Straw men

Michael Makovsky, CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), sent me a fund-raising letter today. As a supporter of the Iran nuclear deal, I won’t be responding with money (I’ve sent that on to J-Street, which is lobbying in favor). But I would like to examine Michael’s arguments against the deal. Obama’s deal, he says,

• Does not deprive Iran of nuclear weapons capability – as President Obama promised he would do during the last election – but legitimizes Iran as a nuclear power.

• Depends heavily upon a woefully inadequate inspections regime – indeed, Iran gets to inspect some of it’s own sites!

• Does not require Iran to close ANY of its nuclear facilities.

• Allows Iran to continue operating a significant number of centrifuges – devices essential to producing the high-grade fissionable material required to make bombs.

• Ignores Iran’s program to develop ballistic missiles that will be able to deliver nuclear warheads to the United States.

Let’s examine these assertions one by one.

1. Iran has nuclear capabilities, but so far as anyone knows it has no nuclear weapons capability, unless you regard being able to enrich uranium as conferring it. But that would mean non-nuclear weapons countries like Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Spain also have nuclear weapons capability. There is no international prohibition on enriching uranium. Nor do I know of any way to get a country to unlearn uranium enrichment. JINSA might prefer that Iran not do it, but wishing won’t make it so. Nor will rejecting the agreement.
2. The international inspections regime Iran has accepted in the nuclear deal is the most intrusive ever imposed on any state. The claim that Iran will inspect its own sites is based on a leaked, draft document whose authenticity the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has denied. No state has ever developed nuclear weapons with materials monitored by the IAEA. It isn’t likely under an unprecedented, full fuel cycle inspection regime like the one Iran has accepted.
3. Closure of nuclear facilities is not required, but the number of centrifuges Iran is allowed is cut by two-thirds, its stockpile of enriched uranium by even more and its heavy water reactor will be completely redesigned to produce less plutonium.
4. A lot of things are essential to producing fissionable material, but under the agreement no high-grade fissionable material is allowed. Nor is the uranium and plutonium metallurgy required to make nuclear weapons. That prohibition is permanent.
5. That’s right: an agreement on the nuclear weapons program does not directly address the missile program, though sanctions against selling missiles or missile technology to Iran will continue for five to eight years. Had we introduced missiles into the negotiation, we would likely have gotten less on nuclear technology. Is that what JINSA would have preferred?

What people don’t say is often as important as what they do. Michael’s letter claims the deal is “a threat to Israel and a threat to America.” But he fails to argue how either Israel or America would be better off without the deal. He offers no alternative at all.

But the consequences of rejecting the deal are clear enough. Either Iran will

a) likewise reject the deal, continue to accumulate centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, and complete a plutonium-producing reactor, as they did for the ten years before the P5+1 opened the negotiation with Tehran, or

b) uphold its end of the bargain in exchange for European, Chinese and Russian lifting of sanctions, thus reducing American leverage and gaining resources for more trouble-making in the region, just as they will with the nuclear deal.

Yes, the US could try to impose “secondary” sanctions on the Europeans, Chinese and Russians who do business with Iran, but that will not be 100% effective and will not improve relations with countries whose cooperation we need on other issues (Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya–just to name a few).

Note that Iran, not the US, will determine which option is taken. That alone should make the advocates of a strong America hesitate about rejection of the deal.

Democratic members of both houses of Congress, who are JINSA’s principal lobbying objective, appear to be rejecting Makovsky’s arguments, including a majority of the Jewish members. The Administration is on track to gain enough votes to uphold the President’s veto of a legislative attempt to block implementation of the deal. The straw men won’t stand.