Obama Administration Ends Sanctions on Iran

Barack Hussein makes Neville Chamberlain look like a piker.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Nuclear deal ends era of crippling sanctions for Iran":

World powers signed off Saturday on a historic deal that curbs Iran's nuclear weapons-building, eases economic sanctions that have long crippled the Islamic Republic and rewrites diplomatic dynamics throughout the Middle East.

Tens of billions of dollars will soon be available to Iran, as well as access to the international banking system and global markets for the sale of oil and gas for the first time in years, greatly bolstering its ability to rejoin the world economy.

President Obama immediately issued an executive order canceling numerous sanctions levied by the U.S.

The deal, coupled with a secretly negotiated swap that freed prisoners including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, signals a new, if still tentative, era of cooperation between Washington and Tehran after decades of sharp-edged acrimony.

“Today marks the first day of a safer world,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in Vienna after the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, headquartered there, certified that Iran had complied with significant steps aimed at dismantling its nuclear production capabilities and had agreed to the most rigorous inspections on Iranian soil to date.

“Today marks the moment that the Iran nuclear agreement transitions from an ambitious set of promises on paper to measurable action in progress,” Kerry added.

Word of the U.N. certification rang out from Vienna to the capitals of the negotiating countries; on the campaign trail, where Republicans were quick both to praise the Americans' release and to decry the administration's negotiating techniques; and in Los Angeles, home to the world's largest Iranian expat community.

The two countries have been bitter enemies since Iranian Islamic revolutionaries seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took hostages. No one is expecting the renewal of diplomatic ties any time soon — indeed, sanctions remain in place tied to Iran's human-rights record and funding of groups the U.S. views as terrorists — but the Obama administration credited a newfound rapprochement with seeing the nuclear deal to fruition as well as securing the freedom of the American prisoners.

That same spirit, which experts agree has to have been approved by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, also led to the quick release last week of 10 U.S. sailors detained in Iranian waters. What might have become a major international incident a few years ago was resolved within hours.

Even as Washington's relationship with Tehran seems on a smoother course — Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, are on the phone just about daily — the United States' longest-standing allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Israel, have appeared increasingly on the outs.

Both Saudi Arabia and Israel opposed the nuclear deal, saying Iran could not be trusted and fearing a less-isolated Iran able finally to join the world economic and political stage. The governments of both are notoriously distrustful of and unfriendly with the Obama administration. U.S. officials can point to more fruitful talks with Iran while relations with Israel and the Saudis have turned increasingly frigid...

Still more.