The objective of the United States in the P5+1 negotiations with Iran is not to reach an agreement by June 30; it is to reach an agreement that verifiably prevents Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons capability. When negotiators announced that they had arrived at a framework for a deal back in April, we were told that the purpose of the next June 30th deadline was to have a timeline for working out the mere “technical details” that remained.
What we have learned since then, however, is that the unresolved issues are not small technical details but actually matters of great consequence. Chief among them is the possibility, recently floated by Secretary John Kerry, of a final deal that fails to require the Iranian regime to fully disclose the possible military dimensions (PMD) of its nuclear program.
Failing to require such transparency from Iran would undermine the enforceability of any deal. That’s because the weapons inspectors who will be charged with monitoring Iran’s compliance with an agreement are the same weapons inspectors that Iran has blatantly ignored, obstructed, and disrespected for the past decade.
For years, weapons inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have documented Iran’s repeated violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, from building an illicit underground nuclear procurement network to conducting warhead research in secret facilities. Indeed, it was the IAEA’s referral of Iran to the U.N. Security Council in 2006 that spurred the passage of numerous resolutions calling for Iran to suspend enrichment and give inspectors greater access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, scientists, and suspected military sites. And since Iran entered into an agreement with the IAEA to resolve outstanding concerns in November 2013, the regime has continued to stonewall the efforts of inspectors to determine the extent of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
To this day, Iran has only responded to 1 out of 12 outstanding questions about its past nuclear work posed by the IAEA. After years of calling for compliance with the IAEA, for the United States and our P5+1 partners to adopt an agreement that allows Iran to retain a nuclear enrichment program without first answering for its past behavior, sends the regime the dangerous message that ignoring the IAEA has no repercussions.
We cannot have confidence in a deal that provides Iran, the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, with access to over $100 billion in frozen assets without demanding it recognize the authority of international weapons inspectors charged with verifying Iran’s satisfaction of what must be an extensive set of preconditions to sanctions relief. Given Iran’s long history of deception, there is no accountability without robust transparency. Empowering the IAEA is vital to ensuring the regime provides any access needed by the U.S. and our allies, at any time we suspect activities that may violate the deal. The IAEA must be fully able to track the shipping of nearly all enriched uranium out of the country, the dismantling of 13,000 centrifuges as required under the framework, and the entire fuel cycle from uranium mining to enrichment. The IAEA also needs expansive access to ensure that Iran is not developing advanced IR-8 centrifuges that would shrink its nuclear breakout time to nearly no time at all.
We hope that diplomacy with Iran succeeds. Yet giving Iran a pass on these issues from the beginning not only neuters the IAEA, but undermines our chances of reaching any deal that could be worthy of support. With so many nations around the world invested in a diplomatic solution that prevents Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, there is no value in meeting a deadline if the majority in Congress views it as a bad deal. As Senator Bob Corker recently said to Secretary of State John Kerry, “If it takes longer to get the right deal, take longer, please.”
The Senator is right. Our ability to maintain intense economic pressure on Iran gives us no reason to stop negotiating until we are satisfied that all paths to nuclear weapons capability are cut off. That means a deal that empowers instead of delegitimizes the IAEA.
Iran’s negotiators are hoping their American counterparts make concessions in order to meet the upcoming June 30th deadline. What the United States must make clear to them, and to the world, is that no deadline is as firm as our commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Congressman Ted Deutch is a senior Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Ranking Democrat on the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee. He wrote this for the Sun Sentinel.
