Misunderstood Iran

"The claim that the only alternative to the [P5+1/Iran-Nuclear] framework is war is false. It both obscures the failure to attain better terms from Iran and stifles honest and open debate by suggesting that if you don't agree, you must be a warmonger. It also feeds and reflects the calumny that Israel in particular is agitating for war."
"As Israel's minister of defence, as a former Israel Defense Forces chief of general staff and as a combat veteran forced to bury some of my closest friends, I know too well the costs of war. I also know that Israelis are likely to pay the highest price if force is used -- by anyone -- against Iran's nuclear program. No country, therefore, has a greater interest in seeing the Iranian nuclear question resolved peacefully than Israel. Our opposition to a deal based on the framework is not because we seek war, but because the terms of the framework -- which will leave an unreformed Iran stronger, richer and with a clear path to a bomb -- make war more likely."
Moshe Ya'alon, Israeli Defence Minister

So much goodwill was evident on all the smiling faces, leading up to the concluding 'agreement' finalized between Iran and the six group of world powers one might have assumed the exuded sweetness and light reflected a meeting of minds. And nothing could be further from the truth. The 'agreement' meant to represent a framework for a final deal worked out and signed by June 30 was never really agreed to in detail, firmly, in language that both sides agreed to.

The result was that as soon as the news was out of the success of the 'agreement', the perceptions of what had been agreed to were broadcast from the point of view of Iran and of the P5+1, and each bore little resemblance to the other, although each side crowed victory for their hard-worn positions. Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, felt his oats sufficiently to berate the opposite side, informing them that cooperation and pressure do not lead to good results.

Iran, on the other hand, had demonstrated a great degree of trust and cooperation. It was high time that the opposite side demonstrated the same. The April 2 overdue announcement that a positive outcome had been reached was glorified through speeches by President Obama and John Kerry; celebrating a historical achievement, presenting a fact sheet with great alacrity; the agreement not having been signed by the parties (Iran refused to sign) an insignificant detail.

The parameters of the resulting deal would, they crowed, prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The verification and inspections regime to check for weaponization activities would be in place; Iran's ongoing work on its advanced centrifuges and its vast nuclear infrastructure will be mothballed rather than dismantled. Except for another inconvenient detail; Ayatollah Khamenei's unequivocal denial that military bases will be open to inspection where hints of nuclear tests were previously discerned by the IAEA.

A Kh-55 missile, the basis for the Soumar design.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / George Chernilevsky

As for 'trust' by the West for Iran's honourable word, intelligent beings usually base trust on past incidents and in the exchanges between the West and the Islamic Republic of Iran there has been one confirmation after another of egregious incidents of the Republic working in secret to attain its ends to the point where two nuclear installations were built covertly, their presence uncovered only when Iranian dissidents rendered proof of Iran's iniquity.

And then there is Iran's tendency to look for loopholes where others don't see them. And to take immediate advantage of any ambiguities that might exist enabling it to proceed with its plans, while assuring its interlocutors that it would do no such thing. The reality of the situation is that the country's vast nuclear infrastructure is to be left intact, and as such ensure a short breakout time to building a bomb.

The Republic's long-range ballistic missile program represents a threat to the Middle East and beyond, to Europe and North America, but this issue was left untouched. And nor was its bellicose threats of annihilation of Israel addressed. Let alone its well-known concentration on inciting violence between Shiites and Sunnis, along with its funding and arming of proxy terrorist militias, as well as aiding Syria's Alawite regime in its brutal conflict with Sunni Syrian civilians.

The deliberate destabilization of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain; arming, funding, training and dispatching Islamist jihadis into the international community speak of a country comfortable with state-inflicted violence against other states. And while the framework agreement is based on the prevention and detection of Iranian deceptions relating to their nuclear program through inspections and intelligence, both have failed in the past.

Is there any reason to suppose that this time will be different? That a new, meek and submissive Iran will be happy to accede to any and all guarantees of good future behaviour? Lifting of the sanctions as Iran demands, instantly, holding nothing back will give Iran all the freedom it anticipates to fund ongoing terrorism, widen its hegemonic path, and finalize its nuclear plans.

A deal that sanctions would support, to roll back the country's nuclear infrastructure to the point where it would have to abandon its weaponization aspirations would be the only solution to defanging this serpent. It isn't happening.