Reject Iran deal, and work toward better one

By Pat Meehan

In the thick of negotiations last winter, Gerard Araud, the French ambassador to the United States, took to Twitter to sum up the realities of the Iranian nuclear talks. "We want a deal," the ambassador said. "They need a deal. The tactics and the result of the negotiation should reflect this asymmetry."

We want a deal, of course, because we wish to end Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy.

The Iranians need a deal because without one, the mullahs face more years of debilitating sanctions, nonexistent economic growth, and a brain drain among their youth.

Yet for many months, the administration has acted as if the reverse were true, as if the asymmetry benefited the Iranians instead of the P5+1 nations (the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany). On review of the details of the agreement, it shows.

President Obama said in 2012 that "the deal we'll accept" with Iran "is that they end their nuclear program." Now that demand has been abandoned. "This deal doesn't end Iran's nuclear program." said Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey. "It preserves it."

Importantly, the agreement preserves Iran's ability to enrich uranium. I have suspicions that Iran's desire to enrich is not for medical and peaceful purposes as it says.

"Anywhere, anytime" inspections were once promised by the administration. Under the deal, we agreed to give the Iranians effectively 24 days' notice before international inspectors could verify compliance. Experienced inspectors have questioned how effective a regime so designed can be.

Once those hamstrung inspectors sign off, a broad swath of sanctions across Iran's economy are lifted at once rather than in steps. It is unrealistic to think China and Russia would simply agree to "snap back" sanctions for noncompliance, especially once their investments flow to Tehran.

What's more, a conventional-arms embargo imposed on Iran in 2007 will be lifted in just a few years, a last-minute concession by the administration. That will enable Iran to import sophisticated air defenses, missile launchers, tanks, fighter aircraft, and other weapons.

Iran will have the cash to pay for them. Sanctions relief will mean a $150 billion infusion into the Iranian economy. Revolutionary Guard accounts would be flush with Western investment that would go to support Hamas and Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Syria, and Quds Force operations worldwide.

And the United States? We have extracted a 10-year promise not to weaponize. And if that promise is broken, we believe we have delayed an Iranian bomb by one year.

We cannot with any confidence believe that Iran will abandon its nuclear-weapons ambitions. Its deceptions over the years rule that out. "One thing I've learned both at the CIA and as secretary of defense" under President Obama, said Leon Panetta earlier this year, "is that the Iranians can't be trusted."

We do have the benefit of history to caution us.

In 1994, the United States and North Korea signed the "Agreed Framework," in which they pledged to seek "peace and security in a nuclear-free Korean peninsula." Under the deal, North Korea agreed to stop processing the plutonium needed for a nuclear weapon. Instead, in 2006, the rogue state conducted its first nuclear weapons test.

An Iranian bomb would be an existential threat to our democratic ally Israel. Sunni Arab states like Saudi Arabia have pledged to match any Shiite capability in Iran. "If Iran declares a nuclear weapon, we can't afford to wait 30 years more for our own," a retired Saudi colonel told the Wall Street Journal. "We should be able to declare ours within a week." We'll have a nuclear arms race in the world's most volatile region.

The choice before us was not and is not this deal or war. The asymmetry the French ambassador spoke of still exists and can still bring us a good deal. But to achieve that, Congress must reject this deal and then override the president's veto.

That will show Iran's leaders that the only path to a bright future for their citizens is to first give up their nuclear ambitions and then allow the world every opportunity to verify it.