The Lausanne agreement is evidence of just how hard – and successfully – the Iranians fought to preserve the essential components for creating nuclear weapons.
Just guard me from my friends; from my enemies, I’ll guard myself. We are forced to learn this age-old lesson each time anew.
The document agreed upon and signed in Lausanne on Thursday by the best of our friends from around the world makes no mention of nuclear development for peaceful purposes. Nothing in the clauses outlined in the declaration of principles indicates that Iran’s nuclear program for military purposes will be converted into a program designed to further civilian-scientific objectives.
On the contrary; the document is evidence of just how hard, and successfully too, the Iranians fought to preserve the essential components for creating nuclear weapons. And this is an indication of the strategic importance Iran attributes to its military nuclear program, and the price it is willing to pay to protect it.
The bottom line: Iran has agreed to restrict its number of uranium-enrichment facilities – or, in other words, not to build new ones. The existing facilities will continue to operate at a slower pace, under supervision: 5,100 centrifuges will be in operation in Natanz, and an additional 1,000 will turn at a facility in Fordow that will be classified as a research institute (Yeah, right!). The stockpiling of enriched material will also be restricted. But nowhere in the agreement is there anything about ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads or military R&D.
In return, the sanctions on Iran will be lifted gradually. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be responsible for dictating the pace of the lifting of the sanctions. The Iranians haven’t manufactured a bomb until now; so they’ll hold back a little longer, for as long as it is worth their while.
The second conclusion coming from the agreement achieved in Lausanne is supposed to offer some comfort. If the Iranian nuclear program does indeed remain under tight supervision throughout the term of the agreement, it’s safe to assume that Iran will not be able to turn its nuclear capabilities into a nuclear weapon overnight.
All this is under the assumption that the Iranians play fairly and don’t cheat; and that if they do decide to break the rules, we will have at least a one-year warning before they can produce a bomb. Anyone who believes that we can sleep soundly at night with this conclusion in mind must the simple of the Four Sons mentioned in the Passover Haggadah.
Nuclear deal will be good for Iran, bad for Iranians and bad for Israel / Yaron Friedman
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So Iran has agreed to reduce its stockpile of 3.67-percent low-enriched uranium to just 300 kilograms; has agreed to allow inspectors access to the supply chain that supports Iran’s nuclear program, from the mining of the uranium and through to the completion of the enrichment process; and has agreed to dilute its surplus quantities of uranium – a lot of declarations that could give the impression that the Iranians really were squeezed.
But these declarations have to be backed up by particulars, which don’t exist now and probably never will. There’s a clause, for example, that restricts the use of new centrifuges over the next 10 years, but it says nothing about restricting the development and production of new and improved centrifuges that can be put into motion the moment the time comes.
Still unclear too is the nature of the IAEA’s mechanism for that tight supervision that US President Barack Obama defined as “unprecedented,” or if the UN Security Council can automatically reinstate the sanctions if Iran violates the agreement. One thing is clear: Once Iran returns to the family of nations, it will be very difficult to again enlist the world to impose sanctions on Tehran.
There is nothing surprising in the Lausanne agreement. The talks over the last few days were for show only. The Americans knew, just as Israel did, that the Iranians had been willing to sign the current version of the agreement, and an even-worse one from their perspective, already two months ago. And yes, the agreement restricts Iran’s nuclear capabilities for a certain period of time. But it is a vague document that lacks numerous essential details, just like the Iranians wanted – a document they can hold up in triumph to their people.
The Iranian representatives conducted the negotiations like true professionals and ran rings around the American secretary of state. In his speech on Thursday, Obama gave Kerry a grade of “Excellent” for his persistence and patience. But anyone who was there knows he deserves a grade of “Unsatisfactory” in negotiation management. And this holds true not only with respect to Iran, but also vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Our friends in Washington have sold us out, along with their other allies in the Middle East, for a pittance.
Based on a balance of military and political considerations, I think it would be better for Israel to study and utilize means of wiping out the leadership of the present Iranian regime, leading to a reverse of the 1979 ayutollist revolution, then it would be to destroy that country’s nuclear armaments capabilities, weaponry, research laboratories, and all the rest.
It must be assumed by now that all of the nuclear paraphernalia by now has been moved to numerous deep holes and tunnels in the various Iranian mountain ranges. I would certainly hope that Israel has done the same, and is not depending on one or two deep basements and sub-basements in or near Dimona or other now well-known locations.
In comparison. top leadership cadres of Iran’s religious dictators, their revolutionary guard corps, and their Basiji armed street mobs, all sleep at nights in their own houses, mostly in and around the national capital of Teheran. Moreover there are hundreds of thousands of overseas Iranians who detest that regime and want it overthrown. Many of them would volunteer to be secretly armed and landed in Iran in a revolutionary situation. Getting rid of the targeted bosses could be done by a few dozen guided missiles, each one programmed for one specific building, with enough high explosives to guarantee absolute total demolishment and the wipeout of everybody in the building.
Destroying nuclear stockpiles or nuclear enrichment facilities, while leaving in place the government that insisted on building them, would all but guarantee their being rebuilt. But next time they would be even better protected.
But an induced revolution would in fact change the entire picture in Iran, and a new government, if achieved with such help, would probably assure a quite different policy than the endless threats against Israel, the Sun’a Arab states of the Middle East, and ultimately all Western civilization.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ yamit82:
Look at it this way: Israel will become a declared nuclear weapons power. It will become part of the formerly exclusive Cold War Club. I find having the Jewish Bomb very salutary.
Let Obama do his worst. The damage is already done.
I disagree every move is calculated even if the results diverge from overall plan but they are working for end game results and are trying to make them inevitable even after he leaves office. he has managed to change-the face and the nature of he whole ME, allowed Putin to elevate Russian power and hegemony and reduced substantially American power while ensuring the eventual collapse of the American and Western economies. America will by the time he leaves office have 20 trillion dollars in debt….Only a major war can alter that inevitability…In ten years half the countries surviving the ME upheavals will have a bomb……
I am not easily frightened but this guy scares me because he is succeeding.
@ yamit82: Obama started his Presidency thinking he could use his self perceived power of persuasion to talk countries out of nukes and long held beliefs of their worldview (including the USA view of its self as the world superpower).
He has stopped the USA in being a superpower but failed on all other scores. He may want Dimona closed but it is not going to happen.
In fact there is now a nuclear race in the middle east for Turks, Syrians, Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians, other Gulf States to obtains nukes by either purchase or development.
I urge everyone to read my post on this site Nov. 2010
Obama’s Real Agenda: Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Facility
@ Bear Klein:
I agree. For someone who talks big about preventing nuclear proliferation, he’s an empty suit. One would be a fool to take his assurances at face value. Of course every one will arm themselves.
They see no reason why if Iran can have nuclear weapons with the West’s blessing, they can’t join the nuclear club, too.
And nukes are going to be used. That will be Obama’s legacy.
Obama never cared about Israel. He thinks he can talk people (even Iran) out of getting nukes. What he has done will assure that many others in the middle east will try and obtain nukes.
This deal makes it likely that sometime in the future nukes will be used in the middle east or elsewhere.
It shows American guarantees offered Israel are not worth the paper they would be written on.
Israel would be a fool to consent to the creation of a Palestinian Arab state in reliance upon them.
The US has shown it does not have Israel’s back on Iran.
First step to take is to tear down the FOR SALE sign posted by our “leadership”.