According to the wisest members of the left, including President Obama, the new deal with Iran will stifle Iran’s nuclear program. President Obama pledged, in his Saturday night address to the nation, that “we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program,” and added that “key parts of the program will be rolled back.” On Monday, Obama told a crowd in San Francisco, “We cannot rule out peaceful solutions to the world’s problems. We cannot commit ourselves to an endless cycle of conflict.”
The deal is, according to The New York Times, a no-brainer: “no one can seriously argue that it doesn’t make the world safer.”
The problem is this: the deal that the Obama administration and its allies in the press are presenting to the world is a mythical one. Here, then, are the major deal points, and the flaws in them:
“The goal for these negotiations is to reach a mutually-agreed long-term comprehensive solution that would ensure Iranˈs nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful.”
Myth: The agreement is a step forward in that it bars Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Fact: The agreement explicitly allows Iran to develop nuclear capabilities in violation of United Nations resolutions, giving Iran the leeway to lie about its use of fissile material.
“From the existing uranium enriched to 20%, retain half as working stock of 20% oxide for fabrication of fuel for the TRR. Dilute the remaining 20% UF6 to no more than 5%. No reconversion line.”
Myth: This rolls back the existing Iranian nuclear weapons program to a significant degree.
Fact: The difference between 20% enrichment and 5% enrichment is relatively minute. There is no verification mechanism to ensure that the watered-down stuff is not reconverted.
“Iran announces that it will not enrich uranium over 5% for the duration of the 6 months. Iran announces that it will not make any further advances of its activities at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (1), Fordow (2), or the Arak reactor (3), designated by the IAEA as IR-40.”
Myth: This significantly hampers Iran’s nuclear development capabilities.
Fact: Not only does the agreement’s verification provide only weak checks on facilities the west knows about, it completely ignores the Parchin facility near Tehran.
“Provision of specified information to the IAEA, including information on Iranˈs plans for nuclear facilities, a description of each building on each nuclear site, a description of the scale of operations for each location engaged in specified nuclear activities, information on uranium mines and mills, and information on source material. This information would be provided within three months of the adoption of these measures.”
Myth: This gives the west brand new information about Iranian nuclear facilities.
Fact: This gives the Iranians three months to fabricate information about their nuclear facilities.
“Daily IAEA inspector access when inspectors are not present for the purpose of Design Information Verification, Interim Inventory Verification, Physical Inventory Verification, and unannounced inspections, for the purpose of access to offline surveillance records, at Fordow and Natanz.”
Myth: This is serious surveillance.
Fact: This is deeply unserious surveillance. Inspectors may not show up unnaounced to check out design information, physical inventory, or interim inventory. Unannounced inspections are only allowed under the agreement “for the purpose of access to offline surveillance records” at two of the nuclear reactors, but not at Arak or Parchin at all. The most important type of nuclear verification is monitored by the Iranian government, including “managed access” to centrifuge assembly, uranium mines and mills, and centrifuge rotor production workshops and storage facilities. In other words, all the important information gets filtered by the Iranian government.
The rest of the agreement constitutes goodies the west will give to Iran, including “No new nuclear-related UN Security Council sanctions,” “No new EU nuclear-related sanctions,” and suspension of US and EU sanctions on “gold and precious metals,” as well as Iranian petrochemical exports.
There are multiple other problems with the Iran deal text, including the fact that Iran is allowed to continue centrifuge production, supposedly to “replace damaged machines” – but, as mentioned, inspection of centrifuges is monitored by the Iranian government under “managed access.” So Iran’s centrifuge production can continue wholesale under the guise of replacing damaged materials no one can inspect.
It is no wonder the Iranian government is so thrilled with this deal. They gave up virtually nothing, and gained six months during which Israel is completely isolated internationally – a period during which they can speed along their path toward a nuclear weapon. And anyone who thinks President Obama is humble enough to declare this deal a failure in six months, no matter how much of a failure it is, has never seen this egotistical Commander-in-Chief in action.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.