State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf did some fancy footwork today as she tried to explain a damning admission about the Iran nuclear deal made yesterday by President Obama in an interview with NPR. In addition to dismissing the possibility of asking Iran to back away from its threats about Israel’s existence before putting the Western seal of approval on it becoming a threshold nuclear power, the president also had something to say about the back end of the as-yet-unwritten agreement. In it, he conceded that in years 13, 14, and 15 of the restrictions that will be lifted at the end of that period, the “breakout” period for Iran to build a bomb despite its assurances to the contrary would be down to zero from the current two to three months. That tells us much about how little the nuclear agreement will accomplish in terms of keeping the president’s pledge to prevent Iran from getting a bomb.
Here’s what the president said:
What is a more relevant fear would be that in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.
Keep in mind, though, currently, the breakout times are only about two to three months by our intelligence estimates. So essentially, we’re purchasing for 13, 14, 15 years assurances that the breakout is at least a year … that — that if they decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go for a bomb, we’d have over a year to respond. And we have those assurances for at least well over a decade.
And then in years 13 and 14, it is possible that those breakout times would have been much shorter, but at that point we have much better ideas about what it is that their program involves. We have much more insight into their capabilities. And the option of a future president to take action if in fact they try to obtain a nuclear weapon is undiminished.
According to Harf, what the president was trying to say is that he thinks the agreement guarantees a one-year breakout period throughout the years of restrictions. It doesn’t quite read that way though, does it?
A non-spin explication of the passage requires us to accept that the president is already conceding that Iran will continue to work on its nuclear program to the point that breakout times will continue to shrink throughout the agreement. Though he understands that this presents a danger, he appears to be insisting that somehow through the magic of diplomacy and inspections the U.S. will have learned so much about what the Islamist regime is up to that a future president will be in good shape to take immediate action if something is afoot.
There’s a lot to unwrap here. But let’s stick to what Obama said.
The first point to understand is that the president is conceding in a way that he has not previously acknowledged how close the Iranians are to a breakout right now. He’s hoping, and the word to be emphasized is “hope,” that the reductions in Iran’s nuclear infrastructure that are part of the deal he’s promoting will increase that period from three months to a year, even though experts say these are mere estimates while Obama is treating them as certainties.
The next point to hone in on is that although at one point the president claims that he is “purchasing” a longer breakout period throughout the length of the agreement, a few lines later he acknowledges that this won’t really be the case since that time will shrink during the course of the deal. Why is that? He doesn’t say. But what it clearly means is that despite his boasts about shutting down a path to a bomb, the Iranians will be busy throughout the agreement expanding their capabilities and their stockpile of nuclear fuel that can be quickly converted to use for a bomb should they ever choose to do so.
Even worse is the fact that despite the bold talk about tough inspections, the deal as the Iranians understand it doesn’t call for United Nations inspectors to have immediate access to nuclear facilities on a surprise basis. The Iranians will have the right to delay or deny access. That will, no doubt, lead to protests, but given the investment in keeping the deal alive, it’s unlikely that Obama or a Democratic successor would risk it in order to make a point about inspections.
In other words, while the president is making it clear that he understands Iran will continue to make progress toward a bomb even while they are supposedly abiding by the terms of the deal, should they choose to cheat on it–as they have on every previous arrangement–they will be even more likely to be ready to quickly break out to a bomb before it expires. Just as discouraging is the certitude that once it does end, Iran will have not only the wherewithal to immediately start producing a nuclear arsenal; they will be doing so with tacit Western approval in the absence of a follow-up agreement.
What the president was confirming, albeit unwittingly, is that even under the best of circumstances involving Iranian compliance, the most that can be hoped for from this agreement is that the Iranian bomb has been postponed for 15 years. It should be conceded that this is not completely negligible. But under the circumstances under which the West is throwing away all its economic, political, and military leverage for such a minimal achievement, it is a telling statement about the incompetence of American diplomacy.
All this also puts into proper perspective Obama’s refusal to include other issues, such as Iran’s support for terrorism, its threats against Israel’s existence, and its drive for regional hegemony (made clear by its push to take control of Yemen through Shia auxiliaries and financial support and arms supplies for Hamas terrorists in Gaza) in the deal. Rather than ensuring that Iran won’t get the bomb, the deal makes it a threshold nuclear power immediately. The best we can hope for from it going forward is a mere delay until the moment when an aggressive, anti-Semitic Islamist power gets a bomb. At worst, it will do little to reduce a breakout period that is already shrinking down to zero. That’s not much to show for all the concessions that Obama has made during the course of these negotiations.
If this is, as the president insists it is, the best America could possibly have achieved, how much more emboldened must an Islamist regime, which will soon have a bustling economy thanks to the end of sanctions, be to commit further mayhem in an already troubled region?
