1/ Despite the success of @realDonaldTrump 's withdrawal from the fraudulent nuclear deal with Iran, Obama admin shills like @brhodes , @wendyrsherman and @tparsi have been pushing a false narrative about this decision. This narrative is based on 5 myths about the US withdrawal
./2 Myth #1: Myth 1: The JCPOA is a good agreement. Easily disprovable since does not stop Iran from nuclear weapons-related work and allow it to enrich uranium with over 5000 centrifuges while agreement is in force. Also weak verification and left out missile program . . .
./3 Many other problems and issues, such as excluding Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and meddling in ME conflicts. Also over $150 billion in sanctions. But the strongest argument against the JCPOA comes from Barack Obama's own words . . .
.4/ Obama said when campaigning in 2007: "The world must work to stop Iran’s uranium-enrichment program.” During an October 2012 presidential debate with he said: “… Our goal is to get Iran to recognize it needs to give up its nuclear program and abide by the UN resolutions…
./5 Obama continued . . . " But the deal we’ll accept is — they end their nuclear program. It’s very straightforward.” Needless to say, the JCPOA does not come close to doing what Obama promised as a candidate and president.
./6 Myth #2: President Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was illegal and immoral because the agreement is legally binding. False, because the Obama admin refused to submit the JCPOA for ratification by the US Senate as a treaty even though it was ratified by Iran's parliament.
./7 The Obama admin tried to make the JCPOA binding on future presidents by having it endorsed by the UN Security Council with a Chapter VII resolution. A clever move, but Presidents cant end-run the Senate and the US Constitution by going to the UN.
.8/ Myth #3: The U.S. should not have withdrawn from the JCPOA because Iran was complying. We know this because the IAEA & the US Intelligence Community said so.
./8 In fact Iran has violated the JCPOA from the beginning when it failed to provide a full and honest account of its past nuclear work. Israeli intelligence obtained conclusive evidence of this from the "nuclear archive" documents it obtained from Iran last year.
./9 The Nuclear archive documents proved Iran had:
— A plan to manufacture five nuclear warheads at 10 kilotons each.
— A plan to conduct an underground nuclear test.
— Attempted to acquire highly-enriched uranium (weapons-grade) from abroad.
— A plan to manufacture five nuclear warheads at 10 kilotons each.
— A plan to conduct an underground nuclear test.
— Attempted to acquire highly-enriched uranium (weapons-grade) from abroad.
./10 By not declaring these activities, Iran violated paragraph 14 of the JCPOA which required Iran to fully cooperate with an ongoing IAEA investigation of the “Possible Military Dimensions” (PMD) of its nuclear program.
.11/ So why has the IAEA and US intel community continue to say Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA? The IAEA appears to have a "don't ask, don't inspect" policy under which, to avoid finding JCPOA violations, it refuses to ask to inspect suspect locations like military bases.
./12 The US intel community was too close to the Obama admin on the JCPOA and appears to be defending it despite clear evidence of the agreement's weaknesses and Iranian cheating.
./13 The intel community also may be "gun shy" on making provocative conclusions of WMD topics due to the aftermath of its erroneous analysis of Iraq's WMD programs.
./14 Myth 4: The United States should have stayed in JCPOA and fixed it. This is a fallacy since fixing the Iran deal would require Iran cease enriching uranium (which fortunately is the position of the Trump admin) adding Iran's missile program, much stronger inspections . . .
./15 . . . & Iran's sponsorship of terrorism. Some experts claim the JCPOA could be fixed by merely removing or extending its sunset clauses. This also is a fallacy since such a fix would not address the JCPOA's major weaknesses and would lock in place a deeply flawed agreement
./16 Myth 5: President Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA would be ineffective and could cause a war. Both claims are obviously false. @realDonaldTrump 's withdrawal from the JCPOA has been extremely effective, put huge pressure on the Iranian economy . . .
./17 . . . and resulted in new US sanctions that are being complied with by European multinationals. The argument that a US withdrawal would cause a war is like the boy who cried wolf. JCPOA supporters used this to justify the agreement too. President Trump doesnt want a war.
./18 A related argument is that the US should remain in the agreement because Iran will attack US interests and launch new acts of terrorism if it withdraws. This argument boils down to "Iran will behave badly if the US pulls out of the Iran deal so the US should not withdraw."
./19 Such flawed logic doesn't support the case that the JCPOA is a good agreement. Moreover, the US shouldn't remain in an agreement because the other party will respond with violence if it withdraws. An agreement based on blackmail is obviously not legitimate.
./20 But also consider that Iran is already behaving badly -- its sponsorship of terrorism and meddling in the region increased after the JCPOA was agreed to. So its proponents are really arguing is that the US should not withdraw from the deal because Iran would behave WORSE.
./21 Iran's already belligerent and destabilizing behavior are reasons to withdraw from the JCPOA, not to remain in it because such behavior would worsen after a US withdrawal.
./22 So despite misleading arguments by @brhodes , @wendyrsherman , @tparsi and other JCPOA supporters, @realDonaldTrump was on solid ground to withdraw from the agreement and his withdrawal has been a huge success. Check out my article on this: centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2019/05/14/fiv…
