“Iran Agrees to Curb Nuclear Activity“: So the BBC headlined its coverage of the deal between Iran and the P5+1 Group in Geneva. Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, opted for: “The World Recognizes Iran’s Nuclear Rights.”
The signatories present the same contrast. President Obama says the deal will ensure that “Iran cannot build a nuclear weapon” — an assertion Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani describes as “a funny joke.”
But what is the deal? In an interim agreement that envisages a number of steps over the next six months, Iran offers concessions that seem impressive:
- It agrees to a 5 percent ceiling on its uranium enrichment.
- The amount of uranium already enriched is to be reduced to 7,000 kilograms at the end of the six months. Anything in excess of that is to be oxidized and thus rendered unfit for further development to weapons-grade materiel.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency will be allowed daily inspections of acknowledged enrichment sites in Natanz and Fordo.
- Work on the unfinished plutonium plant at Arak will be “frozen” for six months.
In exchange, the P5+1 Group (The US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) offer:
- For six months, the United Nations and the European Union will impose no new sanctions related to the nuclear issue.
- UN and EU efforts to further curb Iran’s oil exports will halt. And their sanctions on insurance services for transport to Iran will be suspended, along with other restrictions on the sale of gold and other valuables.
- A new “financial channel” will let Iran access banking services for “humanitarian commerce,” including imports of food, pharmaceuticals and medical services. Some $7 billion for that channel will come from Iran’s frozen oil income abroad.
- America will suspend (but not lift) some sanctions, offering the Islamic republic a much needed breathing space.
- Washington will OK the sale of some spare parts for Iran’s aging Boeing transport aircraft.
Yet Iran’s main gains fall outside the text. The first is to begin undermining the six UN resolutions that demand an end to Tehran’s nuclear program: The accord begins to back-burner the entire nuclear issue by transferring it from the Security Council to the IAEA. Second, the deal gives Russia, a staunch Iranian ally, a right to oversee whatever Western powers might wish to do about Iran in the future.
Tehran has also managed to keep sensitive sites such as the military base at Parchin, where researchers are at work weaponizing the enriched uranium, out of the inspection remit. Only Tehran-designated sites will be open for inspection. So clandestine activities can continue at suspected sites, as can work on new sites.
Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif claim another gain: “The world has recognized our right to uranium enrichment,” Zarif has been boasting. Yet if Iran has such a right under international law, it has no need for recognition of it by nations with no legal authority to decide who can enrich uranium.
Still, this deal serves narrow interests on both sides. Obama can claim a diplomatic success at a time when his administration is drowning in failures. Rouhani can cast himself as the savior who led Iran away from sanctions and possible war.
Yet the deal is bad for America: It further undermines US credibility in the eyes of regional allies, especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. At best, it will slow Tehran’s program, letting it resume at higher speed once the pressure of sanctions has eased.
In the long run, the deal could also be bad for Iran. If it lets the Khomeinist regime bounce back from its current nadir, it will encourage fantasists like “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei, who claim a divine mission to crush the United States, dominate the Middle East in the name of their brand of Shiism and wipe Israel off the map — a recipe for conflict and war.
Diplomacy is not an end in itself, but an instrument in the service of policy. Obama has decided to appease the mullahs to buy time at a time they, too, wish to buy time — time to prepare for greater mischief.