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Implications of the Iran Agreement for U.S. Policy in the Middle East
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Michael Singh - The agreement will permit Iran to retain the option to build a nuclear weapon in the future. Indeed, the agreement could be seen as a means by which Iran buys time to perfect, in some cases with international assistance, advanced centrifuges, weaponization, and long-range ballistic missiles. Iran's "redlines" seem to have been designed to shape this outcome, implying that Iran's purpose in the talks has been to obtain sanctions relief while retaining or even improving its nuclear weapons capability. The strength of the agreement must rest on our ability to detect and deter any such weapons-development effort, whether covert or overt. Unfortunately, the inspection mechanism in the accord does not appear up to this task. While robust monitoring will be in place at declared sites, the U.S. intelligence community assessed in 2007 that Iran "probably would use covert facilities - rather than its declared nuclear sites - for the production of highly-enriched uranium for a weapon." The agreement does not, however, permit inspectors anything approaching unfettered access to suspect sites. The writer is managing director at The Washington Institute. This excerpt is from his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Aug. 5, 2015.