That is, of course, if you assume that the mullahs haven't already attained "nuclear breakout" a long time ago. Which I certainly do not, as I believe (1) they already have nukes and (2) could have built their first warhead as much as six years ago, which would leave them in possession of perhaps dozens of nukes by this time.
But we're talking about The One's trademark deceitfulness, which (1) isn't news and (2) seems odd to interrupt by coming clean about a much shorter "breakout" window now if the idea is to sell his "deal" to Congress and the American people:
The Obama administration has estimated for years that Iran was at most three months away from enriching enough nuclear fuel for an atomic bomb. But the administration only declassified this estimate at the beginning of the month, just in time for the White House to make the case for its Iran deal to Congress and the public.
Speaking to reporters and editors at our Washington bureau on Monday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz acknowledged that the U.S. has assessed for several years that Iran has been two to three months away from producing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
When asked how long the administration has held this assessment, Moniz said: "Oh, quite some time." He added: "They are now, they are right now spinning, I mean enriching with 9,400 centrifuges out of their roughly 19,000. Plus all the ... [research and development] work. If you put that together it's very, very little time to go forward. That's the two to three months."
Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed to me Monday that the two-to-three-month estimate for fissile material was declassified on April 1st.
Here is the puzzling thing: When Obama began his second term in 2013, he sang a different tune. He emphasized that Iran was more than a year away from a nuclear bomb, without mentioning that his intelligence community believed it was only two to three months away from making enough fuel for one, long considered the most challenging task in building a weapon.
Today Obama emphasizes that Iran is only two to three months away from acquiring enough fuel for a bomb, creating a sense of urgency for his Iran agreement.
Attempting to create a sense of urgency for his Iran agreement, you mean. And as a practical matter, I don't see a whole lot of difference between three months and twelve in this regard. But then, that sought-after urgency runs counter to the rank surrender that O's "Iran agreement" really is, and the mullahs are already declaring that they're going to ignore it anyway. Plus they're already calling BS on the White House's pathetic dissembling as to what the agreement actually says. Which brings us back 'round to Obama's senseless and pointless deceitfulness about it and everything related to it.
Here's my best attempt at a useful rule-of-thumb, back-of-the-envelope guide for this idiocy: Barack Obama will always tell the truth to those he considers his friends and allies, and he will always lie to those he perceives as his enemies. Which means that he's honest as the day is long with the mullahs, ISIS, the NoKos, the ChiComms, Vlad Putin, the Castro brothers, et al, and lies like a rug to the E.U., Israel, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, et al, and to We, The People.
Consequently, in the context of the Iran nuclear talks, it is the mullahs who will tell us what's really in any proposed agreement in inverse proportion to whether or not it is in our interests and favor.
Hope that helps. It sure would have saved Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA22), the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a lot of time and effort:
"We've been researching their claim that a deal would lengthen the breakout time for Iran from two to three months to a year," he told me of the administration. "We're just trying to confirm any of their numbers and we can't confirm or make sense of what they are referencing."
Don't bother, Mr. Chairman. Nobody understands Common Core math anyway.
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