The case for leaving the Iran nuke deal

Douglas Schoen:

In the coming days, President Trump plans to announce his final decision on whether the United States will withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord. President Trump, who has described the agreement as “one of the worst deals” he has ever witnessed, is expected to leave the pact.

Ultimately, this is the right decision for the United States and for global security at large. From the outset, the accord, which provided sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for restrictions on their nuclear program, has a number of fatal flaws.

Foremost, while the plan limits Iran’s access to uranium, this restriction only lasts until 2025 to 2030. After that, the Iranians are free to revitalize their nuclear program on a potentially even larger scale. Notably, however, this “sunset” clause, which allow parts of the deal to expire, are the least of the deal’s shortcomings.

One of the primary failures of the deal is that the agreement fails to address Iran’s ballistic missile program. As such, the country has continued to unrestrictedly build and test ballistic missiles. Moreover, President Trump and others have rightly objected to the terms under which regulatory inspectors are permitted to visit nuclear sites.

The terms of the deal give Iran 14 days to object to a request for inspection, followed by a period of seven days for an arbitration committee to rule about the inspection, and another three days for Tehran to set up an inspection. Thus, this provides Iran with up to 24 days to conceal, destroy, or relocate contraband materials.

Even more problematically, Iran has stated that it will prohibit inspections of military sites, thus further complicating the issue of compliance verification. These flaws have become so glaringly problematic that even those who once championed the deal have begun to question it.
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Iran's ballistic missile program is an admission that it plans to restart its nuclear program and it will have missiles ready as soon as the bombs are ready and the Israeli intelligence operation demonstrates that Iran never gave up its nuclear ambitions.  The Israeli operation also demonstrates that Iran never gave up its ambitions it only became more covert in pursuing them.