By Daniel Larison
July 11, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - Over the last few days, we have been treated to the spectacle of watching leading opponents of the nuclear deal demand that Iran adhere to the limits set by the deal they have vehemently denounced and undermined for years. On the one hand, the opponents insist that the deal is the worst ever negotiated, but they are still acting as if they are furious that Iran is breaching it. We should understand that this is mostly or entirely an act for public consumption. Iran hawks want the deal to fall apart. They have been working to bring about the deal’s collapse for years. They are belatedly wrapping themselves in the JCPOA now because they hope it may give them an opportunity to inflict more punishment on Iran. In so doing, they hope to force Iran out of the deal so that they have their pretext for a conflict.
This newfound admiration for the nuclear deal’s restrictions has been accompanied by the lie that the only reason Iran would exceed its stockpile limits and increase enrichment (to 4.5%, far short of what is needed to produce weapons-grade uranium) is to build nuclear weapons. Bolton, Trump, and, Netanyahu have all made statements to this effect in the last week.
Bolton made this statement a week ago:
There is no reason for Iran to increase its enrichment unless it’s part of an effort to reduce the breakout time to produce nuclear weapons.whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat…
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President Trump: "Iran better be careful. Because you enrich for one reason and I won't tell you what that reason is. But it's no good. They better be careful."
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This was Netanyahu’s tweet from yesterday and my response to it:
Iran is responding to relentless economic warfare that began when the U.S. violated all of its commitments. They are not seeking to build nuclear weapons. They want the sanctions relief they were promised. You wanted credit for Trump's decision to renege, now own the consequences twitter.com/IsraeliPM/stat…
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"The flood of foreign investment into #Iran has utterly failed to materialize as private companies make the obvious calculation that Iran is a bad bet" per @AmbJohnBolton
"No regime that chants 'Death to America' or 'Death to #Israel' will get a deal from this administration" per @AmbJohnBolton
"We will increase the pressure on the #Iran|ian regime until it abandons its nuclear weapons program & ends its violent activities across the Middle East"
See Jeff Seldin's other Tweets
The remarkable thing about this lie from Bolton is that it is such a transparent and stupid fabrication. He knows that enriching uranium to 4.5% doesn’t pose a threat, everyone else can see that there is no immediate proliferation risk, and everyone can also see that Iran went over the enrichment limit set down by the deal because of the “maximum pressure” campaign that Bolton champions. Only an ideologue or a fool would believe Bolton’s claim that this is proof of “ongoing nuclear ambition,” when it is clearly nothing of the kind. Naturally, the CUFI audience went wild for it.
A related lie comes from current and former administration officials, who have been falsely claiming that Iran is not permitted enrichment at any level and that a zero enrichment standard is a “longstanding” one with respect to Iran.
Pompeo echoed the “longstanding standard of no enrichment” nonsense that the White House put out last week:
Iran’s latest expansion of its nuclear program will lead to further isolation and sanctions. Nations should restore the longstanding standard of no enrichment for Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s regime, armed with nuclear weapons, would pose an even greater danger to the world.
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Zero enrichment is neither a standard for Iran’s nuclear program, nor is it longstanding. It was the misguided maximalist position that the U.S. insisted on for about a decade until the Obama administration realized that they had to compromise on this point or they would end up with nothing. All members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are entitled to some domestic enrichment, and that has been a sticking point for Iran for as long as there have been nuclear talks. This is not a secret or some obscure detail that Pompeo wouldn’t know. It is one of the main reasons why the JCPOA was successfully concluded, and it is one of the things that Iran hawks hate the most about it. Pompeo and the rest of the Trump administration want to go back to demanding zero enrichment because they know in advance that it is a non-starter with Iran. No one interested in serious negotiations with Iran would make such a demand, and by demanding it Pompeo and the administration have proven that they don’t want talks.
As she auditions for the VP slot or perhaps her own future presidential candidacy, Nikki Haley is still toeing the Trump administration line. Nicholas Miller refutes Haley’s whopper below:
The JCPOA, which was endorsed by the UN, explicitly allows Iran to enrich uranium for civilian use.
Saying “enriching uranium was always prohibited” is indisputably false. twitter.com/NikkiHaley/sta…
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This is right. The assassins that have been stabbing the deal to death now want to praise it, but only so they can demand more punitive measures and make more unreasonable demands twitter.com/ShemuelMeir/st…
See Daniel Larison's other Tweets
The deal-killers couldn’t care less about Iran’s compliance. We have seen that for the last three and a half years as they have ignored Iran’s full compliance with the deal and looked for every chance to undermine and break the deal from our side. All that matters to the deal-killers is to destroy the deal so that they can exploit the ensuing uncertainty to stoke tensions and trigger a conflict. When they say something positive about the nuclear deal or when they call on Iran to abide by it, this is akin to an arsonist complimenting the architectural design of the building he just set on fire.
Nicholas Grossman points out something that I have mentioned several times, namely how opponents of the nuclear deal seek to sabotage the agreement and lie frequently about both the deal and their own intentions:
Iran *de-escalated* its nuclear program after the world successfully pressured Iran to sign JCPOA. Iran only started re-escalating after US reneged. This is indisputable, widely-verified fact.
When you base your case on blatant lies, you admit your position is awfully weak.
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"deal & sunsets expire" refers to predictions that in the 2030s Iran might've ramped up enrichment. And it's true--they might've. Like most arms control agreements, parts sunset.
But @mdubowitz presents this guess about the future as if it already happened. Wildly dishonest.
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See Nicholas Grossman's other Tweets
This article was originally published by " The American Conservative"-
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51895.htm
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