One of the top U.S. experts on arms control says, in an exclusive
interview, that the agreement by world powers with Iran to block it from
acquiring nuclear weapons is “a big deal.”
John D. Holum, chief of the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency and U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control under President Bill
Clinton, notes there are two paths to nuclear weapons – using either enriched
uranium or plutonium – and “the agreement effectively fences off both routes.”
Verification of Iran’s actions means, “there’s no element of
trust involved,” he says. Contrary to
the demands of Ayatollah Khamenei, International Atomic Energy Agency “inspectors will have
access to all sites, existing and suspected, including military facilities.”
“The IAEA is technically very proficient,” he reports. It will now be equipped with better tools to
carry out inspections. Iran will be
subject to these tougher safeguards. And
the U.S. and others will continue their own intelligence operations to look for
violations.
In the event of a violation of its commitment by Iran, all
parties, including China, Russia and Iran, have agreed sanctions will “snap
back” on. The decision to restart
sanctions cannot be blocked by any or all of the three. The U.S. and its European allies have a
majority vote. Agreement on a binding
majority vote by an international body on such a major issue is quite unusual.
Answering the claims of some critics, Holum maintains, “it’s
a common misperception that after some specific limits expire all bets are off.” Iran is bound by treaty obligations never to
have nuclear weapons and “cheating in the future would be uncovered much more
quickly” than in the past.
It is possible that Iran will try to cheat, but after
verifiably giving up the fuel and equipment required for a nuclear weapon, it
would need a year to build one, while Holum says it would now need only two
months. “If Iran tries to cheat, we’ll
know about it in plenty of time to react.”
The new agreement gives Iran only “a very short time to get
back into full compliance” with its treaty obligations. Failure to do so brings the almost certain
return of sanctions, which can cause real injury to the country’s economy.
One of the major arguments in support of the new deal is
that the alternative would be worse.
While he agrees that is true, Holum sees the agreement as having value
going well beyond merely maintaining sanctions while allowing Iran to proceed
with nuclear weapons development.
“The deal should be implemented,” he says, “because it
succeeds in the core purpose of the sanctions and the negotiations – to ensure,
with confidence, that Iran will not be able to secretly develop nuclear
weapons.”
He implies that trying to press Iran further in negotiations
would not have produced a better result than what was already achieved in the
agreement. And as long as the multi-year
negotiations continued, the new, tougher controls could not be applied.
Some critics stress that Iran supports terrorism, wants to
destroy Israel and is our enemy in the Middle East, a region it would like to
dominate. Without sanctions, it would
gain the resources to pursue these goals.
To these critics, the agreement does not go far enough but talks should
have been pursued until Iran was disarmed and blocked from using nuclear power even
for peaceful purposes.
It is worth noting that these objectives were not part of
U.S. policy in dealing with the far more menacing Soviet Union or with North
Korea, a country allowed to gain nuclear weapons and the means to use them
against countries friendly to the U.S.
The declared purpose of the sanctions, adopted by the U.N., was
to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, Holum notes. “Any U.S. attempt to repurpose them to other
issues would certainly fail.”
The announcement of an agreement brought immediate
opposition as well as recognition of the accord as an historic
accomplishment. Some observers believe
that Republican majorities in the House and Senate will vote to disapprove the
agreement President Obama puts before them.
Obama would then veto their disapproval, and it would take
two-thirds of both houses to override the veto.
That means all Republicans would have to oppose the deal and pick up a
block of Democrats to have enough votes for an override
Would all Republicans want this key deal be treated as a purely
partisan matter? Would enough Democrats,
fearful of offending Jewish voters, desert their president?
Holum believes the rest of the world has become so
accustomed to partisan efforts in the U.S. to undermine Obama that approval by
veto would not reduce confidence in the deal itself.
Right now, what’s needed is a thoughtful and thorough public
review of the deal, free of preconceived positions on either side.
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