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Obama Needs to Answer Netanyahu

(USA Today) Dennis Ross - The administration needs to explain why the deal it is trying to conclude actually will prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons for the lifetime of the agreement and afterwards. It needs to explain why the combination of the number and quality of centrifuges, their output, and the ship-out from Iran of enriched uranium will, in fact, ensure that the break-out time for the Iranians will not be less than one year. Similarly, there should be an answer on how the verification regime is going to work to ensure that we can detect, even in a larger nuclear program, any Iranian violation of the agreement. The issue of verification is critical not just because Iran's past clandestine nuclear efforts prove it cannot be trusted, but also because the administration has made a one-year break-out time the key measure of success of the agreement. Netanyahu fears that, as with past arms control agreements, we will seek to discuss violations and not respond to them until it is too late. The administration should address this fear by spelling out different categories of violations and the consequences for each - and then seek congressional authorization to empower this president and his successors to act on these consequences. The writer, counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was a White House adviser to President Obama on Iran from 2009 to 2011 and Mideast peace envoy for two previous administrations.
2015-03-05 00:00:00
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