Inspections? Verification? No Problem!

"International inspections should be done by international inspectors. Period. The standard of 'anywhere, anytime' inspections -- so critical to a viable agreement -- has dropped to 'when Iran wants, where Iran wants, on Iran's terms'."
Rep. Ed Royce, chairman, U.S. House foreign affairs committee

"Trusting Iran to inspect its own nuclear site and report to the United Nations in an open and transparent way is remarkably naive and incredibly reckless."
"This revelation [secret agreement between the IAEA and Tehran] only reinforces the deep-seated concerns the American people have about the agreement."
John Cornyn, 2nd-ranking Republican senator

"[The Obama administration is] confident in the agency's technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran's former program."
"The IAEA has separately developed the most robust inspection regime ever peacefully negotiated."
Ned Price, White House National Security Council spokesman

"I am disturbed by statements suggesting that the IAEA has given responsibility for nuclear inspections to Iran."
"Such statements misrepresent the way in which we will undertake this important verification work."
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano

"One must welcome this global innovation and outside-the-box thinking. One can only wonder if the Iranian inspectors will also have to wait 24 days before being able to visit the site and look for incriminating evidence?"
Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz

A view of Iran’s controversial heavy water production facility in Arak, south of the Iranian capital of Tehran. in 2004. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Surely this isn't the same IAEA which has formerly cited evidence from satellite images of what looks impressively like Iranian efforts to cleanse the Parchin military site of evidence that nuclear high-explosive detonators were experimented with in a specially-built concrete enclosure meant to absorb the impacts?

This cannot possibly be the same agency  to whom Iran has steadfastly refused access for years, despite the insistence of the IAEA that it cannot effectively perform its work without direct access to the military site? The very site where intelligence by U.S., Israeli, other nations and the agency's own research leads to the belief that nuclear experiments have taken place there?

In which case we are discussing a reclusive scientific community -- in a country known to support terrorism, engaged in wreaking havoc in other countries and planning attacks on other nations, one famous for its bombastic threats -- working surreptitiously to avoid detection while building a nuclear installation in the side of a mountain outside the holy city of Qom, undetected.

A country whom members of its own political opposition disclosed to the world was engaging in unlawful nuclear research, madly spinning advanced centrifuges to achieve a high degree of nuclear enrichment, oh not for malign purposes, but for the production of benign medical isotopes. A country which sought to hide from outside scrutiny its true agenda, but whose pride in unveiling more powerful ballistic missiles lacking only nuclear warheads shouted at realities.

A country which has delighted in its penchant for obfuscation and taqqa, its skill in diplomatically leading inspectors and international critics astray while using any subterfuge available to it to continue its nuclear research undaunted by alarm expressed by the international community. A country which found common cause with another outlier in nuclear research, where it could learn from North Korea's feints and dodges.

The fact that the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany signed an agreement with Tehran which effectively capitulates to its insistence that it has the right to develop nuclear 'power' for domestic purposes when its true purpose is well known, and which the agreement caters to, is in and of itself sufficiently alarming. Additional compromises to Iran's intransigence rather ices that cake.

Endorsed by the world powers of the Security Council and Germany, the Parchin agreement secures Iran's defiance of UN demands that all nuclear facilities be open to inspection. Grand Ayatollah Khamenei's adamant refusal has been rubber-stamped by those who have the authority and the means to halt the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear agenda, but haven't the will to do so.

Gambling on a future that will see other Middle East powers acquiring nuclear weapons.

And with that, the spectre of violently bloodthirsty barbarians like Islamic State, terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and Islamic Jihad acquiring nuclear arms of their own. Nothing is sacrosanct, no human life, no heritage, no culture, no religion beyond Islam to jihadists awaiting the appearance of the Mahdi to hasten Armageddon and the raising of the faithful to Paradise.

The rubbish assurances of the Obama administration of 'robust inspections peacefully negotiated' affirms what Iran believes of its destiny. Permitting Tehran to use its own experts and equipment to search its own nuclear installations for evidence of sanctioned actions which it denies it has ever planned in the development of nuclear weapons, transcends lunacy.

This is not 'trust', it is complete and utter dementia on a massive scale. A country that denies claims of nuclear aspirations but enriches uranium to the point where a bomb is feasible, all the while refusing to permit entry to its military facilities, underhandedly continuing its agenda while claiming otherwise, is to police itself and report any possible infractions.

Olli Heinonen, in charge of the Iran probe as the deputy director general in 2050-10 of the IAEA, professes to being unable to identify anything remotely similar as a concession to any other country at any other time. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano claims he is obligated to keep the document signed with Tehran confidential. No secret side deal that favours Tehran is involved, claims the White House.

Trust them.

Hassan Rouhani. (photo credit:REUTERS)