Why do they oppose N deal with Iran?

To be sure, a mutually acceptable agreement with Iran by six among the world's most powerful and influential nations, on one hand, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the other, is no small matter. In substance as well as in procedure and desired outcome, the goals – ensuring that Iran does not produce a nuclear bomb and, to that end, agreeing on as intrusive a nature and range of inspections as any in history – are as laudable as they are in many ways timely, urgent, and necessary.

Possessing separate motivations and desires from those noted above, it is useful to assess the true intentions of others opposed to a potentially acceptable agreement: a group largely comprising American neoconservatives, their Israeli allies, and other likeminded individuals and institutions. These groups have loudly proclaimed that they would have the P5+1 negotiators – representing the Five Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council, i.e., China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States, plus Germany – avoid reaching an agreement that may contain provisions not to their liking, which they believe may be imminently near to being concluded with the Islamic Republic.

Make no mistake, these groups seek a profoundly different set of accomplishments vis-à-vis Iran than the ones under consideration in the nuclear talks. The intentions of these opponents of a potentially acceptable agreement are, rather, to see America directly confront Iran.

The outcomes that these groups seek this time around, like those they sought before, have been heavily obscured. They remain deliberately veiled in fear, myth, rumor, innuendo, and warmongering. What those opposed to a mutually acceptable accord with Tehran have in mind bears a strong resemblance to the bill of goods sold to the American people with the U.S. effort to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The result, moreover, toppled the regime, decimated the country's security and defense forces, sowed many of the seeds that made it possible for the Islamic State group to emerge, spread, and wreak the havoc it has wrought, and paved the way for Iran to become the single largest and most influential foreign factor in Iraq – without its having to fire a single shot or shed a drop of blood.

It also allowed Israelis and Israeli agents to enter northern Iraq to assist in the training of Kurdish security forces, thereby further advancing decades-old Israeli-Kurdish collaboration and their joint goal of ensuring a weaker government in Baghdad than existed before in addition to practically guaranteeing that Iraq would be deprived of the means and ability to pose a threat to Israel at anytime in the foreseeable future.

As with Iraq, what those against practically any mutually acceptable governmental accord with Iran regarding its nuclear program seek to achieve is as devious as it is damaging. By no stretch of the imagination is it in accord with America's legitimate interests. Instead, what they diligently seek might be seen as a single issue and interest: serving the perceived needs of Israel under the guise of doing what is best for America when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Rather than the achievement of an accord that could usher in a more mutually beneficial US-Iran relationship than any that has existed since 1979, the neoconservatives, their Israeli bedfellows – and not just, many believe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reelected to a fourth term as premier, together with others, including an indeterminate number of American Republican Members of Congress – prefer a continued standoff between Washington and Tehran, and would not rule out a forceful American confrontation with the undeniable potential for yet another costly war. (An abridged version of the article on countercurrents.org)

By:John Duke Anthony