Did Iran Really Give In?

Big news a couple days ago: Iran supposedly caved, and is giving away some of their nuclear material to prove their good intentions.  Color me skeptical:

The tentative nuclear deal that the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) reportedly has reached with Iran has been widely hailed as a success for the Obama Administration's engagement policy. For example, today a Washington Post article described the deal as "providing a major boost for the Obama administration as it seeks to engage the Islamic republic." But a closer look at the negotiations gives strong reasons for concern.

First of all, the focus on helping Iran to refuel its research reactor in Tehran has distracted attention from the fact that Iran stubbornly insists that it will continue to enrich uranium in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.  This is the main issue of the P5+1 talks, but it has been obscured by Tehran's tactical flexibility on the issue of moving about three quarters of its known supplies of low enriched uranium (LEU) out of the country to be further enriched in Russia and turned into fuel rods by France.

Second, the negotiations have boosted Iran's case that it needs enriched uranium for "civilian" purposes but have not solved the problem of how to keep Tehran from diverting enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon. If Iran does in fact follow through on its promises to send the LEU to Russia, then the problem is only postponed, not resolved.  Iran can replace the LEU in a year or less with the centrifuges still whirling away at Natanz.  Meanwhile, Iran also could have other secret facilities dedicated to producing the highly enriched uranium needed to arm a nuclear weapon.

Third, by giving the appearance of progress while the real problem remains, Tehran has bought more time in which to continue to enrich uranium without paying a penalty in the form of tougher sanctions. Iran now will stretch out the negotiations to defuse momentum for further sanctions that was generated by the latest revelation of Iranian duplicity about the secret uranium enrichment plant at Qom.  Before the latest round of talks, a senior Iranian official gloated that "Time is on our side" and that Iran would send junior officials who did not have the authority to make concessions to the October 19 talks, so that the talks can be dragged out further. President Obama said on October 1 that Iran must allow inspectors access within 2 weeks but Iran already has missed that deadline.  The IAEA inspectors will go in on October 25th, if the agreement in principle is still valid then.

Fourth, the Obama Administration has an "agreement in principle" with a regime that has no principles, except to hold on to power and export its revolution.  As Ambassador John Bolton has written, "Diplomacy's three slipperiest words are 'agreement in principle.'" Iran could renege on its commitment, as it has done many times in the past.

Iran already has altered the original agreement by claiming that France can not play a prominent part in the arrangements because of its past unreliability, which is a bad joke coming from Tehran.  Apparently, now the Russians will subcontract the manufacturing of the fuel rods for the Tehran reactor to France so that Tehran's tender sensibilities will be protected.

The bottom line is that contrary to popular belief, the negotiations with Iran have not produced a breakthrough that has resolved the long-simmering crisis over Tehran's nuclear program. All they have yielded so far is an agreement in principle on a secondary issue that Iran can easily back away from in the future. Meanwhile, the push for further sanctions has been postponed despite the fact that Iran continues to enrich uranium.

Is anyone else seeing the gigantic red flags here?  Reminds me of the boasts of 'Peace in our time!' right before Hitler unleashed his biltzkrieg on Poland.

Here's what Joel Rosenberg has to say on the subject:

I don't buy it. Iran would still be enriching more uranium. Within 9 months to a year, experts say, they would again have enough enriched uranium to be able to build 1 to 2 nuclear bombs. What if they have more enriched uranium hidden away that we don't know about?

A deal in the next few days would be hailed as a great Western victory, perhaps even a reason for President Obama to have actually won the Nobel Peace Prize. Iran would slip out of the sanctions noose. The Israelis would have absolutely no international support for a preemptive military strike, even if it felt one were still needed.

I will wait to read the fine print before rendering a final judgment. I continue to pray for peace, and hope there is a true way out of this crisis. But at this stage, I'm highly skeptical that the Iranian leadership has suddenly "seen the light" and given up its stated goal of annihilating the U.S. and Israel. I believe the regime in Tehran is craftily trying to buy time to complete its nuclear weapons program by forestalling crippling international economic sanctions, and/or an Israeli preemptive strike.

*sigh*

Why are liberals and elites so blind and stupid that they can't see Iran for what it is?  Sadly, it is the people of a nation that will bear the brunt of their failures, not the libs and elites themselves.  That's why it is up to us to drag our leaders -- kicking and screaming, if necessary -- to an accurate understanding of what we face in Iran.

There's my two cents.