Iran’s regime will likely cheat if it signs an agreement with the world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions, senior French nuclear proliferation expert Bruno Tertrais has said.
Dr. Bruno Tertrais, Senior Research Fellow at France’s Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), made the remarks in a panel of the Foundation for Middle Eastern Studies in Paris on June 12. The panel also included Dr. Olli Heinonen, former Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); former CIA director James Woolsey; former White House Director of Public Liaison Linda Chavez; and Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the US representative office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
“Assuming there is a final deal, 35 years of past Iranian behavior shows us that it is highly likely that Iran will try to test and cheat the international community,” Tertrais said, adding that he did not believe that the upcoming round of international negotiations with Tehran would reach a “good deal.”
“Even if you assume that there is a final deal, and if you assume the deal is faithfully implemented by Iran, it will leave Iran with a significant breakout capability as a threshold state.”
Tertrais gave a sober assessment of the preliminary accord reached in April in Lausanne between the Iranian regime and the P5+1 states:
“If you look at what has really been agreed. It’s only half a page. It’s the EU-Iran joint statement. All the rest is still up in the air. Remember that the negotiators at least on paper have agreed to a fundamental principle which is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That means that even on issues that the White House has publicized as major breakthroughs, the Iranians can still say ‘no, no, no, we have not agreed to anything; nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’. So you look at the EU-Iran joint statement – the only existing agreement at this point that that you are left with is a very vague declaration of principles.”
He also questioned what has been gained after a decade of negotiations. Instead of preventing the Iranian regime’s march toward a weapon, “the P5+1, after 10-12 years, will have made Iran a legitimate nuclear hedger.”
He noted that the Possible Military Dimensions of the regime’s program are “not being negotiated; it’s a separate negotiation track.”
The world powers are “sweeping it under the carpet, and that’s a problem.”
The deal, he said, will lead to a more radicalized regime.
“If there is no deal on June 30, we should just say goodbye,” Tertrais proposed.
The P5+1 states – Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany – hope to strike a deal with the Iranian regime by June 30 that would curtail Tehran’s nuclear effort in exchange for sanctions relief.
The Iranian regime’s Majlis (parliament) on Sunday voted to ban international nuclear inspectors from having access to Iran’s military sites and scientists as part of any future deal with world powers over its nuclear program.