WarSclerotic

by Jeff Dunetz | Apr 29, 2018 via The Lid

Source Link: Claim That Iran Is Complying With The Nuke Deal Is A Lie

{No inspections are being made under the current agreement? What a joke!! – LS}

Between now and May 12th President Trump will announce his decision as to whether or not he will pull out of the JCPOA, the Nuclear deal with Iran. This reporter’s prediction is that the President will announce the United States will be leaving the Iran deal. His May announcement isn’t really the big one, two months later in July the U.S. will decide July whether or not to reimpose the American imposed sanctions with the terrorist regime and if the decision is yes, that will break the deal apart.  But whether you agree with the President or not, any claim that we should stay in the deal because Iran is complying with the JCPOA is simply not true.

President Trump said his final decision about the JCPOA would be based on achieving three improvements to the deal;  First, eliminate the provisions under which key nuclear restrictions expire over time. Second, stop Tehran’s nuclear-capable long-range missile program. Finally, allow for the inspection of military sites where the regime conducted clandestine nuclear activities in the past and may be doing so now.

The nuclear-capable long-range missile plan and the expiration were concessions made by the spineless team of Obama and Kerry. But the third item, inspections of military sites is allowed under the JCPOA . Because of a secret side deal revealed by the Associated Press, Iran gets to self-inspect the Parchin militarybase with no IAEA inspectors present. However, all other military base inspections are allowed under the JCPOA.

The IAEA has the authority under UN Security Council resolution 2231 (the JCPOA) to request access to sites and equipment associated with Section T. The resolution “requests the Director General of the IAEA to undertake the necessary verification and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear-related commitments for the full duration of those commitments under the JCPOA.” In addition, the resolution states: “The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be requested to monitor and verify the voluntary nuclear-related measures as detailed in this JCPOA.”

Despite the what the JCPOA states, the Iranian authorities claim military sites are off limits to the IAEA. And the IAEA refuses to push the point because they don’t want Iran to seem non-compliant.This lack of access lead to the IAEA’s announcement that has been unable to verify a key part of the JCPOA, “Section T”  which outlines “Activities which could contribute to the design and development of a nuclear explosive device” Per the deal the “Section T”  activities include:

• Designing, developing, acquiring, or using computer models to simulate nuclear explosive devices.
• Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using multi-point explosive detonation systems suitable for a nuclear explosive device, unless approved by the Joint Commission for non-nuclear purposes and subject to monitoring
• Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using explosive diagnostic systems (streak cameras, framing cameras and flash x-ray cameras) suitable for the development of a nuclear explosive device, unless approved by the Joint Commission for non-nuclear purposes and subject to monitoring. 82.4.
• Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using explosively driven neutron sources or specialized materials for explosively driven neutron sources.
• Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using explosive diagnostic systems (streak cameras, framing cameras and flash x-ray cameras) suitable for the development of a nuclear explosive device, unless approved by the Joint Commission for non-nuclear purposes and subject to monitoring.
• Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using explosively driven neutron sources or specialized materials for explosively driven neutron sources.
• Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using explosively driven neutron sources or specialized materials for explosively driven neutron sources.

We don’t know if Iran is violating” Section T.”  But because they are not allowing inspections on military sites and because they the IAEA won’t push the issue, we do not know if they are complying either.

Another example of non-compliance is Iran was supposed to reveal its nuclear history. According to the JCPOA, Iran was supposed to reveal the all the details of their nuclear program and “fess up” to the U.N. inspectors about their previous nuclear activity. The reason for this historical inquiry is not to find out whether or not Iran had a nuclear weapon’s program so they could be reprimanded for being bad children. The knowledge is needed to understand what the Iranian nuclear program was before the agreement so IAEA will know how, when, and where to inspect their program in the future. Iran refused to let this happen and eventually, during the Obama administration, the U.S. stopped asking.

Iran broke the terms of the heavy water provisions of the deal twice in 2016 but Obama let them “off the hook.”  According to the Obama/Kerry capitulation, err— JCPOA, the rogue regime was to keep no more than 130 metric tonnes of heavy water (which is used to manufacture weapons-grade plutonium). But the Iranians kept producing the heavy water and were over the cap in February and November 2016

Iranian heavy water production overages put Obama’s Iranian deal (his only foreign policy legacy besides screwing Israel) between a rock and a hard place. Either the Obama administration could find someone to purchase the excess heavy water (which would allow Iran to make a profit off of violating the deal) or expressing that Iran was in noncompliance of the deal, which would put Obama’s legacy in danger.

The first time Iran went over (February) the Obama administration purchased the overage for $8.6 million. Sensing a good way to make some extra spending money for the Ayatollah,  Iran violated the P5+1 deal again in November by over-producing the heavy water. When asked State Department spokesperson Mark Toner refused to call the overproduction a violation — “I’m not going to use the V word necessarily in this case” — and the Iranians eventually found someone else to purchase the excess (It is not true that Sec. Kerry criticized Mr.Toner to the carpet for not calling the overproduction an “Iranian revenue enhancement.”)

That’s nice the way Obama paid to let Iran off the hook.

Iran was circumventing the deal’s measures against acquiring nuclear-related materials outside the approved channels. They were repeatedly caught trying to acquire sensitive materials outside the mandatory procurement channels. Since the times they were caught, no country reported to the UN Security Council on items going to Iran without passing through the approved channels

However, the low number of proposals has raised the question of whether Iranian companies are simply ignoring the JCPOA requirements. When asked about the low number of proposals, Iran told officials that Iranian industries are depending on domestic production and that its industries do not trust the Europeans out of fear of not obtaining spare parts in the future. (Spare parts are specific to equipment, so an inability to obtain them in the future may render certain equipment inoperable). This, however, is at odds with Iran’s plans to increase industrialization across many industries, which would require NSG Part 2 parts that Iran does not make. This would be an incentive for Iranian industries to go elsewhere for the needed goods. Is Iran telling the truth when it says its industries are living without these essential dual-use goods, or is it buying these goods outside of the procurement channel?

Iran was in violation of the provision limiting the number of advanced centrifuges. ” It had also run 13-15 IR-6 centrifuges in a cascade that was supposed to be limited to ten centrifuges.” But lucky for them, some of their other centrifuges broke down putting them in compliance again.

Here’s the bottom line according to the Institute for Science and International Security (known by its unfortunate initials ISIS)

Iran has repeatedly tested the boundaries of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and in many cases crossed the line into a violation. Many of these violations and efforts to push the boundaries have not been reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its quarterly reports to member states, reflecting a failing on its part. But the information is not classified, and we have reported on these violations and controversies in previous reports.

The IAEA reports that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA because they refuse to report its violations, and its refusal to push the issue of inspections of military sites per the terms of the deal gives the rogue regime cover to violate the deal where or whenever it wants.

These aren’t the only reasons President Trump should pull out of the deal just a review of compliance, Reasons Trump should pull out of the deal are outlined here Why Trump MUST Pull Out Of The Iran Nuclear Deal.