The Washington Post reports, “The deadline for an agreement in the Iran nuclear talks was officially pushed back by a week on Tuesday, as negotiators extended a temporary accord that limits Iran’s nuclear program. Without the last-minute extension, the interim agreement known as the joint plan of action would have expired at midnight. By announcing new timeline with just a few hours to spare, the negotiators made official what they have acknowledged privately for days — they could not make the June 30 deadline.”
The president insists, “I will walk away from the negotiation if, in fact, it’s a bad deal. If we can’t provide assurances that the pathways for Iran attaining a nuclear weapon are closed and if we can’t verify that – the inspections regime – the verification regime is inadequate – then we’re not going to get a deal, and we’ve been very clear to the Iranian government about that.” But who believes him? He once insisted that Fordow must go and that Iran has no right to enrich. He talked once upon a time about dismantling, not just freezing, Iran’s nuclear program. He told us the Joint Plan of Action froze Iran’s program, which is not true.
Obama has said he was intent on checking Iran’s regional advances and from the get-go has done nothing but accede to them. (“Origins of the current diplomacy reveal a pattern of inducements offered by Washington to coax Tehran to the table, a tactic balanced by international sanctions on Iran’s energy, finance and transportation sectors that have cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars,” reports the Wall Street Journal.) The proof is in the success Iran has had, both in the region as it expands its influence and at the negotiating table in obtaining economic relief. (“Tehran has repeatedly used its exchanges with the U.S. to barter for tactical and monetary gains, said U.S. and Arab officials briefed on the talks. . . . Over the past six years, U.S. allies in the Mideast say, Iran has expanded its influence in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Now, they say, Tehran is set to maintain much of its nuclear infrastructure, while scoring an economic windfall.”) One gets the distinct impression the president was never intent on stopping Iranian aggression nor in ending its nuclear weapons quest.
The burden to stop a bad deal will no doubt rest with Congress. And today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) once again sounded the alarm: “The U.S. and its partners are offering Iran international acceptance of its nuclear program. This exceptional offer would give a stamp of approval to parts of Iran’s program that had been hidden for years, buried under a mountaintop on a military base. It was, after all, at the Parchin military base that Iran’s work on nuclear warheads took place. U.N. inspectors have been blocked from visiting this site for nine years, ” he said in a written statement. “It’s logical that any deal with a nuclear pariah and state sponsor of terrorism must require exceptional access for international inspectors. Iran cheated more than others, so it should have to do more than others to open up. Stop explaining Iran’s position, and certainly don’t do it by comparing Iran with the U.S. in any way, shape, or form. The standard needs to be ‘go anywhere, anytime’ – not go ‘some places, sometimes.’”
The question will be when the administration provides only window dressing without the reality of inspections whether Congress, Democrats specifically, will have the nerve to vote the deal down. Given how little the framework resembled the president’s description of the framework when it was announced, they should approach any deal with a high degree of skepticism.
Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.
