The "What? Me worry" approach to Iran negotiations

Jonathon Wiesman:

It was always the “don’t worry about it” clause, says Representative Ed Royce of California, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

Don’t worry that Iran will get to keep so many centrifuges. The Iranians will be shipping almost all their enriched uranium to Russia for reprocessing, so there won’t be any nuclear material to put in the centrifuges.

Don’t worry about allowing Iran to keep open its once-secret nuclear site at Fordo. Without the uranium, what good is it?

Iran doesn’t want to come clean on past weapons-development efforts? Don’t worry. We’ll have its enriched uranium.

Iranian statements that the country would hold on to its fissile materials, after all, have bolstered Republican criticism of the negotiations.

“The shipping out of Iran’s uranium stockpile was to be the key administration win in this agreement,” Mr. Royce said in an interview on Monday. “It was presumed they were going to win on that point because they were giving in on every other point.”

“Now,” he added, “it looks like that rationale is being tossed out the window.”

Obama administration officials maintained on Monday that they were still negotiating the fate of Iran’s nuclear materials, despite Iranian statements to the contrary.
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If the administration had not opposed the Congressional sanctions bill it would have had more leverage to deal with Iranian intransigence.  But that seems typical of Obama's inept negotiations.  I can't recall ever seeing an administration on determined to get a bad deal.