West of Eden: Throwing up Hurdles

In a medieval Persian Megillat Esther, the queen negotiates with the king over the status of the Jews, while Haman, back left, tries to torpedo the deal.

Ex-Advisers Warn Obama That Iran Nuclear Deal ‘May Fall Short’ of Standards

So runs the headline of a story by David Sanger in yesterday's Times, and the first paragraph goes on to tell us,

President Obama’s inner circle of Iran advisers have written an open letter expressing concern that a pending accord to stem&nbspIran’s nuclear program “may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement” and laying out a series of minimum requirements that Iran must agree to in coming days for them to support a final deal.

The bad faith of this opening is just astounding. The letter, as you can see by looking at it, was not written by "five former members of Obama's circle of Iran advisers" but by a "Bipartisan Group of American Diplomats, Legislators, Policymakers, and Experts", 19 in all, of whom

not every member of the group endorses every judgment or recommendation. Members of the group endorse this statement in their personal capacities; institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only.

One of the Obama's Iran advisers in the list is disgraced criminal David Petraeus, who as Director of Central Intelligence directed black operations against Iran, which is not the same thing as advising the president on Iran; another is Dennis Ross, who was essentially fired from the Iran portfolio in the State Department after six months on the job, in June 2009 because of his unsuppressable bias against Iran, and moved into the White House where there were forces (special envoy George Mitchell) that could counterbalance him, lasting until 2011. Then there is former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James "Hoss" Cartwright, who is under investigation for "an alleged leak of classified information regarding the Stuxnet virus, designed to target and (at least temporarily) disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges, as part of Operation Olympic Games".

The list also includes Bush administration officials Paula Dobriansky, Robert Blackwill, and torture defender Stephen Hadley. And ex-Democratic senator Joseph Likud Lieberman, the prima donna who worked to destroy the Obama domestic program in its first couple of years. Why we should care what this group supports or doesn't support is not addressed.

This statement has not been endorsed by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy [which issued the document], its Board of Trustees or its Board of Advisors, and it should not be construed as representing their views.

And what do they want? One of the more or less "wet" members of the group, former member of the Iran negotiating team Robert Einhorn, is quoted as saying that

all the signatories supported a negotiated settlement, and “there is no poison pill here” intended to undercut the chance of an agreement

but insist on several items that take a poison pill form, demanding US inspections of any and all Iranian military sites, full accounts of Iranian nuclear research from before 2002 (even though as Kerry says the US has "absolute knowledge" of these activities), and assurances that the agreement will stay in force after it is over:

that the United States publicly declare — with congressional assent — that even after the expiration of the agreement Iran will not be permitted to possess enough nuclear fuel to make a single weapon. The letter continued, “Precisely because Iran will be left as a nuclear threshold state (and has clearly preserved the option of becoming a nuclear weapon state), the United States must go on record now that it is committed to using all means necessary, including military force, to prevent this.”

What's going on here is clearly a last-ditch push to stop the deal into which Sanger has allowed himself to be inveigled. Another prong of the effort, also in the Times, is the demonized portrayal of the Supreme Leader as determined to prevent an agreement, which we've noticed before, and which continues apace:

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Khamenei, Seems to Pull Back on Nuclear Talks

Or, putting it more precisely, repeated some possibly problematic things he's been saying for some months, although maybe they're not problematic at all:

“My best judgment is that this is about leverage,” Cliff Kupchan, the chairman of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consulting firm in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “This is the last time to get the best possible deal. I think what he’s shooting for is the most sanctions relief he can get as soon as he can get it, and the least intrusive inspection regime going forward.”

And you can guess, obviously, who's behind it, in language befitting a Donald Trump:

Iran Deal Is ‘Terrible,’ Netanyahu Says

BY Reuters | Jun. 22, 2015 | 0:53

The Israeli prime minister said the nuclear deal was getting “worse by the day,” urging Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States not to sign the agreement.