Could it be that this Iran deal had many written parts using invisible ink where formulas have been applied to see the realities?
Iran’s Rohani Opposes Parliament Vote On Nuclear Deal Iranian President
Hassan Rohani has opposed a parliamentary vote on a landmark nuclear agreement with world powers.
Under the July 14 deal, Western sanctions will be gradually be lifted in return for Iran imposing curbs on nuclear activities, which the West suspects are aimed at making an atomic bomb.
Rohani said at a news conference on August 29 that the accord was a political understanding reached with world powers, not a new pact that requires parliamentary approval.
The parliament has set up a special committee to study the deal.
Rohani said the Supreme National Security Council, the country’s highest security decision-making body, is already studying the agreement.
He also said Iran’s military capability has not been affected by the deal, saying, “We will do whatever we need to do to defend our country, whether with missiles or other methods.”
If the IAEA’s Dec. 15 report is inconclusive, or if Iran challenges the report, Heinonen said, “it’s a heck of a political discussion in this town.”
Enforcing President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran will greatly expand the work of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog and put it in a political spotlight that rivals, if not exceeds, the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
For months, lawmakers and former nuclear inspectors have expressed concerns that the International Atomic Energy Agency’s integrity and independence would be hurt by the pressure of policing Iran’s compliance with a deal in which the world’s most powerful countries have placed so much hope. Those concerns have been reinforced in the wake of reports that the agency may be willing to place an unprecedented level of trust in Iran’s integrity.
“From what we can tell, this inspection arrangement with Iran is far from established practice. It is far from routine, as the Obama administration claims. And it is very far from what we should find acceptable in an agreement so central to our security,” said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The agreement signed July 14 in Vienna between Iran and six major world powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — would essentially freeze Iran’s nuclear program for 10 years in exchange for relief from sanctions that have crippled that country’s economy. Iran also agreed never to seek a nuclear weapon, and to accept enhanced monitoring from the IAEA, though Iranian officials dispute what the United States and its partners say that means.
The deal would greatly expand the IAEA’s role in Iran. Director General Yukiya Amano said Tuesday that the agency would need an additional $10.5 million a year to hire more inspectors and obtain new equipment to meet its requirements. Much of that will come from the United States, which provides about a third of the agency’s budget.
The initial and most significant phase of sanctions relief is set to come after the IAEA reports by Dec. 15 on Iran’s compliance with outstanding issues related to past work widely believed to have been aimed at developing a nuclear weapon. The process for resolving those issues is contained in a confidential side deal worked out between the agency and Iran and signed on the same day as the broader nuclear accord.
And that’s where the problem starts.
U.S. lawmakers already were skeptical of the secret side deal, and angry that the agency wouldn’t let them see it, when the Associated Press reported last week that it included an arrangement allowing Iran to use its own inspectors at the Parchin military base, where the United States and other nations believe illicit nuclear weapons work was done in the past.
This highly unusual step was seen by many lawmakers and experts as a bad precedent for future efforts and a sign that the IAEA is under heavy political pressure to ensure Iran meets the bar for sanctions relief.
“If the reporting is accurate, these procedures appear to be risky, departing significantly from well-established and proven safeguards practices,” wrote Olli Heinonen, a former IAEA deputy director, in an analysis for the nonpartisan Iran Task Force. “At a broader level, if verification standards have been diluted for Parchin (or elsewhere) and limits imposed, the ramification is significant as it will affect the IAEA’s ability to draw definitive conclusions with the requisite level of assurances and without undue hampering of the verification process.”
The AP story appeared to verify concerns raised in a July 21 report by the Institute for Science and International Security, whose founder, David Albright, also a former arms inspector, has warned for months that the Iran deal risks forcing the IAEA into a political role for which it is not suited.
“Allowing Iran to stonewall or deceive the IAEA and the E3+3 on the [possible military dimension] issue would significantly weaken the credibility of verification and increase suspicions that Iran is making time-bound concessions to defuse intense international pressure as part of a strategy to maintain its ability to acquire nuclear weapons later,” the report said.
Iran had demanded immediate relief from international sanctions during the two years of talks resulting in the nuclear deal, and much of the pressure to meet that demand has also now fallen on the IAEA. The agreement gives the agency only five months to resolve issues on which Iran has been stonewalling for years so sanctions relief can be implemented. Experts say those issues are crucial to knowing how close Tehran came to developing a nuclear weapon.
“I don’t think the IAEA can come with a conclusive report by Dec. 15. There’s simply not enough time,” Heinonen told the Washington Examiner. “This is a very tight schedule.”
If the IAEA’s Dec. 15 report is inconclusive, or if Iran challenges the report, Heinonen said, “it’s a heck of a political discussion in this town.”
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Senators supporting the Iran deal may want to reflect long and hard about just what they are endorsing. The faults are many:
- The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is far weaker than previous non-proliferation agreements with South Africa and Libya.
- Contrary to White House talking points, the inspection and verification mechanisms are also weaker than previous agreements.
- The JCPOA provides Iran rewards upfront, allowing it to cheat or walk away from the deal without consequence.
- Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently acquiesced to Iran conducting its own sampling as the suspect Parchin site, where Iran is alleged to have conducted nuclear weapons work.
Now it’s time to add another problem: Kerry, in his myopic quest for a Nobel Prize, appears to have put China in charge of redesigning the Arak heavy water reactor, where Iran can produce plutonium. According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua (emphasis added):
The accord helps maintain the non-proliferation mechanism and safeguard Iran’s rights on civil nuclear energy, [Foreign Minister] Wang [Yi] said, adding it also “created more favorable conditions for the development of the China-Iran relationship.” China will work closely with Iran to ensure the implementation of the deal and continue to play a positive and constructive role in redesigning the Arak heavy-water reactor and other issues, Wang added.
Given that China has always been North Korea’s number one sponsor, what could go wrong?
