Getting down to crunch time, dragging beyond the June 30 extended deadline, for a nuclear deal with Iran, the P5+1, including the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany, the U.S. grows impatient for yet a new drop dead date of July 7. Working feverishly to nail down a deal, Iran’s 56-year-old chief negotiator Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, desperately wants something that crushes economic sanctions in exchange for Iran suspending, or slowing down, its nuclear enrichment program. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei already signaled that U.N. inspectors can’t dig into Iran’s past nuke activities, but, more importantly, any nuke activity performed at secret military sites. While a deal-breaker for many, the Obama administration has spent the better two years and millions shuttling Secretary of State John Kerry back-and-forth for a deal.
Voting 98-1 May 17. 2015 to approve any White House nuke deal, the Congress won’t let the State Department sign a bad arrangement. All foreign powers included in the negotiations believe it’s better to have an agreement with Iran than no agreement. Republican hawks, like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), don’t see the wisdom in signing a deal that doesn’t prevent Iran from developing an A-bomb. With a nuke program started with U.S. help for ally Shah Mohammad Reza Palavi in the 1950s, it’s highly unlikely the P5+1 can really stop Iran’s secretive nuclear research, military or otherwise. Transferring enriched uranium to a third party or slowing its “overt” enrichment program doesn’t really slow Iran’s pursuit of a bomb if they’re hell-bent on pursuing it. U.S. or Israeli hawks can’t control what a sovereign country does with its nuclear program developed over the past 50 years.
White House officials receive constant criticism from conservatives regarding what to do with Iran’s nuke issue. Using the U.N.’s international mechanism made the most sense, despite the obvious lack of enforcement. Conservatives like to rip multilateral diplomacy, including whatever painstaking progress has gone on over the past two years. “We are coming to an end,” said in unnamed senior Western diplomat. “Either we get an agreement or we don’t,” referring to the possibility that the two-year negotiation could fail. “We are ready to strike a balanced and good deal and open new horizons to address important common challenges,” Zarif said on YouTube. When Zarif speaks of progress, he’s referring to the handcuffs he’s been in from Iran’s Supreme Leader. Zarif has no control of what Iran can offer to the P5+1 in the way of concessions or anything else.
Russia’s chief negotiator Sergei Ryabkov and China’s Foreign minister Wang Yi expressed confidence that a deal was near. Whether or not that deal satisfies U.S. hawks on Capitol Hill is anyone’s guess. Zarif has told P5+1 officials that he’s surprised that the negotiations have gone so far. It’s obvious that Ayatollah Khamenei wants the punitive economic sanctions lifted but is only willing to compromise so much before feeling disrespected. “We’re making progress,” said Kerry, knowing that he has no control of the deal’s final outcome. It’s easy for Capitol Hill hawks to criticize the deal without understanding the limitations. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a joint session of Congress March 3 that no deal was better than some deal that still allowed Iran to pursue nukes, he didn’t admit the extreme limitations of P5+1 negotiators with Tehran.
Placating Western demands to better accept to U.N. weapons inspectors, Khamenei agreed to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol regime, permitting U.N. inspectors to request new sites for inspection. Calling for the IAEA’s Additional Protocols circumvents Western demands for access in Iran’s sensitive nuclear sites. “The position set out by Khamenei last week make it difficult to bridge the gaps in the next few days, and there is still work to be done,” said the unnamed diplomat. All diplomats working on the final nuke deal seeks any way to close the negotiations. More than Western powers, Iran wants the punitive economic sanctions to end before it agrees to any concessions. “It’s time to close this chapter,” said a senior Western diplomat, admitting that all sides show signs of capitulation, needing the nuke deal to save face.
Critics of the present Iranian nuke deal, especially Capitol Hill hawks and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have no alternative before them to keep Iran from getting the bomb. Even the current nuke deal won’t slam the door on Iran’s capacity to eventually get nukes. When Pakistan got the bomb in 1998, it was with great Western reservations. Seventeen-years later, Pakistan hasn’t betrayed Western fears by delivering nukes to recognized terror groups. Capitol Hill hawks and Israeli officials have threatened unilateral action against Iran for developing atomic weapons, without supplying any proof. If you take Iran at its word, atomic weapons aren’t high on its priority list, regardless of warnings from the U.S. and Israel. Sealing a nuke deal and ending sanctions opens the way to better cooperation with Iran on a host of bilateral trade and national security issues.
