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The U.S. Is Poised to Make a Nuclear Deal with Iran that Expires in Twenty Months

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Robert Satloff - While news reports of a likely breakthrough in Vienna negotiations for a renewed Iran nuclear deal may trigger sighs of relief, sadly, that sense of relief is almost surely misplaced. We are likely to see a deal that leaves Iran closer to a nuclear weapons capability than even the original 2015 agreement. The new administration promised that a renewed deal would be the basis for a "longer, stronger" agreement that addressed two key deficiencies in the original JCPOA: its lifting of all restrictions on Iran's ballistic missile program and its silence on Iran's destabilizing regional activities, including support for terrorist groups and radical militias in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. But months ago, U.S. officials dropped this formulation as even an aspirational goal. Moreover, U.S. negotiators have admitted that the deal will leave America and its allies with, at most, six months' warning of a potential nuclear breakout. Moreover, the date by which all sanctions temporarily suspended by the agreement are legally terminated is just twenty months away, in October 2023. So it will be President Biden's distasteful task to ask Congress for permanent sanctions relief on Iran next year, which promises to be an uphill battle. Instead of penalizing Tehran for revving up its centrifuges and speeding toward bomb-level enrichment, an updated agreement is expected to affirm the original timetable of sanctions relief and easing of nuclear restrictions. The writer is executive director of The Washington Institute.
2022-03-10 00:00:00
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