The Deal

First, what are the conditions of the nuclear deal with Iran? Charles Pierce explains:

This is the biggest gamble yet for an administration that appears to be reacting to its lame-duck status by ignoring it entirely. An administration that, as we have pointed out previously, has upturned its big bag of fks and discovered that it has no more there to give. The Republicans — especially those running for president — are going to go indiscriminately up the wall, and Benjamin Netanyahu nearly beat New Horizons to Pluto after having given it a nine-year head start. …

… (Strumming the same tune on this side of the world is Senator Huckleberry J. Butchmeup, who has hit the fainting couch with the impact of an anvil dropped from an airplane: “You’ve ensured that the Arabs will go nuclear. You’ve put Israel in the worst possible box. This will be a death over time sentence to Israel if they don’t push back…You put our nation at risk.” And the alternative is another war, somewhere down the line. You first, senator.)

Central to the knee-jerk dismissal of any agreement with Iran regarding nuclear weapons is the belief that the Iranian regime is fundamentally suicidal, that its leaders actually would commit themselves to a course of action that would result in the complete annihilation of their country. In 2012, at a campaign event, Rick Santorum said this flat-out, that the Iranians would launch a nuclear exchange, which they surely would lose, because they don’t fear such cataclysm based on their belief that it would bring about the arrival of the 12th Imam. Santorum — and have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick Rick Santorum is? — was not laughed off the stage. This is exactly the same kind of nonsense we heard during the Cold War when the nuns assured us that the Russians didn’t fear nuclear war because they were atheists anyway.

OK, that doesn’t exactly explain what’s in the deal, but it’s damn funny.

You know that the Right would denounce any deal made between President Obama and Iran, because it’s President Obama and Iran.  It’s hard to say whom they hate and fear more — an Islamic republic or their own President.  In any event, Republicans wasted no time rushing to microphones to denounce the deal they hadn’t had time to study.

Andrew Rosenthal:

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who reportedly has been getting briefings on foreign affairs because he’s the governor of a Midwestern state with no actual experience in the area, announced: “The deal allows Tehran to dismantle U.S. and international sanctions without dismantling its illicit nuclear infrastructure — giving Iran’s nuclear weapons capability an American stamp of approval.”

Actually, no. It requires Iran to dismantle a great deal of its “illicit nuclear infrastructure” before sanctions start to be lifted, would restore them and impose more if Iran cheats, and keeps in place many sanctions based on Iran’s human rights record and its support for terrorist organizations.

“Shame on the Obama administration for agreeing to a deal that empowers an evil Iranian regime to carry out its threat to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ and bring ‘death to America,’” said Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor.

Mr. Huckabee, like the rest of the G.O.P. field, offers not a clue as to how he would prevent Iran from doing those things, which don’t actually require a nuclear weapon, which the United States and Israel have, by the way.

Just go read all of Rosenthal’s piece; it’s one of the snarkier things I’ve yet to read in the New York Times, outside of Krugman’s blog.

Miss … I mean, Senator Lindsey Graham — may have won the competition by declaring the deal was “akin to declaring war on Israel and the Sunni Arabs.” It’s still about a year before the nominations, and LG alone has just about depleted the global supply of hysterical hyperbole.  Where can they go from here?

The runner up is Scott the Power Tool, who is not running for President. And why the hell not? He called the deal “Munich for our time,” which by itself is depraved enough to win him a place in the GOP debates, candidate or no.

Ian Black of the Guardian says the winners of the deal are Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani; President Obama; Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin. The losers are Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS; King Whoozitz of Saudi Arabia (I wish they’d all go back to being all named Abdullah) and Binyamin Netanyahu. Mostly a win, I’d say.

Here’s a roundup of reactions from all GOP candidates. Oh, and here’s a fairly clear walk-through of the agreement.