
A new report reveals Obama misled the public about a quiet giveaway to Iran - shawndumas
http://www.vox.com/world/2017/4/24/15407078/obama-iran-prison-swap
======
tomohawk
Interfering in DoJ law enforcement, trading a bunch of Iranian spies and money
for some people caught up in the Iranian police state, and then lying about
it. For what? An unverifiable deal that blesses Iran as the hegemon of the
middle east?

That's just the icing on the echo chamber cake that the Obama white house used
to sell the deal

[http://freebeacon.com/national-security/wh-partner-asked-
sor...](http://freebeacon.com/national-security/wh-partner-asked-soros-to-
fund-echo-chamber/)

[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/06/obama-aide-
rhodes...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/06/obama-aide-rhodes-
claims-built-echo-chamber-to-sell-iran-deal.html)

According to Ben Rhodes:

“Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The
average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting
experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change.
They literally know nothing,” he said.

------
wahern

      What’s important to note here is that Iran’s progress
      developing those centrifuges — the ones Jamili was allegedly
      helping procure parts for — is part of what prompted the
      Obama administration to try to negotiate the nuclear deal in
      the first place. In other words, its prisoner swap
      undermined its own nonproliferation objectives.
    

How does inking a deal which verifiably stopped the uranium refinement program
undermine the objective of stopping the uranium refinement program? If the
swap was part of the larger quid pro quo and wasn't unpalatable, so be it. And
so what if one of the guys was procuring parts for IEDs? It's despicable, but
given that the alternative was initiating yet another war in the Middle East
with more American casualties, I think we could hold our nose. I think I'll
give Obama a pass for spinning the moral culpability of the prisoners.

    
    
      A number of them were involved in helping Iran procure
      lethal technology for its military
    

_Lethal_ military technology? Is there any other kind? This author is really
struggling to create controversy here.

How about all these pundits put their collective heads together and try to
figure a way out of the North Korean situation. That's a real dilemma, with a
high likelihood of hundreds of thousands of deaths, including many thousands
of deaths of American soldiers. If only solving it were as easy as the Iranian
situation.

------
Jabanga
There's actually never been any proof provided that Iran had a nuclear weapons
program. The evidence available says that Iran _might_ have had a weapons
program before 2003. This is according to the IAEA.

The US National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the Iranian nuclear
weapon's program ended in 2003:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran)

So when the article says the prisoner was helping "Iran's nuclear weapon's
program", that's a provocative and unsubstantiated allegation.

