On Monday, the Center for Security Policy posted an article about the ongoing negotiations with Iran over Iran’s nuclear policy. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released a report on June 11 on the status of the negotiations.
The article reports:
The deadlock stems from Tehran’s refusal to permit inspections of military facilities or answer questions about past nuclear-weapons-related work (known as “possible military dimensions” or PMD in U.N.-speak). With the clock ticking down on a June 30 deadline for a nuclear agreement, the refusal of Iranian leaders to budge on these issues has become a political problem for President Obama, who said in April that Iran has agreed to “the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history.” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes has said the nuclear agreement will allow “anytime, anywhere inspections of any and every Iranian facility.”
Unfortunately, Iran has not been willing to agree to those inspections. In desperation, the Obama Administration has begun making concessions.
The article reports some of those concessions:
• The United States has proposed to close the International Atomic Energy Agency’s PMD dossier and forgo actual IAEA inspections of suspect Iranian nuclear facilities.
• Instead, the IAEA would conduct token inspections of a handful of nuclear sites — including two military sites — and question several senior Iranian military officials.
• Inspections of Iranian nuclear sites after the token inspections would be limited to declared facilities.
• Undeclared and suspect nuclear-weapons sites would be monitored through intelligence means.
MEMRI, a well-regarded think tank in Washington, D.C., sourced its report to statements cited in the Iranian press from Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and head nuclear negotiator, and Hamid Baidinejad, another Iranian nuclear negotiator. Araghchi reportedly said the Iranian negotiating team agreed to the proposed U.S. concession, but the plan was subsequently rejected by Supreme Leader Khamenei and triggered harsh criticism of Iranian officials in the so-called pragmatic camp. Baidinejad claimed the Iranian negotiating team rejected the proposed U.S. concession but agreed to an American request to present it to Khamenei anyway, who rejected it outright.
Somewhere in this charade, we need to remember that Iran is neither our friend or an honest negotiator. Iranian weapons have been killing our soldiers in the Middle East since 2001. Why in the world should we believe that they are at all interested in bringing peace to the region? We need to increase the sanctions on Iran until they stop exporting terrorism around the world.