Wednesday, September 09, 2015

The anti-Iran deal bark at the moon

There's what must be an expensive full page ad in Tuesday's New York Times with photos of a stern looking group of gents with impressive sounding titles, against the Iran nuclear program deal. The ad is placed by the Friends of Israel Initiative, which is actually the Friends of Jose Maria Aznar initiative, and it seems to have been quiet for a while until the Congressional opposition to the Iran nuclear deal became a lost cause.

Anyway, one of the people deemed worthy of mention as being on the initiative opposed to the deal is "Lord David Trimble, Former First Minister of Northern Ireland, and Nobel Laureate." All of the members are cited as having years of experience in dealing with Iran which tells them this deal won't work. Trimble's specific experience is not cited, but how about his expertise in related matters such as terrorism? Consider for example the Sunday Independent 14 March 2004, 3 days after the 11-M train bombings in Madrid:

Mr Trimble said: "It's not absolutely clear yet who perpetrated these terrible deeds in Spain but ETA is still the prime suspect for it. I say to Mr Adams and Sinn Fein that they must end all links with ETA and terminate the party's globe-trotting around the world to fraternise with similar revolutionary elements." Mr Trimble added: "They can't continue to play games like that and demand political credibility."

The entire article is one long string of tenuous and tendentious connections implying that Basque separatists, with IRA support, had carried out the 11-M bombings. This was a desperate attempt by then Spanish PM Aznar to avoid the more obvious theory -- quickly proven -- that it was Islamist militants motivated by the Iraq war.

David Trimble also holds to the theory that Ian Paisley's dogmatic opposition to an Irish peace deal which everyone knew would eventually come brought a decade of unnecessary violence while resulting in personal gain for Paisley. A little of that insight into why people are so implacably opposed to an Iran deal that looks a lot like any deal would have to look like might be helpful now!

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