Iran Deal Reached.

Following 20 months of negotiations and almost 6 years of stupidity today a deal was finally reached between Iran and the 5 permenant members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) plus Germany (P5+1) over Iran's nuclear program.

The thing that has annoyed me the most about being used as an occassional football within these negotiations is that although I've been able to work out that the things I do or say may influence the outcome the secretive nature of the talks has meant that I've had no idea how. As a result like everyone else I'm waiting for the agreement itself to be published to find out what on earth is in it. However I suspect that the technical aspects of the international sanction mechanisms and the nuclear physics will be the easy part. That's because the entire process has been established on a completely false premise.

Shortly after he became US President Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Mainly this was because there were no other candidates at that point but Obama took it as a sign that it was his duty to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict once and for all. With Palestine not being recognised as a state the two main state actors in the conflict are Israel who officially control Palestine and Iran who support the main Palestinian liberation organisations of Hezbollah and Hamas. Obviously it doesn't suit Iran's purpose to talk directly about the clandestine support it provides to these organisations nor does it suit Israel's purpose to talk directly about what it knows about Iran's clandestine support. So instead they're both happy to talk about Iran's nuclear program. The purpose of the exercise is to maintain the level of ambiguity that Israel's own nuclear program were to enjoy if such a thing existed.

Unfortunately Obama wasn't prepared to learn how to play the game so decided to shut down this avenue of communication entirely so he would get final say in any dispute. The effect of this on the Israel/Palestine peace process has been an utter disaster. Despite France queuing up behind Obama to claim the glory we are currently probably further away from a lasting peace deal then at any other point since I've been involved. The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has placed Hezbollah and Hamas on opposite sides of the Sunni/Shia divide and the increased competition from within Palestine has left Hamas struggling to get a word in edgeways when it comes to terror attacks on Israel. As a result people familar with the topic don't even entertain the idea that the peace process will resume let alone be completed anytime soon.

The effect on the wider region has been even more disasterous. With sanctions locking Iran out of international trade with even traditional rivals of the US such as Russia and China the entire World has become increasingly dependent on the Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia for supplies of oil. Coupled with the massive sovereign wealth funds those nations have accured through their virtual monopoly on the oil market no-one in the international community has been in a position to tell them they can't do something. So when the Gulf states decided they're going to fund terrorist groups to overthrow the governments of Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Syria etc they've more or less been allowed to get on with it.

Therefore when negotiations began 20 months ago the objective was not to end Iran's nuclear program once and for all. After all the ambiguity is extremely useful. Instead the objective was to erase Obama's actions in the middle-east from history as far as is possible. Obviously Obama has not been keen on this idea and his ego has thrown up quite a few bumps in the road. Most notably when the insanity of his position was made clear to him through the Germanwings crash during what I went on to term the "Seige of Lausanne."

In response Obama decided to throw up another roadblock to a deal by declaring that any agreement would have to be ratified by the Republican controlled Congress. During the revolution of 1979 Iran took a number of US citizens hostage for more then a year. This ended the Democrat Presidency of James Carter and contributed to the dawning of the era of Ronald Regan who is considered a hero of the Republican Party. Since then railing against Iran has been a convenient way for Republicans to secure the support of American voters of a certain age despite very few of them even having a clue where Iran is. Seriously many of them think Iranians are Arabs when in fact they're Persians and Arabs are considered their main rivals. If the Republicans in Congress continue with this sort of cheap politics then the last 20 months may well have been for nothing.

That said if you want my informed, let alone considered opinion of the agreement I am going to have to read the agreement. I gather that compared to the ADP negotiating text it runs to roughly concise 80 pages. Plus technical annexes.

Non spelled checked at around 17:05 on 14/7/15 (UK date).