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Arms-Control Expert: "A Huge Retreat in U.S. Nonproliferation Policy and a Big Victory for Iran"

(U.S. House of Representatives) Former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation Stephen Rademaker told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday: "This deal will represent acceptance by the international community of Iran as a nuclear weapons threshold state....We are accepting that, after ten years or so, Iran will have the ability to produce nuclear weapons in very short order, within a matter of weeks, or perhaps even days." "Consequently, those who feel intimidated will be sorely tempted to develop nuclear options of their own, potentially giving rise to the very cascade of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East that experts have long predicted would occur if Iran's nuclear ambitions were not restrained." "The United States is abandoning the policy pursued for more than twenty years by the Clinton, Bush, and, until now, Obama administrations, to make sure Iran neither had nuclear weapons nor was on the threshold of producing them. We are committing to drop our nuclear-related sanctions, accept the legitimacy of the nuclear program that is affording Iran this capability, and even to support future international transfers of equipment and technology to that program. By any measure, this is a huge retreat in U.S. nonproliferation policy, and a big victory for Iran in its decades-long quest to gain acceptance of its nuclear program." "Is there a reasonable expectation that the current Iranian regime is likely to be gone in 10 years, or at least have moderated its behavior? All indications are to the contrary. Today Iran is already riding high within the region, notwithstanding two decades of Western sanctions and extremely low oil prices....The economics of this deal suggest to me that we are about to diminish the prospects for transformation in Iran rather than enhance them."
2015-04-24 00:00:00
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