The Obama administration’s nuclear deal with the Iranian regime will provoke a Middle Eastern arms race, American author Anne R. Pierce wrote on Tuesday in the USA Today.
“When do peace plans make war more likely? When does respect for adversaries increase their disrespect for us? When does “non-proliferation” lead to a build-up of arms? When does compromise become capitulation? When does diplomacy for the sake of peace enable aggressors, human rights violators and sponsors of terror instead of rein them in?”
“When our priorities and our principles and our rhetoric are upside down,” she wrote.
“Nowhere is this upside-down dynamic more evident than in the deal that the United States and the P5+1 powers just forged with Iran.”
“According to President Obama, there are only two ways of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and preventing an arms race: this deal or war. Yet, those objecting to the deal believe it will make war and an arms race more likely. They predict that Iran will use the massive funds it will receive via sanctions relief to clandestinely perfect its nuclear program, to sponsor even more terror and to incite even more proxy wars. They believe that when Iran emerges from the temporary “sunshine period” it will be in a better position to build a bomb than it is today under painful economic sanctions. They are alarmed by inadequate inspections, and by last-minute concessions regarding ballistic missiles and advanced weapons, concessions the administration promised not to make.”
“Our president has accused Republicans of finding ‘common cause’ with Iranian hard-liners in opposition to this deal. Yet it is Congressional Republicans and some Congressional Democrats who question the administration’s rapprochement with Iran’s hard-line regime. They point to Iran’s sponsorship of terror, regional aggression, intractability and duplicity in negotiations, support of the brutal Assad regime, and crackdown on dissent. They speak out against the regime’s vilification of Israel and the United States, and repression of women and minorities. They pushed for stronger sanctions so that the U.S. could negotiate with Iran from strength, and opposed the lifting of sanctions in exchange for promises rather than evidence of non-proliferation.”
“Opponents see this deal as unnecessarily advantageous to Iran and, based on their celebrations and proclamations, Iranians do too. It unleashes more than $100 billions in frozen assets and lifts the arms embargo. U.N. inspectors must request written permission from Iran to inspect suspicious undeclared sites, and can be blocked from doing so for up to 24 days. U.S. inspectors, whose technological savvy is crucial, are not permitted to take part in inspections. Yet, Iran will receive American funding and technical assistance for its ‘peaceful’ nuclear program. Uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow, which are forbidden in multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions are now merely constrained (at Natanz) and delayed (at Fordow). Iran is given an 8-10 year roadmap for research and development on advanced centrifuges, ‘after the initial 10-year period’ increasing its ability to build a bomb. The idea that ‘snapback’ sanctions can be speedily enforced if Iran violates the deal has been dismissed by Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif himself.”
“In introducing legislation that would prevent the implementation of the nuclear agreement, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce befittingly stated, ‘This deal gives up too much, too fast, to a terrorist state — making the world less safe, less secure and less stable’,” she added.
Anne R. Pierce is author of Woodrow Wilson & Harry Truman: Mission and Power in American Foreign Policy.
Read More:
Future risks of an Iran nuclear deal – NY Times
