Iran’s negotiators (second and third from left) have good reason to be happier than their Western counterparts.
The conduct of the Iran nuclear negotiations has been wretched, with the Obama administration inconsistent, capitulating, exaggerating, and even deceitful. It forcefully demanded certain terms, then soon after conceded these same terms.
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Barack Obama has repeatedly signaled during the past six and a half years that that his No. 1 priority in foreign affairs is not China, not Russia, not Mexico, but Iran. He wants to bring Iran in from the cold, to transform the Islamic Republic into just another normal member of the so-called international community, ending decades of its aggression and hostility.
In itself, this is a worthy goal; it’s always good policy to reduce the number of enemies. (It brings to mind Nixon going to China.) The problem lies, of course, in the execution.
The conduct of the Iran nuclear negotiations has been wretched, with the Obama administration inconsistent, capitulating, exaggerating, and even deceitful. It forcefully demanded certain terms, then soon after conceded these same terms.
Secretary of State John Kerry implausibly announced that we have “absolutely knowledge” of what the Iranians have done until now in their nuclear program and therefore have no need for inspections to form a baseline. How can any adult, much less a high official, make such a statement?
The administration misled Americans about its own concessions: After the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action, it came out with a factsheet which Tehran said was inaccurate. Guess who was right? The Iranians. In brief, the U.S. government has shown itself deeply untrustworthy.
The agreement signed today ends the economic sanctions regime, permits the Iranians to hide much of their nuclear activities, lacks enforcement in case of Iranian deceit, and expires in slightly more than a decade. Two problems particularly stand out: The Iranian path to nuclear weapons has been eased and legitimated; Tehran will receive a “signing bonus” of some US$150 billion that greatly increases its abilities to aggress in the Middle East and beyond.
The United States alone, not to speak of the P5+1 countries as a whole, have vastly greater economic and military power than the Islamic Republic of Iran, making this one-sided concession ultimately a bafflement.
Of the administration’s accumulated foreign-policy mistakes in the last six years, none have been catastrophic for the United States: Not the Chinese building islands, the Russians taking Crimea, or the collapse into civil wars of Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. But the Iran deal has the makings of a catastrophe.
Attention now shifts to the U.S. Congress to review today’s accord, arguably the worst treaty not just in American history or modern history, but ever. Congress must reject this deal. Republican senators and representatives have shown themselves firm on this topic; will the Democrats rise to the occasion and provide the votes for a veto override? They need to feel the pressure.
Throughout the negotiation process, Iran’s government has been more forthright and more reliable in characterizing the parties’ interim agreements than the Obama administration. So it is worth noting what the Iranians say the deal entails. This is from FARS, Iran’s news agency:
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said his country has achieved all its four goals in the agreement that his foreign minister Zarif signed with the six world powers in Vienna on Tuesday.
President Rouhani said his nation started talks with the world powers in a bid to remove all sanctions while maintaining its nuclear program and nuclear progress as two main goals.
All sanctions, including the financial, banking, energy, insurance, transportation, precious metals and even arms and proliferation sanctions will be, not suspended, but terminated according to the Tuesday agreement as soon as the deal comes into force, he said, adding that Iran will only be placed under certain limited arms deal restrictions for five years.
Meantime, Iran will inject gas into its highly advanced IR8 centrifuge machines, continue its nuclear research and development, and keep its Arak Heavy Water Facility and Fordo and Natanz enrichment plants under the agreement, he said, elaborating on Iran’s gains.
Another goal, Rouhani said, was taking Iran off Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, “and we did it”.
More details on the deal:
The agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will be presented to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which will adopt a resolution in seven to 10 days making the JCPOA an official document.
Based on the agreement, which has been concluded with due regard for Iran’s red lines, the world powers recognize Iran’s civilian nuclear program, including the country’s right to the complete nuclear cycle.
The UNSC sanctions against the Islamic Republic, including all economic and financial bans, will be lifted at once under a mutually agreed framework and through a new UN resolution.
None of the Iranian nuclear facilities will be dismantled or decomissioned.
Furthermore, nuclear research and development activities on all types of centrifuges, including advanced IR-6 and IR-8 machines, will continue.
The nuclear-related economic and financial restrictions imposed by the United States and the European Union (EU) targeting the Iranian banking, financial, oil, gas, petrochemical, trade, insurance and transport sectors will at once be annulled with the beginning of the implementation of the agreement.
The arms embargo imposed against the Islamic Republic will be annulled and replaced with certain restrictions, which themselves will be entirely removed after a period of five years.
Additionally, tens of billions of dollars in Iranian revenue frozen in foreign banks will be unblocked.
I have now read the agreement in its entirety–you, too, can read it here–and I think the Iranians’ description is accurate. I also agree with what Paul wrote earlier today.
Some aspects of the agreement are technical and can’t be well understood without knowledge of nuclear engineering or the history of various sanctions that have been imposed. But those details are immaterial. Loopholes could make the agreement slightly worse, but no technical interpretation can save it.
The mullahs may cheat on the agreement, or they may not. They may decide to walk away from the agreement at some point and openly develop nuclear weapons, or they may not. It makes very little difference. There are no undertakings in the agreement that go beyond 10 years (in most instances) or 15 years (in a few). The Ayatollah takes the long view: ten or fifteen years are nothing. In the meantime, what does Iran get?
First, and most important, it gets in excess of $100 billion in currently-frozen assets. This will happen in the near future, on or about the agreement’s Implementation Date. I think this prospect is what is making Iran’s leaders so jubilant. With that money, they can step up their support for allies in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and their support for terrorism everywhere. (By way of perspective, the entire United States military budget for the current fiscal year is only $560 billion.) To the extent that they spend some of it at home, it will help cement their position domestically.
Second, the agreement grants Iran international legitimacy. Since the revolution of 1979 and the seizure of America’s embassy in Tehran, Iran has been treated as a rogue state. Under the agreement, that status comes to an end. Investment in Iran will be permitted and likely will flourish. Sanctions will be removed and Iran’s nuclear program will not only be tolerated, it will be explicitly recognized and to some degree supported by the international community. The agreement contemplates that upon implementation, “the Iranian nuclear programme will be treated in the same manner as that of any other non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT [non-proliferation treaty].” It is hard to overstate how important this legitimacy is to the regime.
The third benefit to Iran’s rulers is perhaps the most important, and is closely linked to the first two. The agreement guarantees that, at least for the foreseeable future, the mullahs will remain in power. Realistically, the only way Iran could be denied a nuclear arsenal in the long term is through regime change. Early in the Obama administration, that seemed like a plausible scenario, but the administration declined to aid, or even encourage, anti-regime forces when such support might have made a difference. Now, with the mullahs both flush with cash and blessed with international legitimacy, their grip on power is probably stronger than ever. Nuclear weapons will follow, sooner or later, at a time of the regime’s choosing. And in the meantime, Iran’s ability to make mischief in the Middle East and around the world (e.g., through its newfound alliance with Venezuela) has been greatly enhanced.
The deal the Obama administration cut today with the Iranian terrorist regime signals once and for all that the Obama administration considers both the United States and Israel to be the key threats to peace in the world.
Why else would the American president have lifted sanctions and granted the Iranian mullahs decades of American cover in the face of overwhelming evidence they support anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and anti-Sunni terror across the region and the globe?
President Obama’s statements today about the strength of this deal carry no weight, given that he has coordinated with the Iranian regime – which is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans over the past few years – in Iraq, has allowed them to prop up Bashar Assad in Syria, has allowed them to continue their subjugation of Lebanon, watched in silence as they flexed their muscle in Yemen, and attempted to cut off weapons shipments to Israel in the midst of its war with Iranian proxy terror group Hamas.
Obama wants Iran to be a regional power, because Obama fears Israel more than he fears Iran. The same day that Obama announced his deal, “moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tweeted, “To our neighbours: Do not be deceived by the propaganda of the warmongering Zionist regime. #Iran & its power will translate into your power.”
Obama’s counting on it.
Obama had one motivation in this deal: he believes that any Western attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear development with force is more dangerous and less moral than Iran’s elevated terror support and even its eventual nuclear development.
America and the West, in Obama’s global worldview, are so dangerous that he wouldn’t even make minor requests of Iran, such as releasing American prisoners, if that meant the minute possibility of actual Western action on the horizon. Obama doesn’t care if Iran is lying. To him, that risk is acceptable when compared with the certainty of Western action, no matter how constrained, against Iran.
Obama consistently posed the choice about his nuclear deal as one between diplomacy and war, as though a military strike against Iran would have precipitated World War III. But this deal is far more calibrated to provoke World War III than any targeted strike by Israel, the United States, or anyone else.
The deal pats itself on the back with wording about ensuring that “Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful,” and how the deal will be a “fundamental shift” in the international community’s relationship with Iran. Then it gets to details. And the devil isn’t just in the details; the devils in Iran wrote them.
The deal “will produce the comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions as well as multilateral and national sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programme, including steps on access in areas of trade, technology, finance and energy.” Those sanctions end on the first day of the deal: “The UN Security Council resolution will also provide for the termination on Implementation Day of provisions imposed under previous resolutions.” The EU “will terminate all provisions of the EU Regulation.”
Money will now move between “EU persons and entities, including financial institutions, and Iranian persons and entities, including financial institutions.” Banking activities will resume abroad. Full trade will essentially resume. After five years, the arms embargo against Iran will end. After eight years, the missile embargo against Iran will end.
The deal explicitly acknowledges that Iran is gaining benefits no other state would gain under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In terms of its nuclear development, instead of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, that program is now protected:
Iran will continue to conduct enrichment R&D in a manner that does not accumulate enriched uranium. Iran’s enrichment R&D with uranium for 10 years will only include IR-4, IR-5, IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges as laid out in Annex I, and Iran will not engage in other isotope separation technologies for enrichment of uranium as specified in Annex I. Iran will continue testing IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges, and will commence testing of up to 30 IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges after eight and a half years, as detailed in Annex I.
We have no way of knowing what Iran has done additionally, however, since the deal has no provisions forcing them to turn over information about what they’ve already done. There is no baseline.
So who will implement this deal? A “Joint Commission” comprised of the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, the United States and Iran is charged with monitoring all developments under the agreement – meaning that all the signatories, all of whom have an interest in preserving a deal they signed, will be the “objective” monitoring agents.
The International Atomic Energy Agency will monitor and verify Iran’s nuclear program. But not everywhere. Only at key nuclear facilities will the IAEA have access – military sites were not included in the deal in any real way – and even then, the process for access is extraordinarily regulated:
74. Requests for access pursuant to provisions of this JCPOA will be made in good faith, with due observance of the sovereign rights of Iran, and kept to the minimum necessary to effectively implement the verification responsibilities under this JCPOA. In line with normal international safeguards practice, such requests will not be aimed at interfering with Iranian military or other national security activities, but will be exclusively for resolving concerns regarding fulfillment of the JCPOA commitments and Iran’s other non-proliferation and safeguards obligations. The following procedures are for the purpose of JCPOA implementation between the E3/EU+3 and Iran and are without prejudice to the safeguards agreement and the Additional Protocol thereto. In implementing this procedure as well as other transparency measures, the IAEA will be requested to take every precaution to protect commercial, technological and industrial secrets as well as other confidential information coming to its knowledge.
75. In furtherance of implementation of the JCPOA, if the IAEA has concerns regarding undeclared nuclear materials or activities, or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA, at locations that have not been declared under the comprehensive safeguards agreement or Additional Protocol, the IAEA will provide Iran the basis for such concerns and request clarification.
76. If Iran’s explanations do not resolve the IAEA’s concerns, the Agency may request access to such locations for the sole reason to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at such locations. The IAEA will provide Iran the reasons for access in writing and will make available relevant information.
77. Iran may propose to the IAEA alternative means of resolving the IAEA’s concerns that enable the IAEA to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the location in question, which should be given due and prompt consideration.
78. If the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA cannot be verified after the implementation of the alternative arrangements agreed by Iran and the IAEA, or if the two sides are unable to reach satisfactory arrangements to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the specified locations within 14 days of the IAEA’s original request for access, Iran, in consultation with the members of the Joint Commission, would resolve the IAEA’s concerns through necessary means agreed between Iran and the IAEA. In the absence of an agreement, the members of the Joint Commission, by consensus or by a vote of 5 or more of its 8 members, would advise on the necessary means to resolve the IAEA’s concerns. The process of consultation with, and any action by, the members of the Joint Commission would not exceed 7 days, and Iran would implement the necessary means within 3 additional days.
Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry wrote into the deal provisions designed to hamstring Congress and local authorities:
If a law at the state or local level in the United States is preventing the implementation of the sanctions lifting as specified in this JCPOA, the United States will take appropriate steps, taking into account all available authorities, with a view to achieving such implementation. The United States will actively encourage officials at the state or local level to take into account the changes in the U.S. policy reflected in the lifting of sanctions under this JCPOA and to refrain from actions inconsistent with this change in policy.
And if Iran cheats, the United States and EU will have to take the matter to dispute resolution rather than re-implementing sanctions, as Obama has lied:
The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from re-introducing or re-imposing the sanctions specified in Annex II that it has ceased applying under this JCPOA, without prejudice to the dispute resolution process provided for under this JCPOA. The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions. Iran has stated that it will treat such a re-introduction or re-imposition of the sanctions…
Obama is already moving on this front. While calling for an open conversation on the Iran deal, President Obama has already said he will veto any attempts to curb the deal by Congress. So feel free to chat, gang, so long as you don’t attempt to do anything.
In brief, the agreement trades enormous amounts of cash for Iran’s pinkie swear that they will not develop nuclear weapons now, and the blind hope that Iran’s regime will magically moderate over the next five to ten years – a hope made even more distant by the fact that this deal reinforces the power and strength of the current Iranian regime. The West has no interest in holding Iran to an agreement since, to do so, they would have to repudiate the deal they cut in the first place. Anything short of actual nuclear aggression will draw no response from the West. No wonder Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal a “historic mistake for the world,” explaining:
Far-reaching concessions have been made in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. In addition, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe… One cannot prevent an agreement when the negotiators are willing to make more and more concessions to those who, even during the talks, keep chanting: ‘Death to America.’ We knew very well that the desire to sign an agreement was stronger than anything, and therefore we did not commit to preventing an agreement.
So here’s what happens next in the region.
Israel Waits. The chances of an Israeli strike on Iran are now somewhere between slim and none. Obama’s deal prevents Israel from taking action without risking sanctions from the European Union and the United States for endangering this sham deal.
Nothing would make Obama happier than to levy sanctions against the Jewish State – and should Israel act in its own interests, undercutting Obama’s Epitaph Achievement, Obama will react harshly. Israel will be busy enough handling all the Iranian proxies on its borders who will now see cash and resources flow to them, all sponsored by the West.
Hezbollah and Hamas Are Strengthened. Terrorist groups across the Middle East rejoice today, knowing that the money Iran just gained through lifting of sanctions will end up restocking their rocket supply. Hezbollah has already destroyed Lebanon as Iran’s arm; Hamas has already taken over Gaza. Both routinely threaten war on Israel, firing ordinance into Israeli territory.
Now they will not only be emboldened – after all, what happens if Israel retaliates against them, Iran threatens to get involved, and the world, seeking to preserve its newfound magical relationship with Iran, puts pressure on Israel? – they will be empowered. Obama just made the next war between Israel and its terrorist neighbors a certainty.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt Go Nuclear. President Obama came into office touting “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Given that Iran is months from a bomb, and that there are no real verification techniques and no real consequences for violation, Iran’s enemies will quickly seek to go nuclear in order to establish a deterrent, not just to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but to their expanded conventional capabilities.
Iran has the largest active military in the Middle East, along with its massive paramilitary terror groups. They’ve built that in the midst of heavy sanctions. With Iran getting active on the borders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, those regimes would be foolhardy not to attempt to develop a nuclear capacity – especially given that Obama has shown there are no detriments to doing so. What’s he going to do, threaten Egypt’s General Al-Sisi? He’s been doing that for years already.
Bashar Assad Stays In Power. Remember the time Obama said Syrian dictator Bashar Assad needed to go? That’s not happening anytime soon, given that Assad is Iran’s tool in Syria. When Obama drew a red line against Syria based on Assad’s use of chemical weapons, he apparently meant that Assad should stay forever, and that his sponsor state should be rewarded with billions of dollars in relieved sanctions. No wonder Assad called the deal a “major turning point” in world history, adding, “We are confident that the Islamic Republic of Iran will support, with greater drive, just causes of nations and work for peace and stability in the region and the world.”
Iraq Splits Permanently Between Iran and ISIS. Supposedly, the United States opposed Shia exclusionary policy against Sunnis in Iraq, and blamed such policy for the breakdown of security there. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has now taken over the southern half of the country; the new Iraqi Prime Minister is an Iranian proxy. Meanwhile, Sunnis, seeking some sort of security against the Iranians and having no secular American-backed regime to rely upon, have been turning in increasing numbers to the barbarians of ISIS. President Obama has made ISIS a permanent feature of the world landscape, and has turned Iraq into an Iranian proxy state, just like Syria and Lebanon.
Iran Will Foray Into Iran [?? — DM], Afghanistan. Iran’s expansionist ambitions have been increased exponentially by this deal. The deal does nothing to demand Iran stop its military activities abroad, of course, which means that their sponsorship of the Houthis in Yemen and terrorist groups in Afghanistan will continue apace. Al Jazeera has even speculated at sectarian unrest in Pakistan.
Obama’s defenders today ask his detractors, “If the deal works, isn’t it a good deal?”
Sure. If the Munich Agreement had worked, it would have been a masterpiece of diplomacy.
But promising a unicorn in a diplomatic negotiation isn’t quite the same thing as delivering one. And delivering billions of dollars, international legitimacy, and a protective shield around a terrorist regime in exchange for that unicorn makes you either a fool or an active perpetuator of that terrorist regime.
Obama isn’t Chamberlain. He doesn’t mean well. Kerry isn’t making honest mistakes. They negotiated ineptly with Iran because they are throwing the game. They meant for America to lose all along.
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The last time a feeble leader of a fading nation came bearing “Peace in our time,” a pugnacious controversial right-winger retorted, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” That right-winger went on to lead the United Kingdom against Hitler.
The latest worthless agreement with a murderous dictatorship is being brandished by John Kerry, a man who instinctively seeks out dishonor the way a pig roots for truffles.
John Kerry betrayed his uniform and his nation so many times that it became his career. He illegally met with the representatives of the North Vietnamese enemy in Paris and then next year headed to Washington, D.C. where he blasted the American soldiers being murdered by his new friends as rapists and murderers “reminiscent of Genghis Khan.”
Even before being elected, Kerry was already spewing Communist propaganda in the Senate.
Once in the Senate, Kerry flew to support the Sandinista Marxist killers in Nicaragua. Just as Iran’s leader calling for “Death to America” didn’t slow down Kerry, neither did the Sandinista cries of “Here or There, Yankees Will Die Everywhere.”
Kerry revolted even liberals with his gushing over Syria’s Assad. Now he’s playing the useful idiot for Assad’s bosses in Tehran.
For almost fifty years, John Kerry has been selling out American interests to the enemy. Iran is his biggest success. The dirty Iran nuke deal is the culmination of his life’s many treasons.
It turns America from an opponent of Iran’s expansionism, terrorism and nuclear weapons program into a key supporter. The international coalition built to stop Iran’s nukes will instead protect its program.
And none of this would have happened without Obama.
Obama began his rise by pandering to radical leftists on removing Saddam. He urged them to take on Egypt instead, and that’s what he did once in office, orchestrating the takeover of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and across the region. The Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, but Obama had preserved the Iranian regime when it was faced with the Green Revolution. Now Iran is his last best Islamist hope for stopping America in the Middle East.
Obama and Kerry had both voted against designating Iran’s IRGC terrorist ringleaders who were organizing the murder of American soldiers as a terrorist organization while in the Senate. Today they have turned our planes into the Air Force of the IRGC’s Shiite Islamist militias in Iraq.
Throughout the process they chanted, “No deal is better than a bad deal.” But their deal isn’t just bad. It’s treason.
Obama isn’t Chamberlain. He doesn’t mean well. Kerry isn’t making honest mistakes. They negotiated ineptly with Iran because they are throwing the game. They meant for America to lose all along.
When Obama negotiates with Republicans, he extracts maximum concessions for the barest minimum. Kerry did the same thing with Israel during the failed attempt at restarting peace negotiations with the PLO. That’s how they treat those they consider their enemies. This is how they treat their friends.
A bad deal wasn’t just better than no deal, it was better than a good deal.
Obama did not go into this to stop Iran from going nuclear. He did it to turn Iran into the axis of the Middle East. After his failures in the rest of the region, this is his final act of spite. With the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood and the decline of Islamists in Turkey, supporting Iran is his way of blocking the power of his successors in the White House to pursue a more pro-American foreign policy.
Obama made this deal to cripple American power in the Middle East.
Iran get to keep its nuclear facilities, its reactors, including the hidden underground fortified Fordow facility which Obama had repeatedly stated was, “inconsistent with a peaceful program.”
The deal gives Iran a “peaceful” nuclear program with an equally peaceful ballistic missile program. It puts into place a complicated inspection regime that can be blocked by Iran and its backers. It turns Iran into the new North Korea and the new Saddam Hussein, lavishing money on it while running future administrations through a cat and mouse game of proving violations by the terrorist regime.
And Obama made sure the Iran deal was written to make the proof as hard to obtain as possible.
(The views expressed in this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
Obama has practiced deceit for a long time and His “deal” with Iran demonstrates His consummate mastery of the techniques. Earlier, He announced that the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action would eliminate Iran’s nuke weaponization and that there would be no deal otherwise. As I contended here in January of 2014, He lied. The November 2013 “joint plan of action” contemplated no inspection of any Iranian military or missile site. Quoting from my post linked immediately above,
The text of the English language version of the P5+1 “deal” is available here and the text of the January 16th White House summary of the recent agreement to go forward by reducing sanctions and beginning inspections of some (but not all) Iranian nuclear facilities is available here. I posted articles about the November 24th “deal” here and here and the White House summary here. The first two minutes and eleven seconds of the video embedded below provide a concise summary of what has been happening.
Obama, however, often told us that there would be anywhere, anytime inspections with which Iran could not interfere and which would prevent its development of nuclear weapons.
The “deal” with Iran was announced today, July 14, 2015. The 159 page text of the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” is available here. Here are excerpts from Attachment 1, dealing with IAEA inspections of Iran’s nuke sites:
In line with normal international safeguards practice, such requests will not be aimed at interfering with Iranian military or other national security activities, but will be exclusively for resolving concerns regarding fulfilment of the JCPOA commitments and Iran’s other non-proliferation and safeguards obligations. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
If the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA cannot be verified after the implementation of the alternative arrangements agreed by Iran and the IAEA, or if the two sides are unable to reach satisfactory arrangements to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the specified locations within 14 days of the IAEA’s original request for access, Iran, in consultation with the members of the Joint Commission, would resolve the IAEA’s concerns through necessary means agreed between Iran and the IAEA. In the absence of an agreement, the members of the Joint Commission, by consensus or by a vote of 5 or more of its 8 members, would advise on the necessary means to resolve the IAEA’s concerns. The process of consultation with, and any action by, the members of the Joint Commission would not exceed 7 days, and Iran would implement the necessary means within 3 additional days. [Emphasis added.]
Hence, if Iran does not agree to permit inspections within fourteen days of an IAEA request, the dispute will be resolved by majority vote of an eight member committee, including Iran, Russia and China. Should those three vote against an IAEA inspection, as they likely would, it would take all of the other five members to grant the IAEA request. That process “would not exceed 7 days” and then, if a majority (five members) of the committee agreed with the IAEA, Iran would have three additional days to comply. In the unlikely event of a majority vote in favor of the IAEA, Iran would have had twenty-four days to prepare for an inspection. Three days, let alone twenty-four days, would give Iran ample time to eliminate evidence of whatever the IAEA sought. It all boils down to trusting Iran.
As observed here, that amounts to no time, nowhere supervision.
Any deal that scales back sanctions and allows Iran to keep operating its advanced nuclear development facilities even at a low level is a fatal bargain. So warned Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute and Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as long as two years ago.
U.S. President Obama’s response to this was to promise that he would accept nothing less than a Western right to conduct “anywhere, anytime” international inspections of Iran’s most secret nuclear and military facilities. [Emphasis added.]
Indeed, veteran investigators have testified in front of Congress literally dozens of times that anywhere-anytime access is a minimum prerequisite to a verifiable deal.
Alas, Obama has now backed down from that. It’s an American collapse.
I have not dealt with other aspects of the “deal” here but plan to do so in Part II.
Vice President Joe Biden listens as President Barack Obama delivers remarks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 14, 2015, after an Iran nuclear deal is reached. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)
Because of this deal we will for the first time be in a position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, its uranium mines and mills, its conversion facility and its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities.
Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location — put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary. That arrangement is permanent. And the IAEA has also reached an agreement with Iran to get access that it needs to complete its investigation into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s past nuclear research.
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After two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not: a comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring about real and meaningful change, change that makes our country and the world safer and more secure.
This deal is also in line with a tradition of American leadership. It’s now more than 50 years since President Kennedy stood before the American people and said, “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.” He was speaking then about the need for discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union, which led to efforts to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons.
In those days, the risk was a catastrophic nuclear war between two superpowers. In our time, the risk is that nuclear weapons will spread to more and more countries, particularly in the Middle East, the most volatile region in our world.
Today, because America negotiated from a position of strength and principle, we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in this region. Because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon.
This deal meets every single one of the bottom lines that we established when we achieved a framework this spring. Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off, and the inspection and transparency regime necessary to verify that objective will be put in place. Because of this deal, Iran will not produce the highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that form the raw materials necessary for a nuclear bomb.
Because of this deal, Iran will remove two thirds of its installed centrifuges, the machines necessary to produce highly enriched uranium for a bomb and store them under constant international supervision. Iran will not use its advanced centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for the next decade. Iran will also get rid of 98 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium.
To put that in perspective, Iran currently has a stockpile that could produce up to 10 nuclear weapons. Because of this deal that stockpile will be reduced to a fraction of what would be required for a single weapon. This stockpile limitation will last for 15 years.
Because of this deal, Iran will modify the core of its reactor in Arak so that it will not produce weapons grade plutonium and it has agreed to ship the spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the lifetime of the reactor. For at least the next 15 years Iran will not build any new heavy water reactors.
Because of this deal we will for the first time be in a position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, its uranium mines and mills, its conversion facility and its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities.
This ensures that Iran will not be able to divert materials from known facilities to covert ones. Some of these transparency measures will be in place for 25 years.
Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location — put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary. That arrangement is permanent. And the IAEA has also reached an agreement with Iran to get access that it needs to complete its investigation into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s past nuclear research.
Finally Iran is permanently prohibited from pursuing a nuclear weapon under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which provided the basis for the international community’s efforts to apply pressure on Iran.
As Iran takes steps to implement this deal, it will receive relief from the sanctions that we put in place because of Iran’s nuclear program, both America’s own sanctions and sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.
This relief will be phased in. Iran must complete key nuclear steps before it begins to receive sanctions relief.
And over the course of the next decade, Iran must abide by the deal before additional sanctions are lifted, including five years for restrictions related to arms and eight years for restrictions related to ballistic missiles.
All of this will be memorialized and endorsed in a new United Nations Security Council resolution. And if Iran violates the deal, all of these sanctions will snap back into place. So there is a very clear incentive for Iran to follow through and there are very real consequences for a violation.
That’s the deal. It has the full backing of the international community. Congress will now have an opportunity to review the details and my administration stands ready to provide extensive briefings on how this will move forward.
As the American people and Congress review the deal it will be important to consider the alternative. Consider what happens in a world without this deal. Without this deal, there is no scenario where the world joins us in sanctioning Iran until it completely dismantles its nuclear program. Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it would simply capitulate under that kind of pressure and the world would not support an effort to permanently sanction Iran into submission.
We put sanctions in place to get a diplomatic resolution and that is what we have done. Without this deal there would be no agreed-upon limitations for the Iranian nuclear program. Iran could produce, operate and test more and more centrifuges. Iran could fuel a reactor capable of producing plutonium for a bomb and we would not have any of the inspections that would allow us to detect a covert nuclear weapons program.
In other words, no deal means no lasting constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. Such a scenario would make it more likely that other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world.
It would also present the United States with fewer and less effective options to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
I have been president and commander in chief for over six years now. Time and again I have faced decisions about whether or not to use military force. It’s the greatest decision that any president has to make.
Many times, in multiple countries, I have decided to use force. And I will never hesitate to do so when it is in our national security interest. I strongly believe that our national security interest now depends upon preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which means that, without a diplomatic resolution, neither I nor a future U.S. president would face a decision about whether or not to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon or whether to use our military to stop it.
Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East. Moreover, we give nothing up by testing whether or not this problem can be solved peacefully. If, in a worst-case scenario, Iran violates the deal, the same options that are available to me today will be available to any U.S. president in the future.
And I have no doubt that 10 or 15 years from now, the person who holds this office will be in a far stronger position with Iran further away from a weapon and with the inspections and transparency that allow us to monitor the Iranian program.
For this reason, I believe it would be irresponsible to walk away from this deal. But on such a tough issue, it is important that the American people and the representatives in Congress get a full opportunity to review the deal.
After all, the details matter. And we’ve had some of the finest nuclear scientists in the world working through those details. And we’re dealing with a country — Iran — that has been a sworn adversary of the United States for over 35 years.
So I welcome a robust debate in Congress on this issue and I welcome scrutiny of the details of this agreement. But I will remind Congress that you don’t make deals like this with your friends. We negotiated arms control agreements with the Soviet Union when that nation was committed to our destruction and those agreements ultimately made us safer.
I am confident that this deal will meet the national security interests of the United States and our allies. So I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal. We do not have to accept an inevitable spiral into conflict. And we certainly shouldn’t seek it. And precisely because the stakes are so high this is not the time for politics or posturing. Tough talk from Washington does not solve problems. Hard-nosed diplomacy, leadership that has united the world’s major powers offers a more effective way to verify that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Now that doesn’t mean that this deal will resolve all of our differences with Iran. We share the concerns expressed by many of our friends in the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf states, about Iran’s support for terrorism and its use of proxies to destabilize the region.
But that is precisely why we are taking this step, because an Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would be far more destabilizing and far more dangerous to our friends and to the world.
Meanwhile we will maintain our own sanctions related to Iran’s support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program and its human rights violations. We will continue our unprecedented efforts to strengthen Israel’s security, efforts that go beyond what any American administration has done before.
And we will continue the work we began at Camp David, to elevate our partnership with the Gulf States to strengthen their capabilities to counter threats from Iran or terrorist groups like ISIL.
However, I believe that we must continue to test whether or not this region, which has known so much suffering, so much bloodshed, can move in a different direction.
Time and again I have made clear to the Iranian people that we will always be open to engagement on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect. Our differences are real and the difficult history between our nations cannot be ignored. But it is possible to change.
The path of violence and rigid ideology, a foreign policy based on threats to attack your neighbors or eradicate Israel, that’s a dead end. A different path, one of tolerance and peaceful resolution of conflict, leads to more integration into the global economy, more engagement with the international community and the ability of the Iranian people to prosper and thrive. This deal offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.
We have come a long way to reach this point: decades of an Iranian nuclear program, many years of sanctions, and many months of intense negotiation.
Today, I want to thank the members of Congress, from both parties, who helped us put in place the sanctions that have proven so effective as well as the other countries who joined us in that effort. I want to thank our negotiating partners — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, as well as the European Union — for our unity in this effort, which showed that the world can do remarkable things when we share a vision of peacefully addressing conflict. We showed what we can do when we do not split apart.
And finally, I want to thank the American negotiating team. We had a team of experts working for several weeks straight on this, including our secretary of energy, Ernie Moniz. And I want to particularly thank John Kerry, our secretary of state, who began his service to this country more than four decades ago when he put on our uniform and went off to war. He is now making this country safer through his commitment to strong, principled American diplomacy.
History shows that America must lead, not just with our might, but with our principles. It shows we are stronger, not when we are alone, but when we bring the world together. Today’s announcement marks one more chapter in this pursuit of a safer and more helpful, more hopeful world.
Thank you. God bless you and God bless the United States of America.
(The article was written prior to release of the “Joint comprehensive plan of action.” A link to the text of the plan, with quotes from the part about IAEA inspections, is available here. — DM)
Under the terms of the accord, it seems that IAEA inspectors will have to “coordinate” their visits to suspect Iranian sites, “in consultation between Iran and the world powers.” Worse still, Iran will have the right to deny and challenge U.N. requests to send inspectors to suspicious sites. In these cases, an arbitration board composed of Iran and the powers would decide on the issue.
They call this “managed access,” which is a euphemism for nowhere, no-time inspections.
******************
Ahead of the accord reached between the P5+1 and Iran Tuesday, The New York Times reported that it was expected to be a “political agreement,” not a “legally binding treaty.”
Furthermore, Israeli sources said the two sides would “announce understandings” and present a 100-page document, but not “sign” anything. It will take months of additional negotiations to develop the relevant implementation documents.
All of which is meant to obfuscate the details, Israeli officials fear, and cloud the matter enough to confuse or bamboozle Congress. It will also allow the Iranians to (correctly) claim that they never truly “signed away” their nuclear capacities. In the meantime, U.N. and other international mechanisms to lift sanctions on Iran will go into high gear.
However, the root corruption of the agreement is that Iran gets to keep its nuclear facilities, and there will be no truly intrusive international supervision of what goes on deep inside them.
The accord leaves Iran with all its nuclear development facilities intact, including the Fordo underground center, instead of dismantling them. This allows the Iranians to continue refining their nuclear skills. Even at low levels of enrichment (3.5% and 5%, which are not useful for a bomb) this provides a framework with which Tehran can bypass Western restrictions and hoodwink Western inspectors.
After all, Iran has clandestinely crossed every “red line” set by the West over the past 20 years — putting nuclear plants online, building heavy-water facilities, refining uranium, working on explosive triggers and warheads, and generally breaching all of its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — and has gotten away with it. It has lied, formally and repeatedly, to the international community about its nuclear efforts.
So any deal that scales back sanctions and allows Iran to keep operating its advanced nuclear development facilities even at a low level is a fatal bargain. So warned Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute and Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as long as two years ago.
U.S. President Obama’s response to this was to promise that he would accept nothing less than a Western right to conduct “anywhere, anytime” international inspections of Iran’s most secret nuclear and military facilities.
Indeed, veteran investigators have testified in front of Congress literally dozens of times that anywhere-anytime access is a minimum prerequisite to a verifiable deal.
Alas, Obama has now backed down from that. It’s an American collapse.
Under the terms of the accord, it seems that IAEA inspectors will have to “coordinate” their visits to suspect Iranian sites, “in consultation between Iran and the world powers.” Worse still, Iran will have the right to deny and challenge U.N. requests to send inspectors to suspicious sites. In these cases, an arbitration board composed of Iran and the powers would decide on the issue.
They call this “managed access,” which is a euphemism for nowhere, no-time inspections.
This means that Iran will continue to play the negotiation game over every Western inspection request. With lawyers and more lawyers, diplomats and more diplomats. Lots of hotels and endless discussions.
In other words, Iran will be able to delay and delay access to true military or nuclear sites, just as it has done with the Parchin military base, where it is suspected to have experimented with nuclear weapons production.
Only now, under the accord and after at least three years of requests (and after a major Iranian cleanup effort, documented by Western satellite photos) will Iran finally ”grant” access to Parchin. Sometime soon.
Yay. What a great victory for Obama and nuclear containment of Iran.
(It’s worse than Munich. At least Chamberlain was working in a context of military weakness; Obama has been operating in a context of military strength, which he has declined to use. — DM)
The big news of the day is the announcement of the deal with Iran by President Obama and Secretary Kerry. The Washington Post provides the text and video of Obama’s announcement here.
Listening to President Obama this morning, without access to the text of the agreement, I found key concessions made against his previously announced minimum criteria concealed in pleasing formulations presented as great accomplishments. ‘Twas a famous victory.
The deal must be the worst ever entered into by the United States. It is certainly “an historic mistake.” Based in part on Obama’s statement itself and in part on previous news accounts, I think the following summary provided by Omri Ceren provides a useful guide.
(1) The Iranian nuclear program will be placed under international sponsorship for R&D – A few weeks ago the AP leaked parts of an annex confirming that a major power would be working with the Iranians to develop next-generation centrifuge technology at the Fordow underground military enrichment bunker. Technically the work won’t be on nuclear material, but the AP noted that “isotope production uses the same technology as enrichment and can be quickly re-engineered to enriching uranium.” The administration had once promised Congress that Iran would be forced to dismantle its centrifuge program. The Iranians refused, so the administration conceded that the Iranians would be allowed to keep their existing centrifuges. Now the international community will be actively sponsoring the development of Iranian nuclear technology. And since the work will be overseen by a great power, it will be off-limits to the kind of sabotage that has kept the Iranian nuclear program in check until now.
(2) The sanctions regime will be shredded – the AP revealed at the beginning of June that the vast majority of the domestic U.S. sanctions regime will be dismantled. The Lausanne factsheet – which played a key role in dampening Congressional criticism to American concessions – had explicitly stated “U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal.” That turns out to have been false. Instead the administration will redefine non-nuclear sanctions as nuclear, so that it can lift them. The Iranians are boasting that sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank, NIT Co., the National Iranian Oil Company, and 800 individuals and entities will be lifted. That’s probably exaggerated and a bit confused – CBI sanctions are statutory, and will probably not be getting “lifted” – but the sense is clear enough.
(3) The U.S. collapsed on the arms embargo – Just a week ago General Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking.” Now multiple outlets have confirmed that the embargo on conventional weapons will be lifted no later than five years from now, and that the embargo on ballistic missiles will expire in 8 years. No one in the region is going to wait for those embargoes to expire: they’ll rush to build up their stockpiles in anticipation of the sunset.
(4) The U.S. collapsed on anytime-anywhere inspections – The IAEA will get to request access to sensitive sites, the Iranians will get to say no, and then there will be an arbitration board that includes Iran as a member. This concession is particularly damaging politically and substantively because the administration long ago went all-in on verification. The original goal of the talks was to make the Iranians take physical actions that would prevent them from going nuclear if they wanted to: dismantling centrifuges, shuttering facilities, etc. The Iranians said no to those demands, and the Americans backed off. The fallback position relied 100% on verification: yes the Iranians would be physically able to cheat, the argument went, but the cheating would be detected because of an anytime-anywhere inspection regime. That is not what the Americans are bringing home.
(5) The U.S. collapsed on PMDs – This morning the Iranians and the IAEA signed a roadmap for a process that would see Tehran eventually providing access for the IAEA to clear up its concerns. This roadmap differs in no significant way from previous commitments the Iranians have made to the agency, except now Tehran will have received sanctions relief and stabilized its economy. Administration officials will have to look at lawmakers and nonetheless promise that this time the Iranians will give the IAEA what it needs.
UPDATE: The Islamic Republic of Iran has posted the English text of the deal here. What a relief! “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”
(It’s about 150 pages in length, with frequent references to Annex I, dealing with IAEA inspections, which begins at page 21. The part of the annex dealing with IAEA inspections concerning “M. PAST AND PRESENT ISSUES OF CONCERN” starts at page 38; access begins at page 42. It’s complicated and dramatically delays and limits the nature and scope of the inspections, giving Iran ample time to hide its activities. Among other provisions, it includes:
In line with normal international safeguards practice, such requests will not be aimed at interfering with Iranian military or other national security activities, but will be exclusively for resolving concerns regarding fulfilment of the JCPOA commitments and Iran’s other non-proliferation and safeguards obligations.
. . . .
If the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA cannot be verified after the implementation of the alternative arrangements agreed by Iran and the IAEA, or if the two sides are unable to reach satisfactory arrangements to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the specified locations within 14 days of the IAEA’s original request for access, Iran, in consultation with the members of the Joint Commission, would resolve the IAEA’s concerns through necessary means agreed between Iran and the IAEA. In the absence of an agreement, the members of the Joint Commission, by consensus or by a vote of 5 or more of its 8 members, would advise on the necessary means to resolve the IAEA’s concerns. The process of consultation with, and any action by, the members of the Joint Commission would not exceed 7 days, and Iran would implement the necessary means within 3 additional days.
Iran’s negotiators (second and third from left) have good reason to be happier than their Western counterparts.
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