The
Iran nuclear deal will cause no qualitative change in the dynamics of
the Middle East regional crisis. The change expected will be
quantitative in nature. The wars in the region will intensify, the
warring parties will become even more ...View full schedule.http://mebriefing.com/?p=1808&utm_source=MEB+VOL+-+II_+Issue+86_July+18th+2015&utm_campaign=VOL+II+-+Issue+86&utm_medium=email
Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire - Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry. Nuclear Activities
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Friends say seven-month Middle East tour 'changed' Chattanooga terrorist as it's revealed he lost his job as a nuclear engineer for failing a background security check
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3166049/Marine-murderer-fired-FirstEnergy-Corp-nuclear-engineer-just-10-days.html
AIPAC and Its “Better” Iran Deal
http://www.lobelog.com/aipac-
Well, it’s finally upon us. The nation’s most influential Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is declaring war on the Iran nuclear deal, a signature achievement of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. AIPAC has at long last come out directly against the deal, urging Congress to vote against it in order to scuttle the accord. (According to a recently passed law, if Obama cannot sustain a promised veto against a resolution of disapproval in either chamber, he will be barred from issuing the sanctions relief central to a deal.)
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to go check out their objections for yourself—except to note briefly that I think their goals for talks were, from the get-go, unattainable, and remain so. I mention this because what I do want to discuss is what AIPAC wants to happen next. As I said, they hope Congress will scuttle the current deal. Here’s how their press release concludes: http://www.lobelog.com/aipac-and-its-better-iran-deal/#more-30133
AIPAC and Its “Better” Iran Deal
by Ali GharibWell, it’s finally upon us. The nation’s most influential Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is declaring war on the Iran nuclear deal, a signature achievement of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. AIPAC has at long last come out directly against the deal, urging Congress to vote against it in order to scuttle the accord. (According to a recently passed law, if Obama cannot sustain a promised veto against a resolution of disapproval in either chamber, he will be barred from issuing the sanctions relief central to a deal.)
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to go check out their objections for yourself—except to note briefly that I think their goals for talks were, from the get-go, unattainable, and remain so. I mention this because what I do want to discuss is what AIPAC wants to happen next. As I said, they hope Congress will scuttle the current deal. Here’s how their press release concludes: http://www.lobelog.com/aipac-and-its-better-iran-deal/#more-30133
ANs Update: Friday Nuclear Matinee – Nuclear Plant Safety Systems
Updates from ANS Nuclear Cafe Blog
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Obama’s Leap of Faith on Iran
Obama’s Leap of Faith on Iran
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-us.htmlThe Nuclear Physicist Answering Lawmakers’ Questions on Iran Deal
The Nuclear Physicist Answering Lawmakers’ Questions on Iran Deal
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a former MIT professor, lauded in Congress as Obama administration’s most credible source of information on accord
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nuclear-physicist-answering-lawmakers-questions-on-iran-deal-1437084084
Iran's Nuclear Energy Rap Video Sing along: "An armed Persian Gulf is our absolute right."
Iran's Nuclear Energy Rap Video
Sing along: "An armed Persian Gulf is our absolute right."
https://reason.com/blog/2015/07/18/irans-nuclear-energy-rap-video
Friday, July 17, 2015
A Nuclear Deal with Chinese Characteristics: China’s Role in the P5+1 Talks with Iran By Emma Scott
A Nuclear Deal with Chinese Characteristics: China’s Role in the P5+1 Talks with Iran
By Emma Scott
Beijing
welcomed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed on July
14 between the members of the P5+1 group (the United States, the United
Kingdom, France, China, Russia plus Germany) and Iran. As a new phase in
Iran’s interaction with the world is about to begin, it is worthwhile
considering the role China played in its nuclear development and the
possible directions of China-Iran relations.
Guest Post by Uri Avnery: The Treaty
July
18, 2015
AND WHAT if the whole
drama was only an exercise of deception?
What if the wily
Persians did not even dream of building an atomic bomb, but used the threat to
further their real aims?
What if Binyamin
Netanyahu was duped to become unwittingly the main collaborator of Iranian
ambitions?
Sounds crazy? Not
really. Let's have a look at the facts.
IRAN IS one of the
oldest powers in the world, with thousands of years of political experience.
Once they possessed an empire that spanned the civilized world, including our
little country. Their reputation for clever trade practices is unequaled.
They are much too
clever to build a nuclear weapon. What for? It would devour huge amounts of
money. They know that they would never be able to use it. Same as Israel,
with its large stockpile.
Netanyahu's nightmare
of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel
is just that – a nightmare (or daymare) of an ignorant dilettante. Israel is a
nuclear power with a solid second-strike capability. As we see, the Iranian
leaders are hard-boiled realists. Would they even dream of inviting an
inevitable Israeli retaliation that would wipe from the face of the earth their
three-millennia-old civilization?
(If this capability is
defective, Netanyahu should be charged and convicted for criminal negligence.)
Even if the Iranians
did deceive the whole world and build a nuclear bomb, nothing would happen
except the creation of a "balance of terror", such as saved the world
at the height of the cold war between America
and Russia.
The people around
Netanyahu pretend to believe that, unlike the then Soviets, the Iranian mullahs
are crazy people. There is absolutely no evidence for that. Since their 1979
revolution, the Iranian leadership has not made one single important step that
was not absolutely rational. Compared to American missteps in the region (not
to mention the Israeli ones), the Iranian leadership has been thoroughly
logical.
So perhaps they traded
their nonexistent nuclear designs for their very real political design: to
become the hegemon of the Muslim world.
If so, they owe a lot
to Netanyahu.
WHAT HAS the Islamic
Republic ever done in its 45 years of existence to harm Israel?
Sure. Tehran
crowds can be seen on television burning Israeli flags and shouting "Death
to Israel".
They call us, not flatteringly, "the Little Satan", as compared to
the American "Great Satan".
Terrible. But what
else?
Not much. Perhaps some
support for Hezbollah and Hamas, which were not their creation. Iran's real
fight is against the powers that be in the Muslim world. They want to turn the
region's countries into Iranian vassals, as they were 2400 years ago.
This has very little
to do with Islam. Iran uses
Islam as Israel uses Zionism
and the Jewish Diaspora (and as Russia
in the past used communism) as a tool for its imperial ambitions.
What is happening now
in this region resembles the "religious wars" in 17th
century Europe. A dozen countries fought each
other in the name of religion, under the flags of Catholicism and
Protestantism, but in reality using religion to further their very earthly
imperial designs.
The US, led by a bunch of neocon fools, destroyed Iraq, which for
many centuries had served as the bulwark of the Arab world against Iranian
expansion. Now, under the banner of the Shia, Iran is expanding its power all
over the Region.
Shiite Iraq is now to
a large extent an Iranian vassal (we'll come back to Daesh). The leaders of Syria, a Sunni country ruled by a small
semi-Shiite sect, depend on Iran
for their survival. In Lebanon,
the Shiite Hezbollah is a close ally with growing power and prestige. So is
Hamas in Gaza,
which is entirely Sunni. And the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are Zaidis (a school of
the Shia.)
The status quo
in the Arab world is defended by a corrupt bunch of dictators and medieval
sheiks, such as the rulers of Saudi Arabia,
Egypt
and the Gulf oil potentates.
Clearly, Iran and its allies are the wave of the future, Saudi Arabia
and its allies belong to the past.
That leaves Daesh, the
Sunni "Islamic State" in Syria
and Iraq.
That is also a rising power. Unlike Iran, whose revolutionary élan long
ago exhausted itself, Daesh is radiating revolutionary fervor, attracting
adherents from all over the world.
Daesh is the real
enemy of Iran – and of Israel.
PRESIDENT OBAMA and
his advisors realized this some time ago. Their new alliance with Iran is partly
based on this reality.
With the advent of
Daesh, realities on the ground have changed completely. The shift reaffirms the
old British maxim that one's enemies in one war can well become one's allies in
the next, and vice versa. Far from being naïve, Obama is building an alliance
against the new and very dangerous enemy. This alliance should logically include
Bashar Assad's Syria,
but Obama is still afraid of saying so aloud.
Obama and his advisors
also believe that with the lifting of the crippling sanctions, Iranians will
concentrate on making money, lessening their nationalist and religious fervor
even more. That sounds reasonable enough.
(Netanyahu thinks the
American people are "naïve".
Well, for a naïve nation the US has done quite well in becoming
the world's only super-power.)
One by-product of the
situation is that Israel
is again at loggerheads with the entire political world. The Vienna
treaty was signed not just by the US, but by all leading world
powers. This seems to create the situation described by a jolly popular Israeli
song: "The whole world is against us / But we don't give a damn…"
Unfortunately, unlike
Obama, Netanyahu is stuck in the past. He continues demonizing Iran, instead of joining it in the fight against
Daesh, which is far, far more dangerous to Israel.
One does not have to
go back to Cyrus the Great (6th century B.C.) to realize that Iran can be a
close ally. In the relations between nations, geography trumps religion. Not so
long ago, Iran was Israel's
closest ally in the region. We even sent Khomeini arms to fight Iraq. The
Mullahs hate Israel
not so much because of their religion, but because of our alliance with the
Shah.
The present Iranian
regime has long since lost its revolutionary religious fervor. It is acting
according to its national interests. Geography still counts. A wise Israeli
government would use the next ten-or-more years of a guaranteed nuclear-free Iran in order
to renew the alliance – especially against Daesh.
This could mean new
relations with Assad's Syria,
Hezbollah and Hamas too.
BUT SUCH far-reaching
considerations are far from the mind of Netanyahu, the son of a historian, who
is devoid of any historical knowledge or intuition.
The fight is now going
to Washington DC, where Netanyahu will be fully committed
as a mercenary of Sheldon Adelson, the owner of the Republican Party.
It is a sorry sight:
the State of Israel,
which has always enjoyed the full unblinking support of both American parties,
has become an appendix of the reactionary Republican leadership.
One victim of this is
the legend of the "invincible" pro-Israeli lobby. This crucial asset
has now been lost. From now on, AIPAC will be just one of the many lobbies on
Capitol Hill.
AN EVEN sorrier sight
is Israel's political and
media elite on the morrow of the signing of the Vienna treaty. It was almost incredible.
Almost all political
parties fell in line with Netanyahu's policy, competing with each other in
their demonstrations of abject loyalty. From the "leader of the
opposition", the pitiful Yitzhak Herzog, to the voluble Yair Lapid,
everybody rushed to support the Prime
Minister at this crucial hour.
The media were even
worse. Almost all prominent commentators, left and right, ran amok against the
'disastrous" treaty and heaped their uniform disgust and contempt on poor
Obama, as if reading from a prepared government "list of arguments"
(as indeed they were).
Not the finest hour of
Israeli democracy and the much lauded "Jewish brain". Just a
despicable example of all-too-common brain-washing. Some would call it
presstitution.
One of Netanyahu's
arguments is that the Iranians can and will cheat the naive Americans and build
the bomb. He is sure that this is possible. Well, he should know. We did it,
didn't we?
Russia can fund SA’s nuclear plan
Russia can fund SA’s nuclear plan
http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/russia-can-fund-sa-s-nuclear-plan-1.1886648#.VamAd_nlxbI
Does Nuclear Agreement Strengthen Iran’s Drive To Be A Regional Power?
Does Nuclear Agreement Strengthen Iran’s Drive To Be A Regional Power?
http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/07/15/does-nuclear-agreement-strengthen-iran-s-drive-to-be-regional-power/idf6
Nuclear Extortion: Pioneered by North Korea, Perfected by Iran
Nuclear Extortion: Pioneered by North Korea, Perfected by Iran
http://canadafreepress.com/article/73813
Chattanooga gunman Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez lived, worked in Northeast Ohio
Read this carefully
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/
Chattanooga gunman Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez lived, worked in Northeast Ohio
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/
Why This Man Supports Iran Deal — Despite Bibi's Bluster
Why This Man Supports Iran Deal — Despite Bibi's Bluster
J.J. GoldbergJuly 16, 2015 “There is no ideal world, and there are no ideal agreements,” says Ami Ayalon, a former director of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service. “And let me add that there is no ideal Middle East.”http://forward.com/opinion/312158/this-man-explains-why-iran-deal-is-good-for-israel/
Nugen's AP1000 nuclear reactor - is it any better than the EPR?
Nugen's AP1000 nuclear reactor - is it any better than the EPR?
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/Blogs/2952108/moorsides_ap1000_nuclear_design_is_any_better_than_the_epr.html
The GOP's Iran Dilemma
| The GOP's Iran DilemmaBy Patrick J. Buchanan | |
 |
Netanyahu
and AIPAC, the Saudis and Gulf Arabs, will demand that Congress kill
the Iran deal that Lindsey Graham says is a "death sentence for the
State of Israel." -http://www.
|
White House taps fifth regulator for Nuclear Regulatory Commission
White House taps fifth regulator for Nuclear Regulatory Commission
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/white-house-taps-fifth-regulator-for-nuclear-regulatory-commission/402455/
PennEnergy Power Perspectives and Top Power Headlines
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Natural gas surpasses coal as biggest US electric power generation source
Natural gas overtook coal
as the top source of U.S. electric power generation for the first time
ever earlier this year, a milestone that has been in the making for
years as the price of gas slides and new regulations make coal more
risky for power generators. …
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The Radwaste Summit September 8-11, Summerlin, Nevada
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Fukushima Update 7/16/15
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