JED BABBIN: IRAN’S PHONY RATIFICATION OF OBAMA’S NUCLEAR DEAL
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/21/jed-babbin-irans-phony-ratification-of-obamas-nucl/
The ayatollah has already vowed to break the terms of agreement.
On Oct. 18 President Obama signed his nuclear agreement with Iran and thus began his administration’s implementation of it. His action followed the many international headlines proclaiming that Iran’s parliament — the “Majlis” — has ratified the nuclear weapons deal agreed to by Obama and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
Mr. Obama’s actions are premature and those headlines are comprehensively false for one compelling reason: The Majlis’ “ratification” never happened. To understand why requires some dissection of Iran’s internal politics.
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The indispensable experts at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) have translated and analyzed the Majlis’ action and several statements by Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the 12-member Guardian Council.
On Sept. 3, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as adopted by the U.N. was unacceptable because it didn’t lift all the sanctions on Iran — it just suspended them. He said that if the sanctions weren’t lifted, Iran wouldn’t honor its obligations under the JCPOA. He then gave the Majlis authority to approve or disapprove the agreement.
But the provisions of JCPOA oblige us and the rest of the signatory Western nations to suspend the sanctions, not cancel them. Making his case for the deal, Mr. Obama has insisted that an automatic “snap-back” mechanism will reimpose the sanctions immediately if Iran is found to have violated the terms of the agreement.
As MEMRI’s Oct. 13 report shows, the Majlis followed Ayatollah Khamenei’s diktat. It approved the agreement based on the cancellation of the sanctions imposed by the United States and the U.N. It went farther, stating that Iran would monitor the lifting of sanctions and if they weren’t lifted to Iran’s satisfaction, Iran would implement a rapid expansion of its uranium enrichment effort.
According to MEMRI, the Majlis’ action says that if the sanctions aren’t lifted entirely, Iran will hasten its uranium enrichment effort to 190,000 SWU within two years. (An SWU is a “separate work unit,” which represents the effort necessary to enrich U-235 from U-238, which is fissionable uranium, usually expressed in kilograms.) In plain English that means that if Iran decides the sanctions aren’t lifted permanently and quickly, it would enrich enough uranium in two years to create dozens of nuclear weapons.
Because the Majlis’ so-called “ratification” imposes a condition that is completely contrary to the agreement’s terms, it amounts to action voiding the agreement.
From Iran’s standpoint, the Majlis’ action doesn’t constitute ratification for other reasons. Two videos, shown on MEMRI-TV, have further documented the position of the Iranian leadership denying that the Majlis approved the JCPOA.
On Oct. 16, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, secretary general of the Guardian Council, said that the Majlis’ action didn’t constitute approval because Ayatollah Khamenei didn’t give his approval of the deal before it acted. Ayatollah Jannati said that the Majlis only gave the government permission to abide by the framework of the JCPOA in accordance with America’s actions.
Two days later, Guardian Council spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian upped the ante, saying that neither the Majlis nor the Guardian Council had approved the JCPOA.
According to MEMRI’s president and co-founder, Yigal Carmon, there may be confusion in Iran because Ayatollah Khamenei didn’t make his directions clear. His Sept. 3 statement didn’t tell the Majlis or the Guardian Council how to deal with the JCPOA. Mr. Carmon believes Ayatollah Khamenei, like any politician, is biding his time for the reason that Iran’s only interest is in complete relief from the economic sanctions.
On Dec. 15, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is to report on Iran’s compliance with the agreement. If their findings are positive, the sanctions will then be suspended.
Mr. Carmon says that Mr. Obama’s actions have turned Iran — a defendant under so many U.N. resolutions — into an unimaginable kind of criminal who has equal power with the judge and is negotiating on the verdict.
He said that America and the other parties to the agreement have issued statements and resolutions while Iran is obligated to take real actions. They include sending a letter to the IAEA agreeing to the conditions of inspection, turning off their centrifuges and redesigning their heavy-water reactor at Arak. Mr. Carmon said, “The test will be action.” He believes that because Iran has to take real actions — as opposed to the mere words our side has been obligated to issue — Ayatollah Khamenei may be under substantial pressure to back away from the deal until the international sanctions have been removed entirely.
We need to remember that for about 20 years, under earlier leaders, the IAEA has been a consistent apologist for Iran, denying its clear intent to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Thus, there’s at least a 99 percent chance that the IAEA’s Dec. 15 report will — whether or not it’s justified — say that Iran is complying with the JCPOA. So where are we?
Mr. Obama’s nuclear deal is very much alive because our Senate divested itself of its constitutional power to ratify treaties under the hyper-anti-constitutional Corker Amendment. Nations around the world — Russia, China, France and more — are lining up to trade with Iran in everything from oil to anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems.
But neither we nor Iran has an obligation to live up to the terms of the agreement. (The Corker Amendment, as disastrous as it was, requires all of the side deals to the agreement to be sent to Congress for review. They never were). The agreement could be revoked by our next president with the stroke of a pen. The only thing we can be certain of is that if the next president is named Clinton, Biden or Sanders, that won’t happen.
• Jed Babbin served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration. He is a senior fellow of the London Center for Policy Research and the author of five books, including “In the Words of Our Enemies.”
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