Part I of a two-part article.
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.
No wonder Iran's Supreme Leader sent around a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head.
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.