Washington Post Cites Gemunder Center Report on Iran
Congress can change the Iran equation
By Jennifer Rubin – The Washington Post
August 4, 2014
The Gaza war grinds on. Iraq is besieged by sectarian violence. Syria is still convulsed by its bloody civil war. But the biggest issue, which affects all three, concerns Iran.
Congress can change the Iran equation
By Jennifer Rubin – The Washington Post
August 4, 2014
The Gaza war grinds on. Iraq is besieged by sectarian violence. Syria is still convulsed by its bloody civil war. But the biggest issue, which affects all three, concerns Iran.
The Obama administration extended the interim P5+1 deal four months, but does anyone believe that 3 1/2 months from now Iran, with a little more cash in its coffers and months more of research on advanced centrifuges and its intercontinental ballistic missile program, will decide, hey, come to think of it, it should dismantle virtually all of its centrifuges? It’s preposterous because Iran is winning the negotiations.
Iran has gotten the West to lift some sanctions in exchange for small and reversible moves. It has extracted a sunset clause that envisions a day when Iran will be free from all inspections and restrictions on its nuclear program. The interim agreement seems to recognize if not a right to enrich then the West’s disinclination to halt all enrichment activities. Iran is playing a winning hand.
Moreover, Iran no longer fears that things will get worse if it doesn’t make a deal. After the first six months, the mullahs got another four months. So why not string this out a bit, they figure? And President Obama has taken Iran’s side on sanctions, for years trying to delay or water down sanctions and then to block conditional sanctions. Iran might not get full relief from sanctions (although the president may keep lifting some sanctions by executive order, his favored technique these days), but it may rightly calculate that sanctions won’t get worse.
And as for a military threat, with Obama crumbling in the face of a limited military strike against war-torn and much weaker Syria, what danger does Iran really face from the U.S. military? We have the capability, but not apparent will to act.
It’s not clear that the president wants to change the equation, but if he did, he’d change the cost-benefit analysis for Iran. That’s what the JINSA bipartisan task force (including former Obama adviser Dennis Ross) counsels. “The Obama Administration can undertake several mutually-reinforcing steps to bolster its leverage at the negotiating table: conditioning further sanctions relief on dramatic and verifiable rollback of Iran’s nuclear program; working more closely with Congress on negotiating and implementing a final deal; augmenting the credibility of both the U.S. and Israeli military options; improving dialogue with regional allies; and interdicting clandestine Iranian arms exports,” the report advises.