Iran’s Nuclear Nondisclosure: Wall Street Journal, Dec. 4, 2015 — President Obama sold his nuclear deal with Iran with promises that the accord would be based on “unprecedented verification,” and this week we were reminded of how much that promise was worth.
Ignoring Iran’s Past Deceptions Dooms Nuclear Deal: Emily B. Landau, The Tower, Dec. 3, 2015— Iran’s attempt to advance a military nuclear program from the late 1980s is at the heart of its decades-long violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran Carries Out Another Missile Test in Violation of UN: Ben Ariel, Arutz Sheva, Dec. 8, 2015 — Iran has carried out a new medium range ballistic missile test in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions…
State Department: Iran Deal Is Not ‘Legally Binding’ and Iran Didn’t Sign It: Joel Gehrke, National Review, Nov. 24, 2015— President Obama didn’t require Iranian leaders to sign the nuclear deal that his team negotiated with the regime, and the deal is not “legally binding,”…
Unfinished Business from the Iran Nuclear Debate: Robert Satloff, American Interest, Nov. 5, 2015 — Remember the Iran nuclear agreement?
Leaving Iran’s Nuclear Past a Mystery: David E. Sanger, New York Times, Dec. 3, 2015
Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Confirmed: Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations, Dec. 4, 2015
Iran Tested Missile, Breaching UN Security Council Resolutions: Jerusalem Post, Dec. 8, 2015
U.S. Set to Lift Sanctions on Iran: Laurence Norman & Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 2, 2015
Wall Street Journal, Dec. 4, 2015
President Obama sold his nuclear deal with Iran with promises that the accord would be based on “unprecedented verification,” and this week we were reminded of how much that promise was worth. Witness the latest report on Iran’s nuclear program from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The IAEA is the U.N. outfit that is supposed to monitor Iran’s compliance with the agreement, which requires Tehran to answer the agency’s questions on its past nuclear work in order to obtain sanctions relief. On Wednesday the agency produced its “final assessment”—the finality here having mostly to do with the U.N. nuclear watchdog giving up hope of ever getting straight answers.
Hence we learn that “Iran did not provide any clarification” regarding experiments the agency believes it conducted on testing components of nuclear components at its military facility at Parchin. “The information available to the Agency, including the results of the sampling analysis and the satellite imagery, does not support Iran’s statements on the purpose of the building,” says the report. “The Agency assesses that the extensive activities undertaken by Iran since February 2012 at the particular location of interest to the Agency seriously undermined the Agency’s ability to conduct effective verification.”
This seems to be A-OK with the Obama Administration, which made clear it’s prepared to accept any amount of Iranian stonewalling in order to move ahead with sanctions relief. “We had not expected a full confession, nor did we need one,” an unnamed senior Administration official told the Journal. One wonders why they even bothered with the charade.
Still, the report is illuminating on several points, above all its conclusion that Tehran continued to work on nuclear weapons research until 2009. That further discredits the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed Iran’s weapons program had ceased in 2003, and which effectively ended any chance that the Bush Administration would use military force against Iran’s nuclear sites.
It should also inspire some humility about the quality of Western intelligence regarding closed and hostile regimes such as Iran’s. A 2014 report from the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board noted that at “levels associated with small or nascent [nuclear] programs, key observables are easily masked.” Yet the Administration keeps insisting that Iran’s nondisclosures don’t matter because the U.S. has “perfect knowledge” of what the mullahs are up to, as John Kerry claimed last summer.
The larger point is that the nuclear deal has already become a case of Iran pretending not to cheat while the West pretends not to notice. That may succeed in bringing the agreement into force, but it offers no confidence that Iran won’t eventually build its weapon.
IGNORING IRAN’S PAST DECEPTIONS DOOMS NUCLEAR DEAL
Emily B. Landau
The Tower, Dec. 3, 2015
Iran’s attempt to advance a military nuclear program from the late 1980s is at the heart of its decades-long violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Its secret work on the development of a nuclear bomb encapsulates the deceptive behavior that lost Iran the trust of the international community, and justified the demands that the P5+1 powers originally made in the context of the negotiations that eventually culminated with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the “Iran deal.” As such, one would have thought that a prime interest of the international negotiators would be to fully expose Iran’s deception in order to increase their own leverage during the diplomatic talks, compelling Iran to either accept a reasonable deal that involves massive dismantlement of its nuclear program, or suffer the consequences of its non-compliance. But that was not to be.
The final report of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano on the possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program – issued December 2 and now referred to the IAEA Board of Governors for their response by December 15 – was shallow and inconclusive. Iran had not cooperated fully with the IAEA on the 12 outstanding questions that Tehran had been stonewalling on for years. In fact, up until about a week before the mid-October deadline for Iran to provide its answers, there had been little to no cooperation on its part, with partial responses provided only in the final week or so. On the basis of this limited cooperation, the report assesses that Iran did conduct a “range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device…prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and some activities took place after 2003.” According to the report, Iran did not advance beyond “feasibility and scientific studies,” and “acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities.”
So, yes, the IAEA believes that Iran worked on military aspects, but the report – that was meant to be the final word – is a far cry from a full and final picture of Iran’s military-related activities. As Amano had already admitted a week before it was released, we should not expect a black/white report, with yes/no answers on Iran’s past behavior.
It is not clear whether the PMD investigation will continue or not, and if so, with what degree of emphasis. What is clear is that it is now off the agenda as far as implementation of the Iran deal is concerned. Indeed, the most important message in this regard was delivered already in late October, by an anonymous senior U.S. official in a briefing to reporters. The official noted that the Iran deal will be implemented regardless of the content of the IAEA report; in his/her words: the final assessment “is not a prerequisite for implementation day.”
What is most disturbing about this picture is that the Obama administration, and the P5+1 in general, apparently had no intention of including the investigation into Iran’s past military nuclear program as an integral part of the negotiations on a comprehensive and final deal with Iran, despite clear statements to the contrary.
In early 2015, both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and chief negotiator Wendy Sherman indicated that the PMD issue would have to be cleared up in the context of a final deal. Sherman noted specifically that Iran must “come clean” about past activities for a deal to be concluded. And yet, the tricky backtracking from these unequivocal statements unfortunately does not really come as a surprise. From the time negotiations began, there was something fishy about how the P5+1 framed the PMD issue. We would hear about how important it was to clear up the PMD issue in the context of a deal, and yet the investigation was relegated to the IAEA, not under the direct auspices of the political negotiation. The PMD investigation was referred to as a parallel IAEA process with which the P5+1 would not interfere. While this made sense as far as the technical details, it was surely bizarre as far as the political implications of their findings.
Why were the P5+1 creating this distance from the PMD issue, when Iran’s record of deception was obviously crucial to any deal that could be deemed “comprehensive and final”? The military dimension was the clearest justification for taking far-reaching steps to ensure that Iran wouldn’t continue to do what it had been doing for decades. This was even more pronounced against the backdrop of a lack of evidence of a strategic decision by Iran to back away from its military ambitions. In this scenario, the role of the IAEA within the process was paramount. What could justify the P5+1 announcing the JCPOA in mid-July without clearing up the PMD issue?
Although a full understanding of how Iran cheated in the past on its NPT commitment not to work on a military capability is crucial to carving out effective verification measures regarding future Iranian compliance, the U.S. administration preferred to ignore the past and focus only on the future. Moreover, although a clear determination that Iran had done wrong in the nuclear realm – in direct contradiction to Iran’s false narrative of being a stellar member of the NPT – would have given the P5+1 badly needed leverage during the diplomatic talks, negotiators preferred to avoid a conclusion that they claimed might “humiliate” Iran. So better to let Iran continue to lie and deceive?
As the P5+1 move to implement the Iran deal, the IAEA report – however lukewarm – must not be ignored, because it does break Iran’s narrative of having done no wrong in the nuclear realm. Iranian officials should no longer be allowed to appear on prominent platforms throughout the world – like the Munich Security Conference early this year – and continue to spread their narrative of nuclear innocence without being firmly challenged. Iran cannot be permitted to raise ideas and initiatives in international forums about dealing with other states from a position of having been cleared of all suspicion. The international community must be firm in its rebuttal: Iran actually has done wrong in the nuclear realm by working on a military nuclear capability for decades. All measures taken against it were legal in the face of its blatant NPT violations. Iran may have succeeded in securing a good deal from its perspective, but its history must not be whitewashed or ignored.
IRAN CARRIES OUT ANOTHER MISSILE TEST IN VIOLATION OF UN
Ben Ariel
Arutz Sheva, Dec. 8, 2015
Iran has carried out a new medium range ballistic missile test in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions, a senior United States official told Fox News on Monday. According to the source, the test was held November 21 near Chabahar, a port city in southeast Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province near the border with Pakistan. The launch took place from a known missile test site along the Gulf of Oman, reported Fox News.
The missile, known as a Ghadr-110, has a range of 1,800 – 2000 km, or 1200 miles, and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The missile fired in November is an improved version of the Shahab 3, and is similar to the precision guided missile tested by Iran on October 10, which elicited strong condemnation from members of the UN Security Council.
Shortly after the October missile test, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Iran likely violated UN sanctions, but stressed that the test would not affect the implementation of the deal reached with world powers. The United States ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, later stated the missile launched by Iran is a "medium-range ballistic missile inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon". “The United States is deeply concerned about Iran's recent ballistic missile launch," Power said at the time.
Iran has rejected claims that the missile was capable of delivering a nuclear warhead and also rejected the idea that the missile test was against UN resolutions. Nevertheless, the United States, Britain, France and Germany subsequently called for the United Nations Security Council's Iran sanctions committee to take action over the missile test.
President Obama mentioned the Iranian missile test during a press conference on October 16 and said the United States was preparing to brief the UN sanctions committee. He added that it would not derail the nuclear deal, however. A senior administration official told Fox News on Monday the White House was "aware" of reports of the second missile test, but had "no further comment at this time."
Iran continuously carries out long-range ballistic missile drills as it routinely shows off its military program.
The country’s domestic long-range ballistic missiles are, in fact, nuclear capable, according to international reports, particularly the Shahab 3 and Sejjil 2.
IRAN DEAL IS NOT ‘LEGALLY BINDING’ AND IRAN DIDN’T SIGN IT
Joel Gehrke
National Review, Nov. 24, 2015
President Obama didn’t require Iranian leaders to sign the nuclear deal that his team negotiated with the regime, and the deal is not “legally binding,” his administration acknowledged in a letter to Representative Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) obtained by National Review.
“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.
Frifield wrote the letter in response to a letter Pompeo sent Secretary of State John Kerry, in which he observed that the deal the president had submitted to Congress was unsigned and wondered if the administration had given lawmakers the final agreement. Frifield’s response emphasizes that Congress did receive the final version of the deal. But by characterizing the JCPOA as a set of “political commitments” rather than a more formal agreement, it is sure to heighten congressional concerns that Iran might violate the deal’s terms.
“The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place, as well as Iran’s understanding that we have the capacity to re-impose — and ramp up — our sanctions if Iran does not meet its commitments,” Frifield wrote to Pompeo.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani discouraged his nation’s parliament from voting on the nuclear deal in order to avoid placing legal burdens on the regime. “If the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is sent to [and passed by] parliament, it will create an obligation for the government. It will mean the president, who has not signed it so far, will have to sign it,” Rouhani said in August. “Why should we place an unnecessary legal restriction on the Iranian people?”
Pompeo cited that comment in his letter to Kerry, but Frifield did not explicitly address it in her reply. “This is not a mere formality,” Pompeo wrote in his September 19 letter. “Those signatures represent the commitment of the signatory and the country on whose behalf he or she is signing. A signature also serves to make clear precisely who the parties to the agreement are and the authority under which that nation entered into the agreement. In short, just as with any legal instrument, signing matters.”
UNFINISHED BUSINESS FROM THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEBATE
Robert Satloff
American Interest, Nov. 5, 2015
Remember the Iran nuclear agreement? Two months ago, it was the talk of the town. Then, like the national obsession with the Chandra Levy murder that faded away the moment al-Qaeda crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers, it vanished virtually overnight—no more headlines, no more op-eds, no more talk shows. The big difference is that the open questions surrounding the Iran deal remain matters of strategic importance.
Indeed, as the clock ticks toward implementation of the nuclear agreement, the task of clarifying issues of enforcement, deterrence, and U.S. regional policy is more urgent than ever. This is not least because Iran’s actions since the deal’s approval suggest Tehran views the accord not as the pathway to responsible regional behavior but as a license to expand influence, fuel instability, and make trouble for America and its local allies.
While next week’s visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be an opportunity to bring to a close an especially bitter chapter in U.S.-Israel relations, it might also herald—if only briefly—a return to center stage of policy debate on aspects of the Iran nuclear agreement (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). One way to organize these issues is to take a closer look at the President’s little-examined correspondence with key legislators on the Iran deal.
During the course of the Iran debate, President Obama met with dozens of Senators and Representatives, often in one-on-one meetings. Few details of these or other White House meetings with concerned legislators have emerged, though stories circulate about the hardball politics that kept all but four Democrats in the Senate and 25 in the House from flouting party discipline and voting to disapprove the Iran agreement. (Technically, no actual Senate vote was taken on the deal itself; the closest was a cloture vote that failed.) Along the way, the President deemed it necessary (or at least politically expedient) to respond to at least three Democratic legislators—New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler (August 20); Delaware Senator Chris Coons (September 1); and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (September 7)—with detailed written responses to questions and concerns.
The most noteworthy aspect of these three letters is what they do not include—namely, any specific commitments beyond the letter of the Iran deal text. While virtually every substantive critique of, or proposed improvement to, the Iran deal is addressed in these letters, each one was summarily dismissed or sidestepped through language that has the whiff of resolve without actually making any specific commitments beyond the narrow wording of the JCPOA text.
This, by itself, is not surprising; the goal of the correspondence was to secure legislators’ support without paying for it in the coin of policy concession. But the arguments the President chose to make—or, in some cases, not to make—and the differences among the letters offer some revealing insight into the Administration’s approach on key issues.
Throughout the Iran debate, numerous legislators cited the “sunset” problem: what happens when various limitations on Iran’s nuclear activities expire. They called on President Obama to bolster U.S. deterrence by declaring as U.S. policy the intent to use military force in response to clear and verifiable effort by Iran to break out toward a nuclear weapon. In his various letters, the President addressed the issue but only in descriptive terms; he specifically did not adopt the definitive declaratory language legislators sought.
To Nadler and Wyden, he used exactly the same formulation: “Should Iran seek to dash toward a nuclear weapon, all of the options available to the United States—including the military option—will remain available through the life of the deal and beyond.” This sentence may be analytically accurate but it falls far short of making any commitment to act even in event of an Iranian “dash” toward a bomb, begging the question “if not then, when?”
If the President’s minimalist formulation—no stronger after the deal than in the years before—was designed to bolster U.S. deterrence, it is difficult to see how it achieved its goal. In that sense, the formulation is of a piece with certain U.S. actions taken since the deal’s approval, such as the removal of the lone U.S. aircraft carrier from the Gulf and the deployment of fewer than fifty U.S. Special Forces troops to the anti-ISIS fight in Syria, which—in regional eyes—doesn’t begin to match up against the arrival in that country of thousands of Russian and Iranian personnel. While actions speak louder than words, the combination of words and actions speaks loudest of all…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends & Supporters:
Chag Sameach, Happy Hanukkah Holiday!
Leaving Iran’s Nuclear Past a Mystery: David E. Sanger, New York Times, Dec. 3, 2015—The Iranian nuclear crisis began a decade ago when Tehran’s leaders refused to answer questions from international inspectors about evidence that a secret team of scientists, working in a complex organization that sprawled across military and university laboratories, were experimenting with the technology to build a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Confirmed: Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations, Dec. 4, 2015 —The nuclear deal with Iran requires that it tell the truth–the whole truth–about its previous efforts to build a nuclear weapon.
Iran Tested Missile, Breaching UN Security Council Resolutions: Jerusalem Post, Dec. 8, 2015 — Iran tested a new medium-range ballistic missile last month in a breach of two UN Security Council resolutions, two US officials said on Monday.
U.S. Set to Lift Sanctions on Iran: Laurence Norman & Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 2, 2015—The Obama administration said it expects to start lifting sanctions on Iran as early as January after the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog found no credible evidence that Tehran has recently engaged in atomic-weapons activity.
