We are dealing with a
case of Mutually Assured Obfuscation.
‘So when you hear the inevitable critics of the deal
sound off, ask them a simple question: Do you really think that this verifiable
deal, if fully implemented, backed by the world’s major powers, is a worse
option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?”
That was Barack
Obama on
Thursday, defending his Iran diplomacy while treating its opponents to the kind
of glib contempt that is the mark of the progressive mind. Since I’m one of those
inevitable critics, let me answer his question.
Yes, it’s
worse. Much worse.
Yes,
because what the president calls “this verifiable deal” fails the first test of
verification—mutual agreement and clarity as to what, exactly, is in it.
Take
sanctions. Iran insists all sanctions—economic as well as
nuclear—will be “immediately revoked” and that “the P5+1 member countries are
committed to restraining from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions.” But the
Obama administration claims Iran will only get relief “if it verifiably abides
by its commitments.” The administration adds that “the architecture of U.S.
nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of
the deal.”
So who is
lying? Or are we dealing with a case of Mutually Assured Obfuscation?
Yes, too,
because the deal fails the second test of verification: It can’t be verified.
Here
again there are significant discrepancies between the U.S. and the Iranian
versions of the deal. The administration claims “Iran has agreed to implement
the Additional Protocol,” a reference to an addendum to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty that permits intrusive inspections. But Tehran merely
promises to implement the protocol “on a voluntary and temporary basis,”
pending eventual ratification by its parliament,inshallah.
We’ve
seen this movie before. Iran agreed to implement the Additional Protocol in
2003, only to renounce it in early 2006, after stonewalling weapons inspectors.
But even
the Protocol is inadequate, since it doesn’t permit no-notice, “anytime,
anywhere” inspections. “A verifiable agreement would require unfettered access
to all key facilities, personnel, documentation, and other information being
sought,” notes Olli
Heinonen, a
former top nuclear inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency. The
Protocol, he adds, “does not fully oblige this.”
Yes, as
well, because Mr. Obama’s caveat, “if fully implemented,” is catnip to the
rulers of Iran. What happens if Iran complies with every aspect of the accord,
save one—for instance, if it starts fielding more advanced centrifuges?
“The
Iranian regime cheats incrementally, not egregiously, even though the sum total
of its incremental cheating is egregious,” says Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies. Does anyone think Mr. Obama will walk away from his
deal at the first instance of Iranian noncompliance? This is a president who
failed to inform Congress of Russia’s suspected violations of a 1987 nuclear
arms-control treaty so he could get his own treaty ratified by the Senate in
2010.
Yes,
furthermore, because a deal that is “backed by the world’s major powers,” as
Mr. Obama says, is also beholden to those powers.
That
would include the Europeans, who will re-enter the Iranian market with the
animal spirits of famished poodles.
It will include the Chinese, eager to extend their new economic “silk road”
through Persia. It will include Russia, which will invest even more heavily in
Iran—think nuclear reactors and advanced surface-to-air missile systems—while
holding Iran policy hostage to its own demands in Ukraine and elsewhere. Of all
the flaws in this deal, none is so fatal as the subordination of the U.S. to
the U.N. on the most consequential diplomatic agreement so far in the 21st
century.
***
It is
typically crass of Mr. Obama that he should try to justify his failed diplomacy
with the false alternative of a hypothetical war. If John
Kerry were
half as canny a negotiator as Javad Zarif, we’d
have a better deal in hand.
But let’s
accept the president’s premise. Should the current deal hold, Iran will be able
to develop all the nuclear infrastructure it wants by the time my youngest
child is in college. And it will do so not over Washington’s objections, but
with our blessing.
Maybe by
then the Iranian regime will have changed for the better. More likely not.
Their economy will have revived thanks to the end of sanctions. Their
geopolitical position will be stronger thanks to the internal convulsions of
some of their neighbors. And they will have a nuclear infrastructure capable of
producing many bombs on short notice—too short for the U.S. to do anything
about it. The same will likely be true of Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
So let me
rephrase the president’s question: Is targeted military action against Iran’s
nuclear facilities—with all the unforeseen consequences that might entail—a
better option than a grimly foreseeable future of a nuclear Iran, threatening
its neighbors, and a proliferated Middle East, threatening the world?
I know my
answer. What’s yours?
