Senator Ted Cruz has just promised that if he becomes President of the United States he will do all he can to bring about the death of the current Head of State of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its Vilayat-el-faqih, or "Supreme Jurisprudent," Ali Khameini. It is true that he was not popularly elected, in contrast to Iran's President, Mahmoud Rouhani, but he is indeed the Commander-in-Chief of its military, which is what is crucial for the matter of nuclear weapons policy, which, presumably, is why Cruz wants to off him.
Apparently Cruz is unaware of the fact that after Iran halted its nuclear weapons program after the US invaded Iraq over a decade ago, Khameini issued fatwas against nuclear weapons, which are still in place. As it is, if Cruz is aware of this, he probably believes that Khameini was lying when he issued those fatwas, even though official US National Intelligence Estimates supported by all 17 publicly known US intelligence agencies have agreed that Iran has not had an active nuclear weapons program since 2003.
Frankly, at this point in time, Senator Cruz looks like a much bigger threat to world peace than does the Ayatollah Khameini.
Barkley Rosser
3 comments:
Cruz is just signalling that he is a true inmate of the asylum - not one of the staff just pretending to be mad.
The Iran deal is looking like an extraordinarily dexterous piece of diplomacy. There is no way out for the US (the rest of the P5+1 will ignore US pressure, the deal is immune at the UN, and anything the US comes up with on Iranian "cheating" will be blatantly false, since there never was an Iranian nuclear program in the first place). Iran first fed US delusions until they were completely unhinged, and then sold the US the "cure".
Peter,
My only disagreement is that prior to 2003 it appears that there was a nuclear weapons program, although its origins predate the 1979 Islamic Revolution when the US was supporting the Shah in his nuclear ambitions, with US support for Iran's civilian nuclear program dating to the 1950s and the aftermath of the US-UK-arranged coup that pushed Mossadegh out and put the Shah back into power, under the aegis of Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program.
The closing down of the Iraninan nuclear weapons program was one of the few arguably good things that came out of the US invation of Iraq, although President Khatami had been trying to shut it down anyway. It was at that time that Valiyat-el-faqih Khameini issued the frist of his anti-nuclear weapons fatwas, since renewed.
As it is one of the final bugaboos that deal opponents in the US Congress and Israel were hyperventilating about was the secrecy of the side agreements between Iran and the IAEA regarding activities at the Parchin military base. What that is all about is that Parchin was where some of the most advanced activities prior to 2003 were thought to be taking place. The IAEA is supposed to figure out just how far they got with their bomb triggers and other stuff, none of this going on at all since 2003 according to anybody, but, wow, it is a secret agreement! Although that secrecy reportedly involves the use of sources who could lose their lives if revealed. Such was the last ditch effort to block the deal, let us blow up the deal to check on just how far they got a dozzen years ago when they finally stopped actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
It's possible that there was a program. The IAEA never turned up anything definitive, AFAIK, and scientists will tinker - especially with cutting-edge stuff. But I strongly doubt there was an official commitment - that would need major resources, and hence come with oversight, budgets and all the rest.
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