The Global Cost Of A Weak American President

The Jerusalem Post reported the following yesterday:

Iran has reneged on allowing a recent deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for access to its Karaj nuclear facility, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Sunday.

“The (IAEA) Director General (Rafael Grossi) stresses that Iran’s decision not to allow agency access to the TESA Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop is contrary to the agreed terms of the joint statement issued on 12 September,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.

“Iran from 20–22 September permitted IAEA inspectors to service identified agency monitoring and surveillance equipment and to replace storage media at all necessary locations in Iran with the exception of the centrifuge component manufacturing workshop at the TESA Karaj complex,” the IAEA statement said further.

In mid-September, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi announced he had reached a deal with the new Iranian government, which was elected in mid-June, that could break the logjam which had led Tehran to block the agency’s inspections since May.

A major revelation that came out of the announcement of the deal was that various IAEA monitoring cameras had been destroyed, damaged or shut off.

However, Grossi said he had received guarantees from Iran that it would almost immediately grant access to fix and otherwise restore the cameras’ monitoring.

The article concludes:

A Wall Street Journal report from Sunday also predicted that Iran will claim safety issues and the need to continue to collect forensic evidence as a basis for delaying access.

But, as the report points out, Iran is public as having restarted operating Karaj after the June attack that Iran has attributed, and The Jerusalem Post has validated, to the Mossad.

If Tehran was operating Karaj even after the attack, its latest defenses for impeding IAEA access could be exposed as contrived.
Broadly speaking, the US has said it would lift sanctions if the Islamic Republic ends its nuclear violations.

So let’s get this straight. The IAEA was not allowed to inspect or repair the monitoring system at the TESA Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop. I know it is just an incredible coincidence that this is the site that Iran had restarted operating after June and now the IAEA is not allowed to fix the monitoring equipment. I think I trust Iran about as much as I trust a hungry alligator staring at my small pet.

 

Common Sense From The Wall Street Journal

IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Photogra...

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Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article entitled, “If Iran Gets the Bomb.” The article reviews some of the history of Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.

The article reminds us of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released this week which stated that Iran seems to be on a structured path to building a nuclear weapon. The article reminds us of the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate which claimed that Iran had ended its work on nuclear weapons on 2003, thus assuring that the Bush administration would take no action against Iran. I suspect that when historians review that report, they will wonder why Americans let party politics interfere with their national security.

The article points out:

The serious choice now before the Administration is between military strikes and more of the same. As the IAEA report makes painfully clear, more of the same means a nuclear Iran, possibly within a year.

The article then examines the consequences of various possible decisions. The writers point out that  “no war ever goes precisely as planned.” That applies to both boots-on-the-ground wars and aerial wars.

Iran’s going nuclear would trigger an arms race in the Middle East–the Saudis would want an atomic bomb, as would other countries. It is also a safe bet that a nuclear Iran would not hesitate to bully its neighbors. A nuclear Iran could seriously alter any stability in the Middle East that currently exists.

The article concludes:

Opponents of a pre-emptive strike say it would do no more than delay Iran’s programs by a few years. But something similar was said after Israel’s strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, without which the U.S. could never have stood up to Saddam after his invasion of Kuwait. In life as in politics, nothing is forever. But a strike that sets Iran’s nuclear programs back by several years at least offers the opportunity for Iran’s democratic forces to topple the regime without risking a wider conflagration.

No U.S. President could undertake a strike on Iran except as a last resort, and Mr. Obama can fairly say that he has given every resort short of war an honest try. At the same time, no U.S. President should leave his successor with the catastrophe that would be a nuclear Iran. A nuclear Iran on Mr. Obama’s watch would be fatal to more than his legacy.

Israel will not sit quietly and let Iran go nuclear. That fact needs to be considered as our government decides what America should do. There are only two rational solutions I have heard to Iran going nuclear–the first is to overthrow the current government and replace it with a secular democracy, the second is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack by either America or Israel. Neither solution is guaranteed, but a solution is necessary.

 

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