With the ink still drying on the historic July 12 nuke deal with Iran, skeptics have come out in droves from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to conservatives on Capitol Hill. Speaking at a White House Press conference today President Obama hoped to avert turning the two-year ordeal, led by hobbled 70-year-old Secretary of State John Kerry, into an Election Year political football. Obama told reporters that the deal ending Iran’s punitive economic sanctions in exchange for controlling their nuclear enrichment program was in the U.S. and world’s national security interest. “Some of the members of the P5+1 are not trustworthy,” Khamenei said in a letter published in the IRNA state news agency, pointing fingers at the U.S. and Great Britain. Khomenei continues his anti-Western propaganda.
Khamenei didn’t know how to interpret jubilation in Iranian streets after the accord was announced July 12. Khamenei’s anti-U.S. and Israel rhetoric keep the Iranian public under a rhetorical dark cloud, pandering to his tightly controlled Republican Guards and right wing vigilante volunteers called the Basij militia, known for flogging teenagers for putting on makeup or listening to Western music. Khamenei doesn’t get that street celebrations spoke volumes about the Iranian public craving a normal life, rejoining the international community. “I ask our dear nation to stay calm and united so we can preserve our national interests in a serene and sensible environment,” looking to suppress the joy seen in Iranian streets. Voted in Aug. 4, 2013, Iran’s forward-thinking President Hassan Rouhani praised the historic agreement with the P5+1 as a step in the right direction for Iran.
Working feverishly under Khamenei’s restraints, 56-year-old U.S.-educated Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif threw his fits but eventually got the deal done with Kerry. “This deal is an unprecedented achievement in the history of international affairs as it annuls all the threatening U.N. Security Council resolutions and opens gates cooperation with Iran even in nuclear energy,” said Rouhani, praising the deal, raising doubts in the Ayatollah. Unlike other parliamentary systems, where a consensus of opinion sets domestic and foreign policy, Khamenei is a dictator, deciding unilaterally matters of state. “The deal is a big lesson to the region that problems can be solved with negotiations and true participation of people rather than intervention, massacre and terrorism,” said Rouhani, referring a negotiated settlement with P5+1 to end Iran’s punitive economic sanctions.
Denying any military component to its nuclear program, Iran doesn’t get why the U.N. Security Council voted for multiple economic sanctions. No one in Iran sees belligerent public remarks about “wiping Israel off the map” and growing concerns over its nuclear program. Had former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not threatened Israel in 2005 or hosted a Tehran-based Holocaust deniers’ conference in 2006, there would have been no need for U.N. sanctions or, for that matter, years of painful negotiations for an arms deal. Iran has the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Once a nation’s leader threatens to “wipe” a neighboring state “off the map,” it’s grounds for the international community to scrutinize its nuclear ambitions or intent of countries with ongoing “peaceful” nuclear programs.
Iran’s conservative speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani said that MP’s would examine the pact in a “constructive spirit,” looking to recommend approval by Khamenei. Eleventh-hour negotiation centered on the International Atomic Energy Agency access to Iran’s sensitive military sites. Khamenei flat out refused access to any of Iran’s military sites, especially ones involved in past or current atomic research. Iran’s head of the parliament’s Security Committee Mohammed Reza Mohseni Sani would examine whether or not the final wording allowing the IAEA inspections of military sites violated the Ayatollah’s restrictions. U.S. diplomats added ambiguous language permitting the so-called the IAEA’s “Additional Protocol” calling for inspections in areas previously regarded as off limits. IAEA’s “Additional Protocol” closed the gap in the final agreement but offers the U.S. little reassurance.
Answering objections to the agreement, Obama asked its critics whether or not there was any alternative short of military action or continuing the arms race. While there’s no evidence that Iran was actually working on a bomb, Ahmadienjad proudly declared Iran a “nuclear state” Feb. 11, 2010. No one believed he was talking only about making reactor fuel or radioactive medical isotopes. Given that Iran’s atomic program began under the Shah in the 1950s with U.S. backing, it’s doubtful that the U.S. or any other country could stop Iran’s completion of the nuclear fuel cycle. U.S. conservatives on Capitol Hill worry that ending the sanctions could fuel Iran’s pursuit of its first A-bomb. Whether that’s true or not, having a verifiable nuke deal that limits Iran’s nuclear enrichment program provides greater international monitoring and accountability than having no deal at all.
