  I want to revisit with Patrick J. Buchanan.  He was writing about this exact subject.  It was known back then that Kerry and company were trying to negotiate some kind of deal with the Iranian mullahs.  I saw a mention of this on Breitbart’s website last week, something to the effect that Buchanan trusts Iran more than he trusts Israel.  I don’t read that at all.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Before we move any further with this, I want to go back to November the 12^th.  Today’s the 25^th.  That’s a little shy of two weeks.  I want to revisit with Patrick J. Buchanan.  He was writing about this exact subject.  It was known back then that Kerry and company were trying to negotiate some kind of deal with the Iranian mullahs.  I saw a mention of this on Breitbart’s website last week, something to the effect that Buchanan trusts Iran more than he trusts Israel.  I don’t read that at all.  Here’s what Buchanan actually wrote under the headline “A Deal With Iran – or War With Iran?”  It depends on who you’re talking to.  The idea that you would prefer war over a peace pact or an attempt at peace, to me, is preposterous, but that’s just me.  Buchanan wrote this:

[reading]

Which is exactly what Bibi wants.

For what terrifies Tel Aviv, and rattles Riyadh, is not a U.S. war with Iran, but the awful specter of American rapprochement with Iran, a detente.

Thus, when France’s foreign minister torpedoed the deal John Kerry flew to Geneva to sign, France soared in neocon esteem. The “cheese-eating surrender monkeys ” of 2003 who opposed the Iraq war suddenly became again the heroes of Verdun and the Marne.

“Vive La France” blared the Wall Street Journal editorial declaiming, “Francois Hollande’s Socialist Government has saved the West from a deal that would all but guarantee that Iran becomes a nuclear power.”

Did Hollande really save the West? Or did he just rack up points with the Saudi princes for when the next big arms contract comes up for bid? [Mike: It’s all about money folks, all about following the money trail.]

What is going on is a gravely serious matter.

If the Netanyahu cabal succeeds in sabotaging U.S. negotiations with Iran, it is hard to see how we avoid another war that could set the Persian Gulf region ablaze and sink the global economy.

And just what is it that has Netanyahu apoplectic?

A six-month deal under which Iran would freeze all enrichment of uranium, in return for a modest lifting of sanctions, while the final agreement is negotiated. The final deal would put permanent limits and controls on Iran’s nuclear program to ensure it is not used to build bombs.

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And there would be more and more intrusive inspections.

How would this imperil Israel?

Iran today has no atom bomb. Has never tested a bomb. Has never exploded a nuclear device. Possesses not a single known ounce of 90 percent enriched uranium, which is essential for a uranium bomb.

Nor does Iran have enough 20 percent uranium to make a bomb. And part of the stockpile it did have has been converted into fuel rods. There are inspectors in all of Iran’s operating nuclear facilities.

The Ayatollah has declared a fatwa against nuclear weapons. The Hassan Rouhani regime says it has no nuclear weapons program.

And U.S. intelligence agrees with Iran.

All 16 U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007, and, again, two years ago, said, with high confidence, that Iran has made no decision to build a bomb and has no nuclear weapons program.

How would new restrictions and reductions on an Iranian nuclear program that has never produced an ounce of weapons-grade uranium, let alone a bomb, threaten Israel, with its hundreds of atom bombs?

[end reading]

Mike:  By the bye, I wonder if the crowd that’s demanding that the inspections be doubled and tripled and double secret probationed in Iran are going to lobby for the same inspectors to be allowed into Israel, where they are currently not allowed, as I understand it.

Eric:  Or Pakistan.

Mike:  Exactly.  We know that the Pakis have a bomb.

Eric:  A lot more of a weaker government there as well.  I think that’s a much more volatile situation than worrying about if the Iranians can muster up one nuclear weapon that probably wouldn’t be pointed at us.  I’m not sure what’s going on.

Mike:  And think about this, Eric.  What is the other point?  What are we currently doing?  We did something last week in Pakistan.  Do you remember what it was?

Eric:  We droned somebody.

Mike:  We droned somebody back into the stone ages.  We left a crater somewhere.  [mocking] “We got to the bottom of it.  We took out a terror cell.”  Over Pakistani airspace?  Most people call that an act of war.  What do you guys call it?  [mocking] “We had good intelligence.”  We’re actually dropping ordnance in a country where we know they have a nuclear device, and then we’re telling the rest of the world: We’re not going to have any peace negotiations with that other country.  It doesn’t have one.  It doesn’t even have the material to make one.  I think you’re spot on, young Eric.

Understand, though, the concern — I shouldn’t say no one is concerned with a bomb, because I’m sure that they are.  The geopolitical concern is in keeping the current powers aligned the way they are to the benefit of whoever it is that supplies all the arms in the various arms races.  The Russkies have a stake in it.  We have the largest stake in it.  As Buchanan points out, the French have a stake in it.  We all have a stake in assuring that there is no kind of lasting peace or that a cloud of peace descends, or that a cloud of — I don’t want to say disarmament — modesty descends on the Middle East.  It’s in everyone’s business interest for this to continue, in other words.  Back to Buchanan, so all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies said they don’t have a nuke, speaking of the Iranians.

[reading]

All 16 U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007, and, again, two years ago, said, with high confidence, that Iran has made no decision to build a bomb and has no nuclear weapons program.

How would new restrictions and reductions on an Iranian nuclear program that has never produced an ounce of weapons-grade uranium, let alone a bomb, threaten Israel, with its hundreds of atom bombs?

“You can’t trust the Iranians. They’re lying about their nuclear program,” says Lindsey Graham.

Is U.S. intelligence also lying?

Ten years ago, it turned out Saddam was telling the truth and it was Lindsey’s friends doing the lying about Iraq’s WMDs.

Looks like the same old crowd up to the same old tricks.

To abort Obama’s Iran initiative, Bibi is moving on four tracks.

First, get Congress to accept Israel’s nonnegotiable demand — Iran must give up all enrichment, shut down all nuclear facilities and ship all enriched uranium abroad — before any sanctions are lifted.

This is an ultimatum masquerading as a negotiating position.

Acceptance would entail an Iranian surrender Rouhani could never take home. It is a deal killer. Everyone knows it, even the Republicans now embracing the Israeli position as their own.

Second, persuade Israel’s collaborators in Congress to impose harsh new sanctions, rub Iran’s nose in them, and scuttle the talks.

Third, arouse Jewish communities worldwide to pressure home governments to block any deal.

Sunday, Bibi told the General Assembly of Jewish Federations of North America that what Kerry was prepared to sign was a “bad and dangerous deal” that threatened Jewish survival, and, “on matters of Jewish survival, I will not be silenced.”

Bibi intends to use the explosive issue of imperiled Jewish survival to break Obama and Kerry and force them to abandon their Iranian initiative.

Finally, the Israeli lobby is behind the push by Lindsay Graham and Rep. Trent Franks to have Congress preemptively surrender its war powers, by authorizing Obama to launch a war on Iran at a time of his own choosing, without any further consultation with Congress.

[end reading]

Mike:  I had forgotten about this.  You see now that members of Congress that are all jawboning out there about the dangers that are posed by trying to act peaceful with a country like Iran, this is when they want to seize their foreign policy powers under the Constitution.  Then and only then, when the president fails to bomb or fails to threaten to bomb.  Buchanan agrees:

[reading]

Remarkable. Self-proclaimed constitutional Republicans are about to vote Barack Obama a blank check for war.

What the GOP fears is another episode like the one last summer where America rose as one and told Congress not to authorize any war on Syria. A panicked Congress capitulated, and there was no war.

Today, though Obama and Kerry insist “all options are on the table,” Obama has no more authority to attack Iran today than he did Syria last summer. Hill Republicans seek to remedy that by a preemptive congressional surrender of their war power. [Mike: This is actually quite remarkable, folks, it really is.]

One wonders if Netanyahu and his amen corner in Congress have considered the backlash worldwide should they succeed in scuttling Geneva and putting this nation on the fast track to another Mideast war Israel and Saudi may want but America does not.

[end reading]

Mike:  An interesting and provocative and timely take from Patrick J. Buchanan, even though it comes from two weeks ago on the subject of this deal that’s been made with the Iranians.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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