JOSHUA ROBERTS/Reuters
President Obama has not won a lasting victory in his efforts to lessen Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Dangerously wishful thinking won the day as President Obama struck a deal Saturday that leaves Iran fully capable of realizing its dream of regional domination through nuclear weaponry.
The outlines of the compact: Iran agrees to a six-month freeze in the most dangerous levels of uranium enrichment in exchange for the U.S. and Europe dialing back punishing sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table.
Stronger pressures will remain in place while hammering out a permanent agreement under which Iran will dismantle centrifuges, Obama says. Nuclear inspectors will be on the ground daily, Obama says. The sanctions relief is limited and reversible, Obama says.
In fact, President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have implicit permission to refine uranium to levels lower than necessary to build a bomb, leaving them in position to boost its power at any time.
Meanwhile, Iran’s one show of movement — a promise to dilute the 20% uranium it has stockpiled — is small potatoes. And what’s diluted today can be re-enriched tomorrow.
The U.S. and Europe had maximum leverage before inking the temporary deal. Iran was desperate to lift the penalties that were crippling its economy. This was the moment to demand a verifiable end to nuclear ambitions, then lift sanctions. Obama got it backwards.
The whole agreement hinges on trust that Iran will do as it pledges, when recent history has repeatedly proven the exact opposite to be true. This is naiveté in the extreme.
No wonder Israel’s leaders are far more worried today than they were before negotiations began. Ditto Saudi Arabia and others concerned about the fresh influence Iran, its client state Syria, and its terrorist allies, Hezbollah and Hamas, will now wield.
Khamenei and Rouhani are playing a long game. Obama played for an iffy short-term step — and got played himself.
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