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The Deal Won't Stop Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon

(New York Jewish Week) Aaron David Miller - Will the deal will stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon? No it won't. At best it's an arms control agreement, not a disarmament accord. And over time, some of its most important restrictions will end. The fact is Iran is already a nuclear weapons threshold state. And this accord will leave Tehran with an industrial-size nuclear infrastructure and the option to break out and weaponize should it choose to do so. Did the U.S. get fleeced? Iran clearly didn't get everything it wanted, but it got the better part of the deal. In exchange for a nuclear weapon Iran doesn't even possess, Tehran will reap billions in sanctions relief, new-found legitimacy in the international community and still be able to maintain a large enough nuclear infrastructure to remain a nuclear weapons threshold state. Is war the only alternative to a deal? Even if Congress should override a presidential veto, there's no inexorable march to war. Nor is it a forgone conclusion that Iran would try to break out to a bomb right now. What's the point of inviting an Israeli or American attack? Better for Tehran to weigh its options and to see what it could gain by playing the political game. Will the agreement over time produce a kinder and gentler Iran? How much time do you have? Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, didn't endorse this accord because he saw it as a way of compromising the Iranian revolution; on the contrary, it was done to preserve it and maintain control. The writer is a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars.
2015-07-31 00:00:00
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