Iranian Nuclear Scientist Relief
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-nuclear-scientist-relief-1437522826
The deal lifts sanctions on two atomic scientists and a proliferator.
Debate over President Obama’s Iran deal has focused on such bold-face provisions as sanctions relief and inspections. But as we inspect the fine print, we are also learning more about Iran’s real nuclear priorities—along with the Administration’s willingness to accept them.
Start with Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, both Iranian nuclear scientists.
Mr. Abbasi was previously head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization after surviving an assassination attempt in Tehran. Mr. Abbasi, who is also a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, had been under U.N. sanctions for his suspected role in Iran’s “nuclear or ballistic missile activities.” In 2012 Mr. Abbasi admitted to lying about Iran’s nuclear program. “Sometimes we pretended to be weaker than we really were,” he told the Al-Hayat newspaper, “and sometimes we showed strength that was not really in our hands.”
Mr. Fakhrizadeh is often described as Iran’s Robert Oppenheimer, the developer of the world’s first atomic bombs, and not because of the Iranian’s latent pacifist convictions. His name came to light about a decade ago as the elusive head of Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, widely believed to be the group conducting Iran’s nuclear-weaponization work. In 2012 the Journal’s Jay Solomon reported that, after lying low for a few years, Mr. Fakhrizadeh had “opened a research facility in Tehran’s northern suburbs involved in studies relevant to developing nuclear weapons.”
So what are Messrs. Abbasi and Fakhrizadeh doing these days? That’s a great question, to which the U.S. might want some definite answers before signing up to the Iran deal. Instead, both their names—along with that of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research—appear in the deal’s annex of individuals and organizations on whom sanctions will be lifted in roughly eight years, supposedly once Iran is given a clean bill of nuclear health.
Then there is the case of Gerhard Wisser, a German engineer and long-time resident of South Africa, whose name appears in the same annex. In 2007 Mr. Wisser pleaded guilty in a Pretoria court to helping smuggle nuclear components to Libya as part of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan’s nuclear-proliferation network.
Mr. Wisser, who was given an 18-year suspended sentence, wasn’t previously suspected of being involved in supplying Iran’s program, so his appearance on the list raises further questions about Mr. Khan’s links to Iran. The State Department didn’t respond to our request for an explanation. But it’s likely that Iran insisted as part of the deal that Mr. Wisser be included on the sanctions-relief list. Maybe Tehran is looking out for its own.
Much harder to explain, or justify, is why the Obama Administration would be willing to forgive egregious nuclear proliferators in the name of nuclear non-proliferation. As for Iran, if its goal in agreeing to the deal is to improve its economy and prove its nuclear good intentions, it would not be demanding sanctions relief for its top nuclear scientists and an illicit foreign supplier.
This is another question for Congress to investigate before it votes to bless Iran as a nuclear-threshold state.
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