The Deal
Stephen Coll – The New Yorker
The deal’s fine print does include remarkable Iranian concessions, such as the sale or the down blending of almost all Iran’s enriched uranium, and the disabling of a heavy-water reactor at Arak, which could be used to make plutonium.
Yet the deal has weaknesses, too. Its protocols for surprise inspections of military facilities could allow Iran to delay the arrival of investigators for more than three weeks, ample time to hide contraband equipment. And although Iran must now provide the I.A.E.A. with answers about its secret atomic history, the accord does not spell out how forthcoming it must be….But nuclear-arms control in the Middle East is inseparable from the region’s suffering and its conventional conflicts…. The Obama Administration has yet to address the mass suffering in the region with anything like the energy and the risk-taking that it displayed in its breakthrough diplomacy with Iran. The deal is imperfect but good enough … It cannot by itself deliver that.
President Barack Obama answers questions about the Iran nuclear deal during a news conference in the White House on July 15, 2015. (AP)
The Iran Nuclear Agreement: Yes, There Is a Better Alternative
James Phillips, Luke Coffey and Michaela Dodge – The Heritage Foundation
Iran is—clearly—likely to cheat on its new commitments, just as it cheated on the old ones. A credible alternative to the bad deal that was agreed does exist. As Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew said during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the United States has powerful sanctions tools at its disposal with or without an agreement.[1] The United Nations sanctions would also remain in place. An alternative to the Vienna Agreement would be to:
- Block the agreement. Congress should reset the board and allow the next Administration the opportunity to succeed where this Administration failed….
- Impose unilateral economic sanctions…. On balance, the continuation of sanctions would be an important factor in constraining Iran’s ability to advance its nuclear program or threaten the U.S. and its allies….
- Keep All Options on the Table….This deterrent would be greater if Congress followed up on its rejection of the Vienna Agreement with a resolution expressing support for preventive military action should Tehran continue on its path to nuclear weapons.
Wearing protective clothes, an Iranian security person walks through the Uranium Conversion Facility prior to the arrival of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran on March 30, 2005. (AP)
Are There Really Only Two Options on Iran?
Doyle McManus – Los Angeles Times
Ever since negotiators finished work on a nuclear agreement with Iran, President Obama and his aides have been fending off critics with a recurring refrain: What’s the alternative? …
Plenty of conservatives have proposed alternatives to Obama’s Iran deal — and not just war. The simplest option — and the one least likely to succeed — has come from Rubio: escalate U.S. sanctions until Iran cries uncle.
The problem is, U.S. economic sanctions alone have never compelled another country to surrender….
Some conservatives have proposed a slightly more sophisticated option: ask Iran and the other five countries in the negotiations to reopen the talks….Finally, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention one last, bracing alternative to accepting the nuclear deal: military action against Iran….So there are other alternatives. But none of them are easy, none are cost-free and none are guaranteed to work. If Obama’s deal with Iran is something of a gamble, his critics’ proposed alternatives are gambles too, and their outcomes would be even less certain.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers his sermon during the Eid al-Fitr prayer at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran. (Released by the Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader in July 2015 via AP)
Israel’s Choice: Conventional War Now, or Nuclear War Later
Norman Podhoretz – The Wall Street Journal
Unfortunately, however, I am unable to escape the conclusion that Mr. Obama is right when he dismisses as a nonstarter the kind of “better deal” his critics propose.
Nor, given that the six other parties to the negotiations are eager to do business with Iran, could these stringent conditions be imposed if the U.S. were to walk away without a deal. The upshot is that if the objective remains preventing Iran from getting the bomb, the only way to do so is to bomb Iran….
To repeat, then, what cannot be stressed too often: If the purpose were still to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, no deal that Iran would conceivably agree to sign could do the trick, leaving war as the only alternative. To that extent, Mr. Obama is also right. But there is an additional wrinkle. For in allowing Iran to get the bomb, he is not averting war. What he is doing is setting the stage for a nuclear war between Iran and Israel.