WSJ, REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Iran gains more time to build nuclear weapons while the U.S. makes
more concessions.
Joe
Biden got a rousing reception in Washington on Monday at the annual
conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, especially when he
talked about the Administration's approach to Iran. America's policy, he said,
"is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, period." To underscore
the point, he added that "President Barack Obama is not bluffing. He is not
bluffing."
That much was made clear Tuesday when
General James Mattis, the blunt-spoken Marine in charge of U.S. Central
Command, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Are the current
diplomatic and economic efforts to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons
capability, are they working?" asked Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe.
"No sir," the general replied. The
evidence, he noted later in his testimony, was that Tehran's "nuclear industry
continues."
So it does. Last week, Iran announced
that it would build and install 3,000 advanced generation centrifuges, known
as the IR-2m, at its principal uranium enrichment site in Natanz. The
International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed last month that Iran had already
begun installing the first 180 of the machines, which are smaller, faster,
more reliable, and as much as 500% more productive than Iran's existing
centrifuges.
Also in recent days, Tehran announced
that it had discovered new uranium deposits that triple its domestically
available supplies. The Iranians are known to lie or exaggerate, so that claim
awaits verification.
Not disputed, however, is that the
regime continues to refuse IAEA inspectors access to a military research
facility in Parchin, where it is suspected of carrying out nuclear weapons
experiments. On Wednesday, the Iranian representative to the IAEA gave a
speech accusing Israel of "genocide," causing the U.S., Canadian and
Australian representatives to walk out.
All this is the mood music sounding from
Iran as the U.S. and other countries make yet another attempt to negotiate a
nuclear deal. In the latest round of talks, in the Kazakh city of Almaty, the
Administration abandoned its previous demands that Tehran shut down its second
enrichment site at Fordo and that it relinquish its entire stockpile of
uranium enriched to 20%, which is near-bomb grade and of which Iran has 167
kilos. The U.S. also offered Iran some softening on sanctions—along with an
agreement that talks will resume again in early April.
Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief negotiator,
came away from Almaty praising the new offer as a "turning point" and "closer
to the Iranian position." Iran has succeeded again in gaining time for its
nuclear programs, pocketing Western concessions and conceding nothing in
return.
Even better, from Iran's point of view,
is that the deal that seems to be taking shape is one that would allow it to
maintain and broaden its nuclear-industrial base, win a reprieve from economic
sanctions, further diminish the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli strike, and
continue its covert nuclear work.
The Obama Administration might say that
this (minus the cheating) is a price worth paying if it keeps Iran from
acquiring a bomb. Yet Tehran may be more interested in a wide breakout—that
is, gradually developing the infrastructure needed to manufacture a large
number of weapons in short order—than in racing toward a single bomb with a
fast breakout. The latter runs the risk of inviting foreign military
pre-emption. The former requires additional patience.
Meanwhile, it isn't lost on the Iranians
that the U.S. is cutting its naval presence in the Gulf region from two
aircraft carriers to one, supposedly a function of the sequester, in fact a
function of Mr. Obama's manipulation of the sequester. Either way, it is
another signal of unseriousness when diplomacy is supposed to be in its 11th
hour.
In his testimony, General Mattis said of
the Iranians that "there may yet be a way to bring them to their senses." A
fresh round of sanctions is being mooted in Congress, but after several years
of rolling that stone up the Hill the sanctions are beginning to look more
like an excuse for delay than a course of effective action. At a minimum, if
sanctions were effective they would be making Tehran more amenable to a deal,
not less.
If Mr. Obama really weren't bluffing, we
would be adding to our military strength in the region, and toughening our
position at the bargaining table. That we're doing the opposite tells Iran
that the Administration is bluffing after all.
A version of this article appeared March
9, 2013, on page A12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the
headline: The Not-Bluffing Bluff.
Dan Friedman
NYC
No comments:
Post a Comment