A sucker’s deal on Iran’s nukes

Word that the administration is offering Iran the option to “unplug” rather than dismantle its illicit nuclear reactors has set off a firestorm. No doubted leaked by an alarmed administration official, the New York Times report told us: “The idea is to convince the Iranians to take away many of the pipes that connect their nuclear centrifuges, the giant machines that are connected together in a maze that allows uranium fuel to move from one machine to another, getting enriched along the way. That way, the Iranians could claim they have not given in to Western demands that they eliminate all but a token number of their 19,000 machines, in which Iran has invested billions of dollars and tremendous national pride.” And of course the pipes can be re-installed whenever the mullahs like. This is blatant and desperate appeasement.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), an architect of Iran sanctions, told me, “U.S. negotiators seem far too worried about meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s red lines for a nuclear deal, and not worried at all about the red lines of Congress.” He added, “When you read the congressionally-created Iran sanctions laws, nothing in them says that Congress wanted to use economic pressure to get bad gimmicks that paper over Iran’s refusal to dismantle its centrifuges and other illicit nuclear infrastructure.”

Iran expert Ray Takeyh agrees that the administration’s reported gimmick is dangerous. He tells Right Turn, “It has been the 5 plus 1 position all along that Iran has to dismantle a considerable portion of its existing centrifuges. This proposal would once more step away from that red line.” It is also likely to freak out our Middle East Sunni allies, who already suspect the president is trying to cozy up to Tehran at their expense.

Some 31 Republican senators dashed off a letter to the president demanding to know what was going on:

Given that a nuclear Iran poses the greatest long-term threat to the security of the United States, Israel, and other allies, we are gravely concerned about the possibility of any new agreement that, in return for further relief of U.S.-led international sanctions, would allow Iran to produce explosive nuclear material. We therefore ask that you provide immediate answers to the following questions.

They go to ask several questions including whether the administration would “propose or accept an alternative to the elimination of Iranian centrifuge” and whether it would “propose or accept anything less than the dismantlement of the heavy water reactor at Arak, a nuclear facility that a former high-ranking U.S. State Department official once dubbed a ‘plutonium bomb factory.’”

The Times report and the ensuing questions reflect what former United Nations ambassador John Bolton says is ” the Obama Administration’s mindset on Iran policy.” That doesn’t even begin to get to verifications issues which is premise on “the increasingly fanciful notion that we know all there is to know about Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” says Bolton.

If accurate, most serious observers would consider the deal an eradication of the president’s (and his predecessor’s) red line for Iran, namely elimination of Iran’s illicit nuclear program and its breakout capacity. One wonders if this is all part and parcel of Obama’s grand strategy for reconciliation with the regime. Before word of the latest bargaining ploy came out, Iran gurus Takeyh, Eric Edelman and Dennis Ross reminded us: “The Islamic republic is not a normal nation-state seeking to realize its legitimate interests but an ideological entity mired in manufactured conspiracies. A persistent theme of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speeches is that the United States is a declining power whose domestic sources of strength are fast eroding. In today’s disorderly region, Iran sees a unique opportunity to project its influence and undermine the United States and its system of alliances.”

They urge: “Washington should contest all of Iran’s regional assets. From the Shiite slums of Baghdad to the battlefields of Syria, Iran should be confronted with a new, inhospitable reality as it searches for partners.

“The United States and Iran stand at opposite ends of the spectrum of Middle East politics. The Islamic republic’s ideological compulsions and sheer opportunism make it an unlikely ally for the West. The coincidence of mutual opposition to a radical Sunni terrorist group should not blind us to the enduring threat that the mullahs represent.”

Needless to say, that does not include giving the Iranians a sweetheart deal on nukes — or inviting them to influence events in Iraq.

The proposed deal is frightening in its naivete. Other senators — and the House as well — on a bipartisan basis should make clear that unless there is a deal that dismantles the Iranian nuclear threat by the November deadline they will be voting a new round of sanctions. Maybe that will bring Obama to his senses. I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.

The Washington Post