Reports claim the U.S. surrendered on another key issue
in its nuclear negotiations with Iran.
If, as Marx taught, history
repeats itself "first as tragedy, then as farce," then Washington's
latest reported concession proves that U.S.-led nuclear negotiations with Iran
have moved from the tragic to the farcical.
After
all, those negotiations have been driven overwhelmingly by fears that, despite
Tehran's denials, its nuclear program is designed for military, not civilian,
usage – in essence, to develop nuclear weapons. With them, the regime could
fulfill its pledge to obliterate Israel, threaten the West and ward off outside
pressure as it continues to sponsor terrorism and pursue regional hegemony.
Now,
facing a June 30 deadline to complete an agreement, U.S. negotiators reportedly are droppingthe central demand
that, as part of an agreement, Iran must come clean about the "possible
military dimensions," or PMDs, of its nuclear program – that is,
the past weapons-related activities.
That
Tehran continues to resist transparency is not surprising. For months, Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and others have ruled out International Atomic Energy Agency
inspections of its military sites and interviews with its nuclear scientists –
two prerequisites for the agency to rule on the possible military dimensions
issue.
That
Washington is now caving may not be surprising, either, considering the long
list of U.S. concessions since the U.S.-led "P5+1" negotiators (which
also include Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia) have worked to turn an
interim agreement with Iran in November of 2013 into a permanent one. Desperate
for a deal that his aides have described as the foreign policy equivalent of
his landmark health reform law, President Barack Obama has agreed to let Iran
continue enriching uranium, continue research and development on advanced
centrifuges that can enrich uranium at higher grades for potential bomb-making,
retain some of its enriched uranium stockpile, keep some of its nuclear sites
open, and continue work on its ballistic missile program.
Nevertheless,
Washington's reversal is particularly striking in light of its insistence –
when reports surfaced three months ago that it was considering backing down on
possible military dimensions – that it would do no such thing.
Appearing
on PBS' "Newshour" in April, Kerry told Judy Woodruff, "They have to do it.
It will be done. If there's going to be a deal, it will be done." When
Woodruff asked whether the possible military dimensions information
would be "released" and "available" before June
30, Kerry replied, "It will be part of a final agreement. It has to
be."
Now,
U.S. officials are bobbing and weaving, trying to square Kerry's blunt
statements with the latest news reports. In Friday's State Department briefing
for reporters, spokesman Jeff Rathke insisted that "our position on this
hasn't changed." But he repeatedly dodged requests that he square the
circle between Kerry's comments and the recent news.
That
sparring was triggered by an Associated Press report of a day earlier that
began, "World powers are prepared to accept a nuclear agreement with Iran
that doesn't immediately answer questions about past atomic weapons work, U.S.
and Western officials said." In the report, Western officials predicted a
deal by June 30 and acknowledged that possible military
dimensions questions would remain unanswered at that point.
If so,
that's important for at least two reasons. First, International Atomic Energy
Agency inspectors must know what work Iran has conducted in the past if, in the
future, they're supposed to monitor Iranian behavior and verify that Tehran
isn't violating the agreement. Second, without knowing previous work, officials
cannot say for sure how close Iran would be from nuclear weapons. The more
activity it conducted, and the more military-related infrastructure it has, the
closer it would be.
"Without
clear answers to these questions," experts David Albright and Bruno
Tertrais wrote in
The Wall Street Journal last year, "outsiders will be unable to determine
how fast the Iranian regime could construct either a crude nuclear-test device
or a deliverable weapon if it chose to renege on an agreement."
That's
why Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., is
justifiably "alarmed," as he put it in a June 15 letter to Obama, by the news reports
– and why he urged the president to rethink his approach.
Lawrence J. Haas, former communications director for Vice
President Al Gore, is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.
