Iran Nuclear Cartoon

Obama puts nuclear deal into effect, but Iran still likely months away from sanction relief

President Obama on Sunday signed the Iran nuclear deal, officially putting the international agreement into effect.
The president’s signature opens the way for Iran to make major changes to an underground nuclear facility, a heavy water reactor and a site for enriching uranium.
However, the rogue nation will need months to meet those goals and get relief from the crippling economic sanction that will be lifted as part of deal, despite the pact going into effect Sunday.
The seven-nation deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was reached on July 14, after roughly two years of negotiations.
The so-called “Adoption Day” on Sunday also requires the United States and other participating countries to make the necessary arrangements and preparations for implementation” of the deal, the president said.
"Today marks an important milestone toward preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful going forward," Obama said. "I welcome this important step forward. And we, together with our partners, must now focus on the critical work of fully implementing this comprehensive resolution that addresses our concerns over Iran’s nuclear program."
Senior administration officials said Saturday they understand it's in Iran's best interest to work quickly, but they are only concerned that the work is done correctly.
They insisted that no relief from the penalties will occur until the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency has verified Iran's compliance with the terms of the agreement. They said Iran's work will almost certainly take more than the two months Iran has projected.
The administration officials spoke on a conference call with reporters, but under the condition that they not be identified by name.
As part of the nuclear agreement, Obama on Sunday also issued provisional waivers and a memorandum instructing U.S. agencies to lay the groundwork for relieving sanctions on Iran.
In Iran, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told state TV: "On implementation, all should be watchful that Westerners, particularly Americans, to keep their promises."
Velayati said Iran expects that the United States and other Western countries that negotiated the deal will show their "good will" through lifting sanctions.
Iran's atomic energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, told state TV that Tehran was ready to begin taking steps to comply, and awaited an order from President Hassan Rouhani. "We are hopeful to begin in the current or next week," he said.
The IAEA said Sunday that Iran has agreed to allow greater monitoring of its commitment to the deal, going beyond basic oversight provided by the safeguards agreement that IAEA member nations have with the agency. For instance, it allows short-notice inspections of sites the IAEA may suspect of undeclared nuclear activities.
Even as the terms of the deal begin taking effect, recent developments have shown the wide gulf between the U.S. and Iran on other issues.
Fighters from Iran have been working in concert with Russia in Syria, and a Revolutionary Court convicted a Washington Post reporter who has been held more than a year on charges including espionage. The court has not provided details on the verdict or sentence. Further, two other Americans are being detained, and the U.S. has asked for the Iranian government's assistance in finding a former FBI agent who disappeared in 2007 while working for the CIA on an unapproved intelligence mission.
Also, Iran successfully test-fired a guided long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile.
But the U.S. officials asserted that those actions would be worse if they were backed up by a nation with a nuclear weapon. The officials emphasized that the seven-nation pact is focused solely on resolving the nuclear issue.
The steps being taken by the U.S. come 90 days after the U.N. Security Council endorsed the deal.

Trump suggests he might have prevented 9/11 attacks, extending feud with Bush

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump suggested Sunday that he could have prevented the 9/11 attacks had he been president in 2001 -- escalating his feud with primary rival Jeb Bush about the fatal terror strikes.
Trump, a first-time candidate, implied his stance on immigration could have kept out the terrorists who slipped into the United States and trained in the country to hijack the four commercial airliners and kill nearly 3,000 people on American soil on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration,” Trump told "Fox News Sunday." “I believe that if I were running things,  … I doubt that those people would have been in the country.”
The 19 hijackers crashed one airliner each into the Pentagon and the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City, roughly nine months after Bush’s older brother, President George W. Bush, took office in 2001.
Passengers in one airliner overpowered the radical Islamic hijackers, forcing the craft to crash in Shanksville, Pa., with no survivors.
The Trump-Bush feud essentially started during the second 2016 GOP presidential primary debate when Jeb Bush defended his brother against Trump’s criticism about the attacks.
“You remember the rubble at the World Trade Center? He sent a clear signal that the United States would be strong and fight Islamic terrorism, and he did keep us safe,” Bush said to huge audience applause.
Trump responded: “You feel safe right now? I don’t feel so safe.”
Bush, a former Florida governor, has since shaped his response to suggest his brother united Americans and kept then safer after the attacks.
The exchanges also have put Bush in a challenging position, defending his family while trying to distance himself from Bush political dynasty, included shortcomings in the administrations of his brother and father, George H.W. Bush.
On Friday, Trump returned to his attacks when talking on Bloomberg TV about how and why, if elected, he could best handle national emergencies.
“Blame him or don’t blame him, but (Bush) was president,” said the billionaire New York real estate mogul. “The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Hours later Jeb Bush tweeted, “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
Trump also said Sunday that during the debate he was just responding to Bush saying the country was safe under his brother’s watch.
“I'm not blaming anybody,” Trump said. “But the World Trade Center came down.  So when he said, we were safe, that's not safe.  … It was probably the greatest catastrophe ever in this country.”

Maryland gets okay to recall Confederate flag license plates; Virginia's recall meets defiance

Maryland got the okay from a judge to recall Confederate flag special license plates, joining Virginia -- where a similar recall effort has encountered near universal defiance from owners of the tags to return them.
Both states acted to recall the plates after a self-proclaimed white supremacist killed nine black South Carolina churchgoers in June. The gunman had taken photos of himself with guns and the Confederate flag and posted them online before the shooting.
A federal judge issued an order Thursday allowing Maryland to recall tags featuring the Confederate battle flag after Nov. 17, Reuters reported.
“I look forward to the day when these plates are no longer on the road,” Maryland Attorney General Brian Frost said in a statement. “This flag is a painful symbol that divides us, conjuring images of hate and subjugation. It has no place in any contemporary government use.”
A judge ruled in 1997 that Maryland’s Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates were protected free speech and enjoined the state from recalling them, Reuters reported.
But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court said Confederate flag license plates constituted government speech that could be subjected to regulation.
Virginia announced it would recall the plates in August and as of Oct. 4 it is illegal to drive with Confederate license plates. Violators face prosecution on a misdemeanor if stopped.
But the recall has encountered little cooperation, according to WAVY-TV.
Of 1,600 Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates on the road, only 187 have been returned, the station reported Thursday.
Kevin Collier told the station he is refusing to give up his plates. He is the commander of the Stonewall Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and his great-great-great grandfather fought with the Confederacy.
“I can’t fight on the battlefield like they did, but I can fight however I can in modern times and I will not give them plates up,” he said.
The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles asked the Sons of Confederate Veterans to help design a new plate but the organization did not respond.
“Next thing you know, they’re going to say you can’t wear blue on Monday, you know, or you can’t wear yellow on Thursday,” Collier told WAVY. “Where’s it going to end?”

Gowdy: Benghazi panel's new facts focus on 'four dead Americans,' not Clinton 2016 bid

Hillary Clinton’s upcoming testimony before Congress’ special Benghazi committee is being hyped as the biggest moment in the panel’s controversial existence. But the committee’s Republican leaders said Sunday they are equally, if not more, focused on new evidence and continued pursuit of the facts behind the fatal 2012 attacks.
“We have found new facts that have absolutely nothing to do with her,” South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, told CBS' “Face the Nation.”
“I get that people don't want to talk about that. But the seven [Republican] members of my committee are much more focused on the four dead Americans than we are anyone's presidential aspirations.”
Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner, is scheduled to testify Thursday about her role as secretary of state during the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
Gowdy said Sunday that the 12-member bipartisan committee has acquired Stephens’ emails from that time and suggested dozens more witnesses will be called.
Clinton is "an important witness, but she is one witness,” he also said. “I understand that there's more attention associated with her. But from my perspective, I am much more interested in Chris Stevens' emails, which we just received, than I am her emails, which we just received.”
He also suggested that new emails show Clinton and other members of the administration were too focused on the politics of Benghazi.
Gowdy said Stevens even joked in an email that maybe he and others at the Benghazi outpost “should ask another government to pay for our security upgrades because our government isn't willing to do it.”
“You want to know what happened in Libya, you got to look at his emails,” Gowdy continued.
The special committee discovered that Clinton as the country’s top diplomat used a private server and emails for official business. But since being formed last year, the committee has faced criticism about being a political tool for Republicans to tarnish Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Democrats and other critics say House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., proved the argument a few weeks ago when he suggested that Clinton’s poll numbers have dropped as the committee and others investigate the email controversy.
Their argument and calls to shutter the committee have been further bolstered recently by Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., suggesting the committee is politically motivated and a fired committee investigator suggesting Republican members were overly focused on Clinton.
This weekend, Democrats also argued that the select committee probe has lasted longer than the congressional Watergate investigation.
However, Republican committee member and Rep. Mike Pompeo said Sunday that Democrats “hiding the ball” has slowed investigative efforts and that GOP leaders have no plans to close the committee.
“We’re not done,” the Kansas lawmaker told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We still have many witnesses and many documents. We’re just getting started.”
In addition, Gowdy on Sunday told fellow Republicans uninformed about exactly what the committee is doing to "shut up."
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, still thinks the panel is too focused on Clinton and a waste of taxpayer money.
“After 17 months, $4.7 million and counting of taxpayer money .. Chairman Gowdy is now saying he has another two dozen witnesses to interview,” he told CBS on Sunday.
He also said Gowdy is “now trying to shift back to where we should have been all along -- that is looking at the Benghazi incident.”
As proof, Cummings said the committee has yet to call to testify the CIA director, secretary of defense and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of the attacks.

Biden Cartoon

Hillary moneyman highlights new Saudi connection

The Saudi government, under increasing criticism over civilian casualties from its airstrikes in Yemen and a harsh crackdown on political dissidents at home, has just hired a powerhouse Washington, D.C., lobbying firm headed by a top Hillary Clinton fundraiser — an arrangement that critics charge raises fresh questions about the influence that foreign government lobbyists could have on her campaign.

The Saudi contract with the Podesta Group, owned by veteran Washington lobbyist and Clinton campaign bundler Tony Podesta, calls for the firm to provide “public relations” and other services on behalf of the royal court of King Salman.

It included an initial “project fee” payment of $200,000 last month and unspecified further sums over the course of the next year, according to documents recently filed with the Justice Department Foreign Agents Registration Act office.

The retention comes at a time when the Saudis are being condemned by United Nations officials over reports that their bombings against Houthi strongholds in Yemen’s civil war have resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of innocent civilians, including children.

Adding to the international pressure, the Saudis are also facing criticism from human rights groups over their continued refusal to allow basic rights to women (e.g., the freedom to drive cars). They are also being criticized for their hard-line domestic suppression of political dissidents, with draconian punishments such as the sentence — by beheading — recently given to a 20-year-old Shiite political protester.

“They are very nervous about an American policy change, and so they are betting on the horse they think will win — Hillary Clinton,” said Ali Al-Ahmad, a Saudi analyst with the Institute for Gulf Affairs, and a frequent critic of the regime, about the hiring of the Podesta Group.

The Podesta Group is now on a roster of a half-dozen D.C. lobbying firms representing the Saudis, including the giant international law firm DLA Piper and the firm Hogan Lovells, whose principal on the Saudi account is former Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who chairs the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super-PAC that is a major source of House GOP campaign funds. (Former Texas congressman Tom Loeffler, a top bundler for Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign, for years represented the Saudis, but his current firm, Akin Gump, now lobbies for the United Arab Emirates, among other foreign clients.)

But the retention of the Podesta Group has gotten attention in Washington lobbying circles because of its unusually close ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign: Tony Podesta is the brother and former business partner of Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. He is also a prolific Democratic Party fundraiser who is among 43 Washington lobbyists (many of whom also represent foreign governments) listed as Clinton campaign bundlers in reports filed by the campaign with the Federal Election Commission.

The reports disclose that Podesta had raised $140,175 for the Clinton campaign through Sept. 30. Two weeks ago, just days after filing its Saudi contract with the Justice Department, Podesta held a Clinton campaign fundraiser at his home that offered fine Italian food cooked by five gourmet chefs, including himself and his brother, the campaign chairman.

The Podesta Group point man on the Saudi account is David Adams, who previously served as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in 2011 and 2012, making him Clinton’s chief Capitol Hill lobbyist for her last two years as secretary of state, according to Justice Department filings reviewed by Yahoo News.

But Tony Podesta, while calling himself “a proud Clinton bundler,” vigorously denied that the Saudi contract had anything to do with his efforts to elect her president. “I’ve never had a conversation with Hillary Clinton or anybody in the campaign about the work of the firm,” Podesta said when reached by Yahoo News on his cellphone while he was dining at a restaurant in Sicily. “We represent a dozen foreign governments around the world — we do good work for them. And it has nothing to do with the Hillary Clinton campaign.”

Obama's foreign policy could burden Biden if he runs in 2016

When President Barack Obama announced this week that the United States would leave more troops than planned in Afghanistan, his vice president, Joe Biden, stood right at his side.

And for Biden, still mulling a presidential bid, that could pose a problem.

As he calculates all the angles that would influence his candidacy - a decision is reportedly coming within days - Biden has more than the looming obstacle of front-runner Hillary Clinton to consider. As a candidate, he would become the chief defender of a foreign policy that critics say has been incoherent and that gets increasingly low marks in public opinion polls.

Beyond Afghanistan, the White House is under fire for its response to Russian action in Syria, where Vladimir Putin has assumed the superpower role there that the United States has declined to take, for the enduring threat posed by Islamic State, and for the Iran nuclear deal that has spiked tensions with ally Israel.

Biden, who prides himself on being a full partner on Obama’s national security team, would own all of it. “Foreign policy is a liability for Biden,” Democratic strategist Douglas Schoen said.

The Afghanistan shift was a personal setback for Biden, the most influential voice in the administration pushing for hard timelines for the removal of U.S. troops from the country. Clinton, by contrast, favored a more robust military presence there during her tenure as secretary of state during Obama's first term.
Clinton, whose status as the prohibitive front-runner wouldn't change even if Biden jumps in, has distanced herself from Obama by calling for more aggressive action in Syria and opposing the Pacific Rim trade deal. As a sitting vice president, Biden wouldn't have the luxury of distancing himself from Obama's policies, even if he were so inclined.

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President Barack Obama, left, standing with Vice President Joe Biden, right, listen as Diana Caldero …

“How does a presidential aspirant like Joe Biden reach for a bold American foreign policy without fundamentally distancing himself from his boss? It’s tough,” said Aaron David Miller, a former official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who is now with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Obama’s approval ratings with the U.S. public on foreign policy have tumbled since Biden stood at the Democratic National Convention three years ago and pronounced, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
According to Gallup, Obama enjoyed about a 50 percent approval rating on foreign affairs during his first term. That number fell to 36 percent this summer.
National security is often overshadowed in U.S. presidential races by domestic issues, most notably jobs and economic growth.
But with the economy on a firmer footing that means it is not drowning out other issues for voters, some Republicans such as U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida are trying to put more of a spotlight on foreign policy.
Rubio regularly blasts Obama on the campaign trail and said of Biden: “He’s been wrong time and again on issue after issue."
“He would be a disastrous commander-in-chief,” Rubio told radio host Hugh Hewitt in August, as speculation about Biden’s intentions began to swirl.
Biden’s reputation took a hit when it was revealed that he had advised against the U.S. military raid that killed bin Laden in 2011.
He was a firm supporter of a reduced U.S. role in Iraq, which the administration’s detractors argue created a vacuum that strengthened the rise of Islamic State. Biden also resisted arming rebel groups in Syria.
Clinton recently called for a "no fly" zone in Syria, which both Obama and Biden oppose.

Should he run, Biden “has to establish his own identity,” but to do so he would have to highlight times when he privately disagreed with Obama, said Anthony Cordesman, an expert on U.S. security policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Biden’s supporters say he could point to his decades in the Senate, especially his years chairing the Foreign Relations Committee, to counter Republican arguments that he would simply be an extension of Obama's world view. For example, Biden has been friends for decades with Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama, by contrast, has a frosty relationship with the Israeli prime minister.