Blog Post

AEIdeas

Almost as soon as the April 2 nuclear “agreement ” with Iran was announced, it began to unravel. When the White House issued a “fact sheet” that purported to describe what had been agreed upon, the Iranians took strong exception, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei denouncing the “fact sheet” and asserting that the US claims showed “devilish” US intentions. In a publicly televised speech, Khamenei said “it may be that the deceptive other side wants to restrict us in the details.” He further added: “I was never optimistic about negotiating with America. . . Nonetheless I agreed to the negotiations and supported, and still support, the negotiators.” As he spoke, a crowd chanted, “Death to America.”

One point of dispute concerned the issue of “anytime, anywhere” challenge inspections with the Iranians arguing that under no circumstances would they permit inspections of military facilities.

Another dispute concerned the timing of sanctions relief. Iranian President Rouhani asserted that Iran “will not sign any deal unless all sanctions are lifted on the same day.” Meanwhile, White House press secretary Josh Earnest insisted that the US would not budge from its position of a phased approach — with sanctions being lifted only as Tehran implements the conditions of an agreement. At the time, not much attention was paid to the fact that the Iranians were talking about relief from “ all sanctions,” not just the “nuclear” sanctions that the US and the so-called P5+1 had said would be lifted.

Now, in an Associated Press story titled, “US finds peeling back the Iran sanctions onion no easy task,” officials are claiming that the administration “may have to backtrack on its promise that it will suspend only nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran as part of an emerging nuclear agreement.” This is because, in what they call the “briar patch of interwoven economic sanctions,” it is too hard to distinguish between “nuclear” sanctions and “non-nuclear” sanctions applied because of Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights violations, money laundering and ballistic missile development. According to the unnamed “officials,” the administration plans to redefine the term “nuclear sanctions,” giving it such a broad definition that there will be little left in the non-nuclear category.

This is quite obviously absurd, but what seems to be going on is that the administration is preparing to yield to the Iranian demand that sanctions be lifted immediately — and this means all sanctions and not just nuclear ones. Agreeing to that would mean not only much more extensive sanctions relief — for example relief for banks that are believed to have laundered money for terrorists — but it would also make it extremely difficult to use sanctions as an instrument for constraining such activity by Iran in the future. This will only add to the considerable concerns of Iran’s neighbors that the agreement does nothing to address Iran’s non-nuclear activities.

We are also learning that the administration may be preparing to concede on the requirement to be able to conduct inspections of suspect facilities, even if they are on military installations, with the Los Angeles Times now reporting that, in the negotiating rooms, “US diplomats aren’t demanding immediate access.”

This is despite recent promises made by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in a major speech that “any deal must ensure comprehensive and robust monitoring and inspection anywhere and everywhere the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reason to go.” Likewise, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made similar assurances in a speech Monday that the administration will not accept a deal unless access is granted “to whatever Iranian sites are required to verify that Iran’s program is exclusively peaceful — period.” Instead, US negotiators are now reportedly willing to allow a commission — with voting representatives from the six powers, Iran and possibly the European Union — “some time to consider Iranian objections and weigh the evidence before allowing a challenge inspection to proceed.”

This is a long way from the claims in the White House fact sheet that Iran will be required to “grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country” and that “if Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. Iran’s past efforts to weaponize its program will be addressed. With this deal, Iran will face more inspections than any other country in the world.”

No wonder the White House threatened a presidential veto of any legislation that required a final agreement to meet the claims of the “fact sheet.”