Gufi
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In a speech delivered Tuesday to a joint meeting of Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully laid out his objections to the terms of the nuclear agreement that the U.S. and its negotiating partners may be on the verge of reaching with the government of Iran. “For over a year,” he declared, “we’ve been told that no deal is better than a bad deal. Well, this is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. We’re better off without it.”
Mr. Netanyahu and other critics of the current negotiations are dismayed by the size of the nuclear program that Iran would be allowed to retain, and they are especially unhappy about the agreement’s reported “sunset clause”—the time limit after which the negotiated restraints would lapse. Unless the Iranian regime changes fundamentally, critics ask, why would it be any more trustworthy in 2025 than it is today?
In fairness, no one is entirely satisfied with the agreement taking shape. As Robert Einhorn, a key member of the U.S. team from 2009-13 puts it, “Banning enrichment and dismantling Iran’s existing enrichment facilities would indeed be the best negotiated outcome.” The difficulty, he adds, is that “such an agreement is not attainable.” (We could have gotten a lot closer if the Bush administration had not spurned a much more forthcoming Iranian offer a decade ago.)
One of the strongest arguments in favor of the deal is that even after the agreement ends, the Iranians would still face multiple restraints. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran would stand under a continuing obligation not to become a nuclear-armed state.
In addition, the Iranians would be required to adhere to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “Additional Protocols,” the terms of which increase the IAEA’s authority to inspect nuclear-related facilities and to demand information. To enforce this rigorous inspection regime, the U.S. would make clear its determination to impose severe punishments, including military force, in response to Iranian noncompliance. And to give enforcement time to work, the agreement would have to establish restrictions on Iran’s technology (as the deal reportedly will) that will leave the Islamic Republic at least a year away from the bomb.
Still, this emerging agreement entails substantial uncertainties and risks. The question is whether another course of action exists that holds the prospect of better results.
Mr. Netanyahu is certain that one does. “Iran’s nuclear program can be rolled back well beyond the current proposal by insisting on a better deal,” he told Congress, “and keeping up the pressure on a very vulnerable regime, especially given the recent collapse in the price of oil.” And if Iran threatens to walk away from the table? “Call their bluff,” he said. “They’ll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do. And by maintaining the pressure on Iran and on those who do business with Iran, you have the power to make them need it even more.”
But how confident can we be about this assessment? The evidence that increased economic pressure would make Iran more compliant is weak at best. Rather than accept a U.S. diktat, Iran’s leaders have suggested that their country would hunker down and accept economic isolation as the cost of national independence. If we impose new sanctions, they might well walk away from the current interim agreement and speed the expansion of their nuclear program. And then what?
There is a contradiction at the heart of the Israeli prime minister’s argument. If Ayatollah Khamenei is a Hitler (Mr. Netanyahu made the analogy), we cannot do business with him, and we shouldn’t try. If Iran is really determined, as Mr. Netanyahu insists, “to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world,” then why should we believe that any diplomatic outcome will make Tehran more tractable? Negotiations with the Nazis in the 1930s just whetted their appetite. The point isn’t a better or worse deal, it’s regime change.
If the prime minister had followed his own logic, that is where he would have ended up—urging regime change in Tehran. But he couldn’t, because he knows that the American people are still reeling from their government’s ill-starred effort to effect regime change in Iraq. (Our prior effort to do that in Iran set in motion a chain of events that led to the Islamic Republic.) Instead, he offers the unsupported hope that more sanctions will bring Iran to its knees. This is wishful thinking masquerading as hardheaded realism.
We have to face facts. We cannot entirely eliminate Iran’s capacity to enrich nuclear materials—even through a military strike. The best we can do is mix carrots and sticks, inspections and surveillance to deter Iran from breaking through negotiated limits and racing toward nuclear weapons.
Judged against the ideal, the emerging deal doesn’t look good. Judged against feasible goals and actual alternatives, it looks a lot better.
William A. Galston: Netanyahu’s Forceful but Misguided Address - WSJ
@Solomon2
Mr. Netanyahu and other critics of the current negotiations are dismayed by the size of the nuclear program that Iran would be allowed to retain, and they are especially unhappy about the agreement’s reported “sunset clause”—the time limit after which the negotiated restraints would lapse. Unless the Iranian regime changes fundamentally, critics ask, why would it be any more trustworthy in 2025 than it is today?
In fairness, no one is entirely satisfied with the agreement taking shape. As Robert Einhorn, a key member of the U.S. team from 2009-13 puts it, “Banning enrichment and dismantling Iran’s existing enrichment facilities would indeed be the best negotiated outcome.” The difficulty, he adds, is that “such an agreement is not attainable.” (We could have gotten a lot closer if the Bush administration had not spurned a much more forthcoming Iranian offer a decade ago.)
One of the strongest arguments in favor of the deal is that even after the agreement ends, the Iranians would still face multiple restraints. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran would stand under a continuing obligation not to become a nuclear-armed state.
In addition, the Iranians would be required to adhere to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “Additional Protocols,” the terms of which increase the IAEA’s authority to inspect nuclear-related facilities and to demand information. To enforce this rigorous inspection regime, the U.S. would make clear its determination to impose severe punishments, including military force, in response to Iranian noncompliance. And to give enforcement time to work, the agreement would have to establish restrictions on Iran’s technology (as the deal reportedly will) that will leave the Islamic Republic at least a year away from the bomb.
Still, this emerging agreement entails substantial uncertainties and risks. The question is whether another course of action exists that holds the prospect of better results.
Mr. Netanyahu is certain that one does. “Iran’s nuclear program can be rolled back well beyond the current proposal by insisting on a better deal,” he told Congress, “and keeping up the pressure on a very vulnerable regime, especially given the recent collapse in the price of oil.” And if Iran threatens to walk away from the table? “Call their bluff,” he said. “They’ll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do. And by maintaining the pressure on Iran and on those who do business with Iran, you have the power to make them need it even more.”
But how confident can we be about this assessment? The evidence that increased economic pressure would make Iran more compliant is weak at best. Rather than accept a U.S. diktat, Iran’s leaders have suggested that their country would hunker down and accept economic isolation as the cost of national independence. If we impose new sanctions, they might well walk away from the current interim agreement and speed the expansion of their nuclear program. And then what?
There is a contradiction at the heart of the Israeli prime minister’s argument. If Ayatollah Khamenei is a Hitler (Mr. Netanyahu made the analogy), we cannot do business with him, and we shouldn’t try. If Iran is really determined, as Mr. Netanyahu insists, “to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world,” then why should we believe that any diplomatic outcome will make Tehran more tractable? Negotiations with the Nazis in the 1930s just whetted their appetite. The point isn’t a better or worse deal, it’s regime change.
If the prime minister had followed his own logic, that is where he would have ended up—urging regime change in Tehran. But he couldn’t, because he knows that the American people are still reeling from their government’s ill-starred effort to effect regime change in Iraq. (Our prior effort to do that in Iran set in motion a chain of events that led to the Islamic Republic.) Instead, he offers the unsupported hope that more sanctions will bring Iran to its knees. This is wishful thinking masquerading as hardheaded realism.
We have to face facts. We cannot entirely eliminate Iran’s capacity to enrich nuclear materials—even through a military strike. The best we can do is mix carrots and sticks, inspections and surveillance to deter Iran from breaking through negotiated limits and racing toward nuclear weapons.
Judged against the ideal, the emerging deal doesn’t look good. Judged against feasible goals and actual alternatives, it looks a lot better.
William A. Galston: Netanyahu’s Forceful but Misguided Address - WSJ
@Solomon2
