Subject: Re: Vance Failed. No Deal.
So no deal on Earth is going to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon. That's what you're arguing. Curious coming from someone so in favor of the JCPOA.

That's not what I'm saying.

If they have the ability to develop a nuclear weapon in secret, without anyone being able to detect them, then no deal on Earth will be able to constrain them from getting a nuclear weapon. Monitoring will be completely ineffective. But that would mean that Trump's proposal for the end of the Iran war would be just as idiotic as you claim the JCPOA was, since Iran could simply agree to his terms, get all the sanctions released and their funds unfrozen, and just run out and build their nuclear device in secret (with the uranium we give them for free!).

You need that predicate to be false for Trump's proposal not to be idiotic. It would have to be true that Iran can't actually hide uranium enrichment above power plant levels, that if they were moving towards a nuclear weapon rather than energy use we'd be able to detect it. That would make Trump's proposal not idiotic - but it would also make the JCPOA not idiotic as well.

That's my point. If Trump's proposed end state for the Iran war isn't idiotic and just a "false sense of security," then the same was true for the JCPOA - they both rely on the exact same thing to prevent Iran from being able to get a nuclear weapon, namely that Iran can't completely evade detection if they convert from civilian nuclear energy to moving to weapons.

4% matters. Add up all the couch cushion change and pretty soon you have real money.

Unless there isn't any real money in the couch cushions.

It's just 4%. It's not enough to justify building a pipeline to Israel. Especially when you already have the pipeline to the Red Sea, which can then be used to ship oil directly through the Suez Canal or through the Sumed pipeline to Alexandria. There's no economic case for it, and no security case for it - it's too small a flow.