Ahhh, dear reader, it is an idyllic, clear, late June, sleep-with-your-windows-open day in the Rockies having attended the rodeo last night, a PRCA event, the big time. This is a place where they have real cowboys and cowgirls and I am just a flatland, seacoast interloper, but I do love BBQ and I’ve been coming here for 40 years.
This is as much America as New York or San Francisco or more. It soothes the soul and gives me hope for all of us.
Enough about me, let’s ponder a few realities of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. [Image a trumpet fanfare with deep notes.]
How much money is involved, Big Red Car?
Damn good question as there are known and unknown amounts at play here.
The Iran Rebuilding slush fund: $300,000,000,000 to “rebuild and develop” Iran to be funded by the sucker states in the Gulf, the states Iran attacked.
The $24,000,000,000 in frozen Iranian funds held primarily in the Gulf by countries like Qatar and others. Under the MOU this is to be funded shortly.
Individual transaction frozen funds, like the $6,000,000,000 held as a specific payable from South Korea for previously delivered crude oil. There are estimated to be as much as $100,000,000,000 in such funds. Also to be funded shortly.
The resumption of Iranian oil export will create a bonanza of as much as $500,000,000 daily or $30,000,000,000 per month. Iran will no longer have to sneak around whilst shipping its oil and will no longer have to discount v the market price. To be resumed shortly.
The bottom line is it is a lot of money.
So, what happens, Big Red Car?
Good question (not really, just obvious, but I’m trying to be polite here).
Here’s what happens: Iran goes back to trying to create a nuclear weapon, but now with gobs of money.
Iran, when it received a smaller avalanche of funds with the Obama JCPOA, immediately funded its regional terror proxies and went full speed into uranium enrichment.
Iran, when under Trump 1.0 sanctions, continued to fund its terror proxies and enrich uranium until it had 1,000 lbs of 60% enriched uranium, within spitting distance of weapons greade.
Without regime change, with the same extremist fanatics and murderers in charge, why does anybody think the Mullahs and the IRGC will change their behavior?
Bit of context, perhaps, might be useful?
Ponder this:
Iran has been a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty since 1962 and has thereby sworn off nuclear weapons development.
The Islamic Republic, when they came to power in 1979, similarly swore to uphold that same commitment for 62 years. Do you believe them?
On at least a dozen occasions, the Islamic Republic has publicly sworn it is not attempting to develop a nuclear bomb though there is no use for uranium enriched to 60% other than as a gateway to achieve weapons grade enrichment.
When confronted with evidence proving enrichment nearing weapons grade, missile delivery research/development/production, nuclear explosion triggering device research, and work on the miniaturization necessary to put that nuclear bomb on the tip of a missile — the Iranian Mullahs and IRGC have disavowed any intent to develop a nuclear weapon. Do you believe them?
So flooded with money do you believe the probability of this same bunch of terrorists in charge of Iran not developing a nuke has gone up or down?
The $300,000,000,000 rebuilding slush fund — an exercise in illogic
The Islamabad MOU asks us, with a straight face, to take some solace in that the United States will not contribute to the slush fund.
This is, of course, solely for domestic American consumption (primarily by those of challenged IQs) and it doesn’t assuage the sharp-taloned condors in my gut that it doesn’t mean a damn thing from whence the money comes.
If this is to be a fund to “rebuild” what the US/Israel destroyed can we take some measure of comfort in that the US/Israel hit military targets?
Why in the name of all that is good and holy would we want to fund Iran rebuilding its military capabilities?
The Iranians, sometimes naively transparent, have already announced it is “reparations.”
The idea of Iran having access to $300,000,000,000 of funds — even with minimal son-of-JCPOA inspection controls — just feels like the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
Bottom line it, Big Red Car, I might want to go to the rodeo tonight
Fine, dear reader, why does anybody on this planet think the way to peace in the Middle East is to slap the Mullahs/IRGC — those bat shit crazy extremists swimming in blood — with a checkbook and count on their goodwill not to continue down the same path they have been fixated upon for half a century?
God bless us all. We need some wisdom here.
BRC. Flaunting your wealth and mobility again are we not, Steamboat Spring you say. as your humble commentator has driven the gauntlet that is I-40 from Denver up to Steamboat only to first have the oxygen masks not drop from the roof of the rental car at the Eisenhower Tunnel due to lack of oxygen. Then stop at the Safeway Grocery Store (I must admit it’s was just luck finding it because it was disguised as an Aspen Lodge) to get a Diet Coke as one could not afford the prices to eat and fill up the car fro the drive back down the mountain. Gas or food we chose gas. So we now know our BRC is leading the high life snd not just the Rocky Mountain high life.
Epilogue: BRC in your next article you need to educate your readers as to how you out ran those idols on bicycles peddling up the mountain out of Denver on I-40…. I know the Powerglide must have been locked in first gear all the way up. Yes dear BRC, idiots actually ride bicycles on the interstate going up a mountain…. Hopefully you were able to pass them or at least catch their draft.
The leadership of this good nation has, for decades now, been long on scientific/economic/military prowess, and tragically short on common sense and moral clarity. The last President exhibiting such was The Gipper, and that was 40+ years distant.
I played golf with a couple of local salt-of-the-earth gents this week. One had completed a career in Air Cavalry, with two tours in Iraq. He enlisted in the wake of the Iranian bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon in 1983.
Words fail to describe his disapproval of the MemorandumOfMisunderstanding.
The Iranian mullahs make TheShortGuyWithTheMustacheAndLongListOfGrievances look like small potatoes. I didn't think that would ever be possible, shame on me...
Heaven help us, one and all.