Why should a regime that
has paid no price for dishonesty suddenly discover the virtues of honesty?
I am on record predicting that a nuclear deal with Iran will
founder on the opposition of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ali
Khamenei. Iranian diplomats, I wrote in May, “will allow this round of
negotiations to fail and bargain instead for an extension of the current
interim agreement. It will get the extension and then play for time again.
There will never be a final deal.”
I was vindicated on the first point in July, when John Kerry purchased
a five-month extension for the talks with $2.8 billion in direct sanctions
relief for Tehran. I’d be willing to make a modest bet that I’ll be vindicated
again when the Nov. 24 deadline for a deal expires. The latest talks in Oman
between Mr. Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seem to
have gone nowhere. As Jimmy Carter discovered
during the hostage crisis, the mullahs are especially contemptuous toward those
they see as weak.
But let’s say I’m
wrong. What sort of deal would we likely get?
Above all, it will be
a technical deal. Hyper-technical. If you want to master its details, be
prepared to know the difference not just between LEU (low-enriched uranium) and
HEU (high-enriched), but also between IR1 and the far more efficient IR2
centrifuges. You’ll need to know what a cascade is, and you’ll have to
appreciate the importance of footprints when it comes to M&V (monitoring
and verification) mechanisms. You’ll have to appreciate that, as in watches,
proliferation resistant is not the same thing as proliferation proof, an
important point if Russia is to turn Iran’s enriched uranium into fuel rods for
the reactor at Bushehr.
Also, get a handle on
PMD (Possible Military Dimensions) of the Iranian nuclear program, a regular
staple of reports by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as well as
Iran’s acquiescence to the AP (meaning the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, not the news agency). Meantime, keep a close eye on
Arak (the plutonium-breeding reactor near the city by the same name, not the
liquor). Examine the feasibility of “snap-back” sanctions.
 |
| U.S Secretary of State John Kerry (L) EU envoy Catherine Ashton (C) and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif meet in Muscat on November 10, 2014 |
And so on. The
avalanche of fine print will help convey an appearance of meticulousness and
transparency. If this were a nuclear deal between the U.S. and, say, Finland,
no doubt it would be so.
But we’re talking
about Iran, meaning the abundance of detail will serve a more obfuscatory
function. The Obama administration will count on a broad measure of public
ignorance and media credulity, meaning it can sell a deal by citing experts who
happen to agree with its conclusions. Anyone want to have a debate about how
much U-235 dances on the head of an Iranian SWU?
As for Iran, a deal
with one hundred moving parts also serves it well. “The Iranians will cheat the
way they always cheat, which is incrementally, not dramatically,” notes
sanctions expert Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“Sooner or later, we’ll spot a potential violation and get into a debate about
forensics: Are the Iranians complying or not? This will eat up time before we
even get to the political debate over what to do about it.”
That’s been the
Iranian M.O. ever since their covert nuclear program was first exposed in 2002.
We’ve been negotiating their noncompliance ever since. Why should a regime that
has paid no price for dishonesty suddenly discover the virtues of honesty in a
post-deal world?
Supporters of a deal
offer three answers. One is that the sanctions relief the West will offer in
the deal can always be reversed in the event Iran cheats. “We can crank that
dial back up,” as Mr. Obama said about sanctions last year. They also argue
that what Iran seeks is to become, in the Bismarckian sense, a “satisfied
power,” one that achieves its goals of diplomatic normalization, economic
prosperity and nuclear pride—but also knows its limits.
Finally, as the
Economist magazine argued in a recent editorial, time is on the West’s side.
Think of China in the early 1970s: Sooner or later, Khamenei, like Mao, will
die; sooner or later, public thirst for modernization, led by a Deng Xiaoping
-type figure such as Hasan Rouhani, will steer Tehran to a better path.
Maybe so: Dreams sometimes come true. But diplomacy based on
dreams usually fails. Iran, under its moderate leadership, executes one person
roughly every seven hours. It boasts broad sway over four Arab capitals:
Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and, most recently, Sanaa, in Yemen. The President of
the Great Satan is all but begging for a nuclear deal. European companies are
already salivating at the thought of a piece of the
post-sanctions Iranian economy. Try dialing that back.
As for the opposition
once known as the Green Revolution, when did you last hear from it?
The Obama
administration likes to make much of the notion that Iran, starved by sanctions,
is like a beggar at a banquet. If so, this beggar doesn’t settle for scraps. If
Iran says no to a deal, Mr. Kerry will soon be back with a better offer. If it
says yes, it will take what it’s given and, in good time, take some more.
Al Qaeda on a “path to
defeat.” America “out of Iraq.” It won’t be long before a nuclear deal with
Iran will join the list of Mr. Obama’s hollow Mideast achievements.
***
***
