Tuesday, August 4, 2015

The Iran Nuclear Agreement …… A Ticking Time-Bomb

The Iran Nuclear Agreement …… A Ticking Time-Bomb

by MARK SILVERBERG August 3, 2015 iran nuclear deal obama ticking time bomb
The countdown to Iran becoming a threshold nuclear state has begun and the world now stands at the abyss. In addition to facilitating Iranian control over Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, handing the keys to the Persian Gulf to the Iranian mullahs, and ultimately blocking the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea thereby threatening global trade and the Suez Canal - Egypt's lifeline, the recently concluded P5+1 Agreement signed in Vienna on July 14th grants Iran not one, but two paths to the bomb. Iran can get the bomb either by cheating on the Agreement or lying (as did North Korea), or it can get the bomb by keeping the deal for ten years, and then assembling it immediately afterwards.
Overall, it allows for Iran's continuing research and development on its advanced centrifuges; sanctions relief (including the release of up to $150 billion in frozen assets with no automatic "snapback" mechanism); an end to the arms embargo against it; and no anytime, anywhere inspections.

In short, the deal does not prevent a nuclear Iran. At best, it only delays it a few years. The signatories to the Agreement walked away from virtually every key position demanding the reduction or dismantlement of Iran's military nuclear infrastructure including its fortified Fordo facility buried under a mountain on a military base where Iran will be permitted to continue enriching uranium and developing its ability to spin faster and more advanced centrifuges. It has also backed away from UN Security Council Resolution 1696 of July 2006, which demanded that Iran suspend research and enrichment of radioisotopes, as well as U.S. demands for the dismantlement of the nuclear facilities.
In short, a nuclear timetable for Iran has now been established. In return for merely slowing down its pursuit of nuclear weapons, in 5 years, if that, according to the Agreement, the embargo on the import and export of conventional weapons will end. Unsurprisingly, Iran is already in breach of that Agreement. Russia recently finalized the sale to Iran of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system in violation of the existing embargo, and it will be providing Iran with 250 highly-advanced Sukhoi-Su-30MK1 fighters as well as 100 - IL78 MKI tanker aircraft for refueling the Iranian air force in mid-flight which brings Israel and the Middle East Arab nations at large within easy range of Iranian aerial bombardment. Debkafile, which is known to have significant international military and intelligence sources also announced on July 30th that Iran is to purchase from China 150 Chengdu J-10 sophisticated jet fighters which are comparable to the U.S. F-16. These purchases are a direct result of the anticipated unfreezing of Iranian assets and the billions of dollars that will flow from it.
Moreover, according to the Agreement, in 8 years, Iran can acquire ballistic missiles but even that provision is questionable. Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Zarif recently stated that the new U.N. Security Council resolution makes all ballistic missile restrictions in the Agreement "non-binding." If he is correct, the President is to blame. By making his deal international law before it became U.S. law, Obama may well have made Congressional disapproval of the deal irrelevant.

The Agreement also provides that after 10 years, unlimited centrifuges can be built that will be used to enrich uranium. Israeli intelligence, however, has just learned that the Teba and Tesa plants in Iran's military industry are already developing new, smaller centrifuges - the IR6 and IR8 - both of which will allow the Iranians to build smaller enrichment facilities immediately that will be much more difficult to detect and are expected to shorten the break-out time to a bomb.+

It provides that in 15 years, all limits on the level to which uranium can be enriched will end, and in 25 years, all special limitations under the deal will be lifted. Thereafter, Iran would not be subject to any additional restrictions on its nuclear program making it that much more difficult to determine if its leaders decide to build a nuclear weapon.

Given Iran's long history of deception, denial of IAEA access to its nuclear sites, and its continuous denials about its nuclear program in its negotiations, together with its creeping jihad through stealth and terror across five continents, there is absolutely no basis upon which to trust them now. Since 1979, no Iranian leader has changed his mind or actions about Israel, about the U.S. or about human rights, and it is the height of folly and naiveté to believe that the Iranian regime will change in the next decade and give up on its global Islamist jihad as the Agreement's signatories seem to believe.
Unfortunately, spokesmen for the U.S. Administration have already contradicted earlier assurances that any Agreement Iran makes would leave its nuclear facilities open to immediate inspection at any time. Now the public learns that the inspectors - none of whom under the Agreement can be Americans - must ask for the opportunity to inspect a suspected site, not immediately, but within 24 days - no doubt followed by months of political haggling over the inspection details - giving the Iranians ample time to destroy incriminating evidence. And to make matters worse, a just disclosed "side deal" to the Vienna Agreement - classified for the Americans, but not for Iran - enables Iran to provide its own soil samples to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from the Parchin military complex south of Tehran where it is believed to be experimenting with ways to detonate a nuclear weapon.

This arrangement would allow the Iranians to fake the samples provided to the IAEA. In fact, Iran has stated categorically that inspection of any of its military sites (which is quite obviously where research on or development of nuclear-related military applications would be conducted) will never occur. Is this the "unprecedented verification" the U.S. Administration promised us? Is this what twenty months of negotiations with Iran generates?

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz represented that any agreement would provide for "anywhere, anytime" inspections. As noted, however, the deal provides nothing close to this. In fact, according to the Agreement, disclosure of Iran's past nuclear-related activities is no longer a prerequisite for lifting international sanctions against Iran. As a result, the central question of Iran's disclosure of dangerous nuclear activities in the past will remain unresolved. If Iran will not give a correct and complete accounting of its past and current nuclear activities, its suspicious nuclear sites will likely never be inspected.

The Agreement signatories should have learned from their past experience in supervising the "destruction" of Syria's chemical weapons that Iran cannot be trusted to abide by this Agreement. Two years after Syria signed an agreement with the U.S. and Russia to dismantle its chemical weapons, U.S. intelligence agencies and chemical weapons inspectors have now concluded that Syria has failed to account for its arsenal, developed new capabilities, and continues to use chemical attacks on the battle front without significant reaction from the international community. So much for the reliability of international oversight.

As a consequence, it is safe to assume that the Agreement will not have an enforceable inspections regime or a workable way to re-impose pressure on Iran when it cheats. In fact, according to Tablet, in the immediate aftermath of the signing, the Iranian delegates told their superiors that "our most significant achievement" was America's consent to the continued enrichment of uranium on Iranian territory - a complete about-face from America's declared position prior to and during the talks. The Western delegates conceded on almost every one of the critical issues they had themselves resolved not to concede.

No wonder Iran's Supreme Leader sent around a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head.
Worse still, the parties to the Agreement are required to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities should anyone try to attack or sabotage them - including, presumably, Israel and any disenchanted signatories to the Agreement itself. Put into plain terms, the U.S. is protecting the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism to the detriment of Israel and its Sunni Arab Middle East allies.

Furthermore, by lifting the strict economic sanctions and trade restrictions Washington and its allies laboriously put in place, the Agreement would release within months previously sanctioned oil and gas revenues that would then flow into Iranian coffers. This would result in the freeing up of an estimated $150 billion in frozen Iranian assets (as noted above) and tens of billions of dollars in trade restrictions that would be eliminated almost immediately. Syrian President Assad and Hezbollah leader Nasrallah are already celebrating the billions of dollars that they know Iran will give to their respective war machines thanks to the Vienna Agreement.

Abbas Araghchi, the deputy Iranian foreign minister who led the negotiations for Mr. Obama's deal even admitted that, despite the Agreement, Iran will continue to buy all the arms it wants, from whomever it wants, and if the rest of the world doesn't like it - too bad. He vowed that Iran would "buy weapons from wherever possible, and will provide weapons to whomever and wherever it considers appropriate."

Nor is he alone. Iran´s Supreme Leader Khamenei gave a particularly inflammatory speech just days after the deal, stating that the Islamic Republic´s policies toward the U.S. have not changed. "We will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon," he continued, referring to the Iranian terror axis in the Middle East. "Even after this deal, our policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change."

Two years ago, the Iranian economy was collapsing under the weight of international economic sanctions and it is conceivable that Iran's Islamic regime would have collapsed as well had the sanctions been rigorously applied. But the Agreement has now given the mullahs a new lease on life. Their economic situation will be completely transformed. A gold rush to Iran will now take place. Profits and the promise of jobs in stressed European and Russian economies will create powerful interest groups and popular sentiment against doing anything to upset the status quo.

Thus, counting on "snapping back" the sanctions that in reality contain neither "snap" nor "back" is a fantasy of fools even when (not if) Tehran opts to use its soon-to-be vast financial resources to dramatically increase its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Houthi rebellion in Yemen - which is assured. The Iranians know the U.S. is unprepared to use force, and with the tens of billions in funds and unlocked oil revenues handed over to Iran to acquire weapons that can be used to strike at America and its allies, it knows that the United States will be even less willing to act militarily at "break-out time" than it is now.

Wishful thinking is no basis for a foreign policy

In his June 2009 address in Cairo, President Obama said: "I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings"........ and in a January 2014 interview in the New Yorker, he added: "If we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion - not funding terrorist organizations, not trying to stir up sectarian discontent in other countries, and not developing a nuclear weapon - you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran."

Obama's aspiration for equilibrium, however, is based on his conviction that Iran will voluntarily come to place limits on its own ambitions. To him, therefore, the nuclear deal is not an end in itself; it is a means to establish the larger end of a strategic partnership that will accomplish his sought-for "equilibrium" in the Middle East. If, as President Obama seems to believe, Iran's government is capable not only of rational analysis, but of transforming itself into a reasonable and responsible international player, its possession of a nuclear program would not be so troubling. But allowing a genocidal, tyrannical, xenophobic, terrorism-sponsoring, jihadist Islamic regime that is the world's leading state sponsor of terror and which is theologically committed to achieving regional and ultimately global Islamic hegemony, and is pledged to the destruction of Israel to have a nuclear weapons program - is sheer madness.

Therefore, the basic premise of this deal is seriously flawed. In order to believe that such a change is possible, we must forget everything we know about the nature of this Islamic regime - that it is inherently aggressive and motivated by an extreme religious ideology that sees moderate Arabs, the West, the United States and Israel as enemies to be destroyed - not partners for peace and cooperation.

President Barack Obama has harmed the world by abandoning his own red lines - against the emphatic advice of his own military advisors. In doing so, he has bestowed ideological legitimacy on the Islamic Republic's radical theocracy, and consigned the people of Iran to near permanent rule under the iron fist of Shi'a Islam.

The Agreement does not insist that Iran cease its threats to annihilate the state of Israel, abandon public rallies calling for "death to America," end support for terrorist organizations abroad, publicly reject the absurdities of Holocaust denial, release American political prisoners, or end violations of human rights at home.

Furthermore, this Agreement will lead to a nuclear arms race in the Sunni Arab world. Saudi Arabia has already signed a $12B deal with France for two sophisticated nuclear reactors and they are also reaching out to Russia and South Korea to insure they're not left behind in Iran's quest for regional hegemony. As Mark Hanna notes in PJ Media: "A U.S.-approved deal sends the unequivocal message that unless you are a rogue nuclear nation, you're not going to get the payoffs, U.S. protection and privileges Obama just afforded the Iranians".

Iran will also have been rewarded for having violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and will be given a red carpeted fast-track to complete its nuclear bomb and to construct intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that will be capable of reaching Israel, the Sunni Arab states of the Middle East, Europe and even America.

The President also maintains that the alternative to this deal is war. That claim is blatantly false. Prof. Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute points out that there is a historical precedent for tougher diplomacy that works. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify SALT II, ending the SALT process, but war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union did not ensue. Both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan instead increased the pressure on the Soviet Union dramatically. The lesson is that walking away from bad deals does not inevitably lead either to war or to the end of negotiations.

The short of it is that Iran will neither stop its nuclear development, nor change its jihadist aggression, nor surrender. Instead of lifting the sanctions and guaranteeing the survival of the Islamic regime, the U.S. should be increasing and enforcing them, for even if a fraction of the revenues to be returned to Iran are allocated to expanding Islamic terrorism beyond its borders (as is expected), the U.S. will have subsidized the expansion of its worst nightmare.

The Iran deal, as presently constructed, is a mistake of historic proportions. It meets zero of the criteria for a good deal. It is not enforceable, it is not verifiable, nor is it in America's national security interest. The world's largest state sponsor of terror got everything it wanted and the free world got a ticking time-bomb. As Alan Dershowitz wrote recently: "The gamble is that by the time the most restrictive provisions of the deal expire, Iran will be a different country with more reasonable leaders. But can the world and especially the nations most at risk from an Iranian nuclear arsenal depend on faith, bets and dice, when they know that the last time the nuclear dice were rolled ..... North Korea ended up with nuclear weapons?"

The Agreement reached with Iran is bad for the United States, for its Sunni Arab allies, for the West, for Israel and for the world, and for these reasons the U.S. Congress must reject it.
Mark Silverberg is a foreign policy analyst for the Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel). He is a former member of the Canadian Justice Department, a past Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Western Office) based in Vancouver, a member of Hadassah's National Academic Advisory Board and a Contributing Editor for Family Security Matters, Intellectual Conservative and Israel National News (Arutz Sheva). He also served as a Consultant to the Secretary General of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem during the first Palestinian intifada. His book "The Quartermasters of Terror: Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Jihad" and his articles have been archived under www. marksilverberg .com.

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