Nuke deal looks better yet for Iran

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By Benny Avni

January 14, 2014

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Sen. Bob Menendez co-authored a new bill that would hit Iran with new sanctions if no agreement is reached within six months.

A new deal with Iran “marks the first time in a decade” that Tehran has agreed to “halt progress” in its nuclear program, and even “roll back” some of it, President Obama proudly announced Sunday.

Actually, Sunday’s signing marks the second time in two months that Obama’s hailed this deal as a historic unprecedented diplomatic breakthrough. And what’s happened in those weeks bodes poorly for what’s supposed to be a final agreement later in the year.

Back in November, this same deal (a gentlemen’s agreement, really) between six world powers and the Iranian regime was supposed to launch a six-month period, after which a more comprehensive pact would be signed, and really really end Iran’s nuclear-arms dash.

The diplomats’ logic was simple enough: We hope to halt Iran’s nuclear progress, while they want sanctions removed; start with half-way measure — we’ll remove some sanctions, they’ll stop some nuclear activity. Then hash out a real deal — with a deadline: Iran has half a year (with an option for one extension) to prove its seriousness.

But the November “deal” wasn’t complete; it took two months for diplomats to nail the details. So the six-month clock doesn’t start ticking ’til next Monday.

And Iran’s been busy in weeks between the November “signing” and Sunday’s signing:

• Tehran continued to grow its nuclear program, reportedly introducing a new generation of centrifuges to its facilities in Natanz and Fordow, and vigorously building its Arak heavy-water facility.
• It added 1,000 pounds to its stockpiles of uranium enriched to 5 percent, and 66 pounds to its 20 percent stock, getting it thisclose to breakout capacity.
• International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors were turned away when they sought to visit the Parchin military base, where the IAEA indicates that Iranians are experimenting with ways to weaponize nukes (Oops: Our diplomats didn’t include a right to inspect military bases in the November pact).

Oh, and while Obama claims that we can undo the rollback of Iran sanctions at any time, the mullahs used the November agreement to end their global economic isolation:

• Next month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to visit Tehran, signaling a thaw between the two countries. They plan to ink a trade pact worth up to $50 billion a year, which would give Turkey access to Iran’s oil and open a major regional market for Iranian goods.
•  Iran is also negotiating an oil-for-goods deal with Russia, worth $1.5 billion a month. This one will revive sales of Iranian crude around the world, which had nearly halted under strict banking and ship-insurance sanctions. Note that Russia is one of the six powers conducting the diplomacy that produced Obama’s “historic” boasts.

Meanwhile, Tehran insists that (despite Washington’s protests to the contrary) the November deal affirms its Allah-given right to enrich uranium. Certainly, the deal at least ignores, if doesn’t de facto repeal, a decade’s worth of binding UN Security Council resolutions that explicitly banned all Iranian enrichment.

And top Iranian figures — including the “moderates” — emphasize that they’ll never halt their nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Obama says it could shatter his oh-so-delicate diplomacy for America to even hint that we’d ratchet up sanctions if the deal turns sour.

Well, the Senate’s on track to defy him. A bill by Senate Foreign Relation Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) would impose added sanctions on Iran if no final agreement is reached after six months. It has 59 co-sponsors and 67 supporters, enough to override a veto — though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will delay a vote as long as he can.

Administration officials confuse the issue by saying “new sanctions” could sabotage our diplomacy — ignoring the fact that the bill’s sanctions come only if the diplomats fail to meet their own time limit.

The president himself says the chances of actually reaching a comprehensive deal with Iran are 50-50, yet his supporters insist we press on with diplomacy, claiming the only alternatives are a nuclear Iran or an Israeli strike that would lauch a major regional war.

Except a major regional war is already going on, with Sunnis and Shiites fighting across Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and in flashpoints elsewhere. Worse, it increasingly looks like Iran is winning that struggle — and we look more and more like its enablers.