(19FortyFive) Michael Rubin - The 2015 JCPOA reversed legal precedent to enable Iranian missile work under the guise of a satellite launch program. The deal also allowed Iran to maintain an industrial-scale enrichment program greater than that of Pakistan at a time that Pakistan built nuclear weapons. Iran already has the knowledge to build and launch a nuclear warhead. All it needs is more enriched uranium. Tehran is confident that they can outplay American diplomacy. They are simply following the path already laid by North Korea. As Iran does now, North Korea maintained a pretense of abiding by the signed 1994 Agreed Framework agreement even as it sought to cheat along the margins. The reality: North Korean authorities never abandoned their nuclear drive, but saw diplomacy as a way to delay accountability and enrich the regime. Biden's team may say they want to re-engage Tehran, but in reality, their diplomacy will simply be a fig leaf to enable Iran, like North Korea before it, to establish a nuclear fait accompli. The writer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
2021-01-21 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive