Iran's engraved invitation to develop nuclear weapons
But that spin started to unravel three weeks ago with the discovery that the Parchin inspections were part of a secret side agreement between the IAEA and Iran—not between Iran and the six negotiating countries. Secretary of State John Kerry has said he hasn’t read the side deal, though his negotiating deputy Wendy Sherman told MSNBC that she “saw the pieces of paper” but couldn’t keep them. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano has told Members of the U.S. Congress that he’s bound by secrecy and can’t show them the side deals.
That secrecy should be unacceptable to Congress—all the more so after the AP dispatch. The news service says it has seen a document labelled “separate arrangement II.” The document says Iran will provide the IAEA with photos and locations that the IAEA says are linked to Iran’s weapons work, “taking into account military concerns.”
In other words, the country that lied for years about its nuclear weapons program will now be trusted to come clean about those lies. And trusted to such a degree that it can limit its self-inspections so they don’t raise “military concerns” in Iran.
Keep in mind that the side deal already excludes a role for the U.S., and that the IAEA lacks any way to enforce its side deal since it has no way of imposing penalties for violations. Iran has also already ruled out any role for American or Canadian nationals on the inspection teams.
Why not cut out the IAEA middle man and simply let Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, sign a personal affadavit?
The AP report hadn’t been contradicted by our deadline on Wednesday, and a White House spokesman told AP merely that the U.S. is “confident in the agency’s technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran’s former program.” That sounds like a confirmation.
The news raises further doubts about a nuclear pact that is already leaking credibility. Unfettered access to Parchin is crucial to understanding Iran’s past nuclear work, which is essential to understanding how close Iran has come to getting the bomb. Without that knowledge it’s impossible to know if Iran really is a year or more away from having the bomb, which is the time period that Mr. Kerry says is built into the accord and makes it so worth doing.
Earlier this year President Obama signed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which says Congress must receive all documents related to the deal, including any “entered into or made between Iran and any other parties.” That has to mean the IAEA.Republican Presidential Candidate and Senator Ted Cruz went ballistic over this (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
“Enough,” Cruz told TheBlaze in a statement. “Enough of the concessions, capitulations and backroom deals that make up President Obama’s catastrophic nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
He continued: “The most recent revelation that Iran will be selecting its own inspectors to verify the nature of its nuclear program is made all the more egregious by the fact that as the single largest contributor to the IAEA (support that is mandated in the JCPOA) United States taxpayers will be paying for a farce that is a direct threat to their own security.”
Cruz, who has been an outspoken critic of the Iran nuclear deal since it was announced, argued the agreement is a matter of national security, not politics.
“This is not a partisan issue. It is not about President Obama’s political legacy. It is about the future of our country, and that of our allies,” he told TheBlaze. “We have to stop this disastrous deal.”What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, IAEA, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Parchin, Possible Military Dimensions (PMD), Ted Cruz, uranium enrichment
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:14 PM
1 Comments:
Heard anything on this farce from the mainstream media?
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