Enabling Irans Nukes

The lies began at the very beginning, with assurances that American diplomacy had
secured a halt in the Iranian nuclear program.
Late on the night of November 23, 2013, President Barack Obama stood in the State
Dining Room and announced that an interim agreement had been reached between
Iran and the P5+1 global powersthe United States, the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Russia, and Chinathat halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear
program. The White House distributed a fact sheet emphasizing that Iran had
promised to halt progress on the growth of its low-enriched uranium stockpile and
to halt progress on its plutonium track to a nuclear weapon. Senior-administration
officials held a late-night briefing to stress for reporters that the concessions added
up to a halt of activities across the Iranian programthe word halt was used more
than a dozen more timesand that the coming months would also see sustained
progress in investigating Iranian research into nuclear detonations. Reporters would
be told in subsequent weeks that the agreement even prohibited Iran from further
testing on ballistic missiles.
Those statements were, on the whole, false. But on that night, the president and
those around him badly needed them to be true. So they pretended they were.
By November 2014, the six-month interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) announced
that night had been extended into a year (a contingency that had been formally
built into and anticipated by the original text). The parties, unable to seal an
agreement even after twelve months, then extended negotiations through the
summer of 2015. The move stoked long-standing fears that the Iranians were using
negotiations as a stalling tactic as they inched toward a bomb, but the president
and his administration insisted that there was no harm in having more talks.
Rerunning the claims from that first night, they insisted that Irans program had
been frozen by the JPOAand that the Iranians were living up to their end of the
bargain by keeping it frozen.
Those claims remain false.
It is a worthwhile exercise to go back and see how the Obama administrations
desperate quest began and why the president and his people are still clinging to
hopes about these negotiations, which they have every reason to know are, in truth,
delusional.
Throughout 2013, domestic criticism of the Obama administrations overtures
toward the Islamic Republic was building. There were broad suspicions of
conciliatory moves to Tehran, but nothing definite; as we now know, as of the
beginning of the year, the State Department was still flatly lying to reporters about
the existence of secret bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran. But in the
summer of 2013, the victory of Hassan Rouhani in the Iranian presidential election
emboldened those around Obama, and eventually the president himself, to escalate
the ongoing outreach.
But by fall, Washington and its allies still had little to show for their efforts. Iran was
still steadily progressing toward having a nuclear weapon, and Iranian leaders were
still regularly boasting that nothing could stop their progress. Congressional leaders
were eager to move forward on crippling sanctions legislation aimed at testing that
braggadocio.
The Obama administration had a different approach. Advisers in and around the
White House insisted that Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif,

could prevail upon the Iranian establishment and cut a deal addressing the
countrys nuclear program. The duo just needed to be shown a little more goodwill;
new pressure would scuttle their efforts back home.
Congress was skeptical but continued watching from the sidelines even as Iranians
marched closer every day to nuclear-weapons acquisition. On November 10, 2013, a
much anticipated summit in Geneva aimed at immediately stopping that very
march in anticipation of further negotiationscollapsed. Frances foreign minister,
Laurent Fabius, discovered late in the talks that his P5+1 counterparts were
preparing to acquiesce to a deal that lacked robust checks on Irans plutonium work.
He publicly blasted the terms as a suckers deal, and the talks ended. Everyone
agreed to reassemble in two weeks to try again.
American diplomats had failed and had looked bad doing it. They had been ready to
sign, per the French, an agreement that fell short of stopping Irans drive toward a
weapon. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies estimated that the Iranians
had been offered roughly $20 billion in financial relief to take the deal, far in excess
of what the administration could justify. Congressional leaders were beside
themselves. The Obama administration had reassured them that it would strike a
tough bargain with Iran only if Congress gave U.S. diplomats some breathing room.
Instead, the diplomats had been willing to trade billions of dollars for a toothless
entente. Well, if American negotiators lacked sufficient leverage to extract
meaningful concessions from Iran, Congress would provide it to them. Legislation
was prepared and shared that would immediately impose a new round of sanctions
on Iran.
Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate sent the president letters
objecting to the reported contours of an emerging deal. Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid took to the floor and declared that after the Thanksgiving recess, he
would present and support bipartisan sanctions legislation against Iran if diplomacy
continued to falter.
The P5+1 meeting was to be held that weekend. Given all of this, President Obama
badly needed Iranian leaders to accept an agreement immediately freezing their
uranium, plutonium, and ballistic-missile programs in exchange for limited sanctions
relief, and he needed it stat.
The agreement that administration officials purported to have secured would have
been a diplomatic masterstroke. It would have immediately frozen activity across
the three core areas of Irans nuclear-weapons programuranium enrichment,
plutonium-related work, and ballistic-missile developmentwhile dealing with the
verification issue that hangs over the entire program. In exchange, the West would
have provided what the White House fact sheet characterized as limited, temporary,
and reversible relief from some sanctions. It would have lasted for only six months,
a decent amount of time to test diplomacy. No diplomatic concessions would have
been made up front.
But since American diplomats couldnt get Iran to agree to a deal in which it would
do any of those things, what they actually brought home was the Joint Plan of
Action. It allowed Iran to continue making sustained progress along its uranium and
plutonium tracks, contained no restrictions on ballistic-missile development, failed
to open up Irans atomic facilities to verification, provided sufficient economic relief
to stabilize Irans economy, and would last for at least 18 months.
And it wasnt even a deal yet. The parties were committed to the contours of a deal
that would be outlined and implemented sometime in the future, which would turn
out to be January 2014. Until then an interim before the interim period took hold,

during which Iran was allowed to speed ahead with its nuclear program with zero
new restrictions. It was only enough, it seems, to allow the White House to tell
lawmakers that progress had been achievedand that they would have to continue
sitting on the sidelines lest they spoil it.
Rouhani and Zarif immediately began boasting that no matter what else happened,
Iran had already scored a major victory by getting the West to concede that the
Islamic Republic had the right to enrich. The interim agreement, they said,
acknowledged that any comprehensive agreement would leave Iranian centrifuges
spinning.
The concession gutted decades of diplomacy. There are a half dozen hard-won
United Nations Security Council resolutions obligating Tehran to fully give up its
nuclear activities. The international-sanctions regime had long been explicitly aimed
at forcing Iran to comply with those resolutions. White House officials had been
unequivocal since Obamas inauguration that no matter how engagement with Iran
went, he would never abandon that core demand.
There were critical reasons to hold the line. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) guarantees members in good standing access to nuclear technology, but not
to enrichment technology. Many of the parties get their material from overseas.
Successive American administrations had worked out deals that very deliberately
provided allies with nuclear technology in exchange for those countries forswearing
enrichment infrastructure that might put them on a path to nuclear weapons. Some
of those countries were in Irans neighborhood. Conceding enrichment to
Washingtons long-time Iranian antagonists while denying it to Washingtons
increasingly worried partners would risk a global cascade of backsliding and
proliferation. Indeed, the November 10 talks had reportedly stalled partly because
of this dispute over enrichment.
The demand for enrichment rights had almost scuttled previous diplomacy, and now
it looked very much like the disagreement had been overcome by the Wests simply
caving. So Kerry took to the Sunday news shows that weekend to deny the Iranian
interpretation, and to insist that the fight over whether Tehran would be allowed to
enrich uranium in the context of a comprehensive agreement would continue. The
pretense would collapse before sunrise. The plain text of the agreement gave the
game away. It opened by declaring that the goal for these negotiations is a
mutually agreed long-term comprehensive solution thatwould involve a mutually
defined enrichment program. Literally. First paragraph. The Iranians were simply
correct. They either outmaneuvered Western negotiators or the language was
inserted with a nudge and a wink, but the debate wasnt close.
The Iranians are known to have experimented with multiple methods capable of
producing weapons-grade uranium that involve taking natural uranium ore and
removing its impurities until what remains is 90 percent pure. They currently do
their known enrichment work via tens of thousands of centrifuges that purify
uranium hexafluoride gas in stages: natural stock to 3.5 percent low-enriched
uranium (LEU), then to 20 percent, then in theory all the way up to weapons-grade
levels (WGU).
The most difficult part of the process is getting from zero to 3.5 percent. Overcome
that difficulty, and youre more than halfway toward producing material for a bomb.
The JPOA allows Iran unrestricted enrichment up to 3.5 percent. Unlimited. As much
as the Iranians could physically produce with the thousands of centrifuges they had
installed at the time. The caveatand this is how the administration gets away with
saying that the Iranian stockpile isnt growingis that the JPOA obligates the

Iranians to convert any newly enriched material into an oxide form unsuitable for
further enrichment.
The problem is that the oxidizing process can be reversed in a few weeks, according
even to supporters of the agreement. Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israels
Military Intelligence Directorate, says the process takes less than a week.
In other words, the JPOA allows the Iranians to enrich as much uranium as they
physically can that is more than halfway toward a bomb, as long as they then put
the enriched uranium literally and figuratively on the shelf until such time as theyre
ready to convert it back into gas and enrich it further. They enriched at least one
bombs worth during the JPOAs first year.
The JPOA even allows the Iranians to continue developing next-generation
centrifuges, enabling them to more quickly enrich their growing LEU stockpileand
to get to a bomb that much fasteronce they decide to take it off the shelf.
The deal did force the Iranians to tinker with their existing 20 percent stockpile.
They had to turn half of it into oxide, a step reversible at that level just as it is at 5
percent. They had to downblend the other half to 5 percent and then oxidize that,
tooa double-step that Irans Atomic Energy Organization spokesman once
estimated would take two to three weeks to reverse. They had to modify their
centrifuges to prevent further enrichment to 20 percent, a step that Zarif and other
Iranian officials repeatedly bragged could be reversed in less than a day.
Understanding the bait-and-switch with uranium requires some understanding of
enrichment. Seeing through administration pretensions about plutonium requires
only literacy. The White House fact sheet had tersely stated: Iran has committed to
no further advances of its activities at Arak and to halt progress on its plutonium
track. Arak is the location of Irans plutonium-producing facility and houses both a
plutonium-producing heavy-water reactor and a plant that produces heavy water for
its use.
Observers quickly noticed a loophole so significant and, quite bluntly, so stupid as
to again raise suspicions that it had been inserted into the text with a nudge-wink.
The reference to activities at Arak seemed to allow unlimited research and work
on reactor parts away from that site, inasmuch as they did not happen physically
at Arak. The Iranians could in theory build whatever parts they wanted and wait
for the day after the agreement to install them. The presidents initial speech about
the deal featured an awkward sentence declaring that Iran will halt work at its
plutonium reactor. (Style would recommend either on its plutonium reactor or at
its plutonium-reactor facility.) This linguistic legerdemain deepened worries that
the phrase had been deliberately crafted to circumvent Frances concerns without
forcing Iranian concessions.
Then, in the middle of the week, Zarif announced that the Iranians would continue
construction on-site, at the facility itself. Reuters somewhat archly reported that his
comment came despite an agreement with Western powers to halt activity, and
the stage was set for the parties first confrontation over JPOA violations. Except
when reporters pressed the State Department on the issue, its spokesman, Jen
Psaki, revealed that the JPOA did in fact allow construction at Arak as long as the
Iranians avoided the reactor itself. She expressed no worry about the on-site
loophole: Whats the big dealand this is an actual quoteabout a road here or an
out-building there?
Combined, the off-site and on-site loopholes meant that throughout the ongoing
interim period, Iran was seemingly allowed to make unlimited progress off-site on its
reactor and unlimited progress on-site on everything else.

The administrations reversal regarding ballistic-missile restrictions was starker still.

Senator Mark Kirk had put out a graphic blasting the interim agreement for staying
silent on Irans proliferation-sensitive missile activity, the third core weaponization
issue and an area where Iran is obligated by United Nations Security Council
resolutions to suspend work. An NSC official let it be known that an Iranian ballisticmissile test would be in violation of the agreement and cause the deal to cease
to exist.
As if on cue, Mehdi Farahi, Irans deputy defense minister and the head of Irans
Aerospace Organization General, announced that the Iranians would soon conduct
exactly such a test. Obama officials quickly moved to clarify their stance. Instead of
the JPOA imposing absolute restrictions on ballistic-missile tests, the JPOA
apparently imposed no restrictions on ballistic-missile tests.
There was seemingly no detail that the administration hadnt exaggerated in some
way. Even bluster about inspectionsunprecedented transparency and intrusive
monitoring of Irans nuclear programdevolved in some cases into gaining some
access to camera footage.
Meanwhile, the JPOA directly provided enormous amounts of capital to Iran and
explicitly loosened certain sanctions against Iran. The administration had from the
first night been vociferous in insisting that the relief would be limited, temporary,
targeted, and reversible. Under the JPOA, the vast bulk of our sanctions, including
the oil, finance, and banking sanctions architecture would be maintained. The
Iranians disagreed. In mid-December 2013, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman
Marziyeh Afkham tersely declared that the structure of sanctions has cracked and
its collapse has started.
The Iranians were right. By January, the Wall Street Journal was describing how
Tehrans trading partners have lifted sanctions, sent delegations, agreed to export
deals, and signaled their readiness to expand ties across nearly every major
industry. The spiral had begun without the JPOA even taking force, during the socalled interim before the interim period between the November Geneva
announcement and a January implementation agreement.
The Iranians had locked in an agreement that would be asymmetric once it was
implemented, and in the meantime they were protected from new pressure and
allowed to pursue their work toward obtaining a nuclear bomb unrestricted. In early
December, Iranian officials announced that they would be testing next-generation
centrifuges and had improved the accuracy of their ballistic missiles. They crowed
that the West would never get what it wanted out of a comprehensive agreement.
Rouhani himself boasted that Iran would continue bolstering its nuclear program
forever.
The Wests position began to erode. U.S. officials leaked that it was no longer
feasible or practical to expect a deal in which Iran completely dismantled its
nuclear program. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius publicly worried that it
remained unclear if the Iranians were willing to make broad-based concessions.
An increasingly dismayed Congress moved in parallel to intervene. Legislators
bowed to the administrations position that no new sanctions be imposed during the
JPOAs negotiation period. Instead, legislation began to coalesce around an idea that
would boost Americas leverage by signaling to the Iranians what would happen
after the talks if Tehran refused to meet international demands. House measures
explicitly defined minimum concessions as ones that would see Iran completely
dismantle all enrichment facilities and cease all centrifuge production and
completely dismantle its heavy-water plutonium reactor at Arak. Senators Mark

Kirk and Bob Menendez took the lead in assembling a list of crippling sanctions that
would take hold should Iran cheat during the JPOA negotiation period or refuse to
agree to a robust comprehensive agreement.
On December 19, a bipartisan group of 26 senators (13 from each party) formally
unveiled co-sponsored legislation dubbed the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013,
which Kirk described as an insurance policy to defend against Iranian deception
during negotiations. A hastily issued White House veto threat failed to slow it
down. On the Monday after it was unveiled, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act had
48 co-sponsors. The next day it had 51. Then 59. Leaked whip counts had the
legislation amassing a veto-proof majority of anywhere from 67 to 77 votes. All that
remained was for Reid to bring the measure to the Senate floor for a vote.
Distrust reached a fever pitch by mid-January, when Irans chief negotiator, Abbas
Araqchi, told the state-linked Iranian Students News Agency that there existed an
informal, 30-page text that detailed the concessions Iran had actually committed to.
Araqchi declared that the White House was mischaracterizing the actual state of
negotiations and that in fact no facility will be closed; enrichment will continue, and
qualitative and nuclear research will be expanded.
The White House had made its stand by then. Officials close to the administration
launched a campaign accusing sitting Democratic senators of beingin more or less
as many wordsun-American warmongers. Obama officials insisted that any
congressional action would spoil an amorphous Spirit of Geneva without which talks
could not proceed. The Iranians did not seem to have heard that such a Spirit
existed. In early January, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself would lash
out against Washington in general and negotiations in particular, declaring that we
would negotiate with the Satan [the United States] to deter its evil and that the
nuclear talks showed the enmity of America against Iran, Iranians, Islam, and
Muslims.
The Obama administrations other tacticthe one that didnt involve vulgar
intimidationwas to launch what rhetorical theorist Marcus Paroske has described
as an epistemological filibuster: an appeal to uncertainty in order to delay policy
implementation.
Sure, it could be that Irans leverage would continuously increase because the JPOA
wasnt a freeze; and, sure, it could be that the Iranian economy would stabilize as
sanctions relief spiraled out of control; and, sure, it could be that the Iranians would
be in a position to extend their intransigencebut maybe not! And whats the harm
in trying? If after six months it turned out that the administrations gamble had been
reckless, top officials promised to admit their errors and work with Congress to
redress them.
Psaki told the State Department press corps in November that if the Iranians dont
get to a yes at the end of six months, we can put in place more sanctions. Carney
told journalists in his press room that if Iran fails to reach agreement with the P5+1
on the more comprehensive agreement over the course of six months, we are very
confident that we can work with Congress to very quickly pass new, effective
sanctions against Iran. Kerry sat in front of lawmakers and told them that if things
went sideways, if the Iranians cheated, then we will be the first ones to come to
you if this fails to ask you for additional sanctions.
On January 13, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid chose the White House over the
institution he had been charged with leading and announced that he would wait
and see how this plays out. He had joined the filibuster, and he would refuse to
allow the sanctions bill to come to the floor of the Senate. The majority of the

Senate would try for another few weeks to make something happen, but the
administration had won for itself the breathing room that it promised it would use to
secure a comprehensive deal.
Negotiations picked up in mid-February amid widespread pessimism. U.S. officials
had already started to predict they would need at least a six-month extension
beyond the first half-year. The glum assessments were well-grounded. Rouhani told
CNNs Fareed Zakaria that Iran would never accept any limitations on its nuclear
technology and would not under any circumstances agree to dismantle its
uranium-enrichment infrastructure. A stunned Zakaria declared that the position
meant that negotiations would become a diplomatic trainwreck, since the Iranian
conception of what the deal is going to look like and the American conception now
look like they are miles apart. The Obama administration tried to spin Rouhanis
comments as being aimed at a domestic audience, prompting a reporter to ask
Carney to confirm whether CNN is broadcast outside of Iran. Zarif would in the
next few days pile on, describing Irans uranium and plutonium technology as nonnegotiable.
Red lines were also drawn regarding plutonium. There is no non-military justification
for Iran to build and operate a heavy-water reactor. Inasmuch as talks rested on the
conceit that Iran was proving that its atomic program was entirely peaceful,
administration officials had long been clear to Congress that the Iranians would
need to give up their heavy-water reactor. Sherman had tersely told senators, We
do not believe there is any reason for a heavy-water reactor at all in a civil nuclear
program. Zarif had responded angrily to Shermans testimony, calling it
worthless.
As far as ballistic missiles were concerned, Araqchi simply declared that the issue is
a defense matter and that it has nothing to do with Irans nuclear programand so
the Iranians would refuse to bargain over it. The international community disagrees.
Irans missile program is part and parcel of its broader nuclear-weapons program.
The UNs nuclear watchdog had long taken an interest in Irans missiles, and UNSC
Resolution 1929 prohibits Iran from any activity related to ballistic missiles capable
of delivering nuclear weapons. The Iranians dont want to give up their missiles,
and so they simply insisted otherwise.
At one point Zarif made a particularly cute move, asserting that missiles couldnt be
part of comprehensive negotiations because they werent mentioned in the JPOA.
The Iranians had prevailed upon the P5+1 to kick the can down the road, and now
they were taking the can away. Congress had been told by the administration that
missile checks were left out of the JPOA simply to get talks moving, and that they
would of course be addressed later. In negotiations, it was condescendingly
explained, you cant expect to start where you want to end up. Now Zarif was
saying that precisely because the JPOA was silent on missiles, they were now
beyond discussion. A few months later, Reuters would reveal that Zarif did at least
once literally laugh in the faces of Americans who tried to bring up ballistic missiles.
Meanwhile, Iran began making moves to put off any discussion of verification
mechanisms until the end of talks. Verificationwhich for historical but logical
reasons gets lumped into the debate over the possible military dimensions (PMDs)
of Irans programhangs over every aspect of Iranian nuclear talks. The issue is the
prerequisite to any successful deal. It doesnt do any good for Iran to agree to limit
itself to some arbitrary number of centrifuges if the West doesnt know how many
centrifuges the Iranians even have.

The PMDs label focuses the mind on military applications of Irans programtheir
widely suspected experiments with nuclear detonations, for instancebut thats not
really what the problem is about. The goal is to force the Iranians fully to disclose all
their atomic activities, civilian and military, to provide a baseline for all elements of
their program. If there was a deal, UN inspectors could be charged with evaluating
whether the Iranians were meeting its terms. Full Iranian disclosure had long been
recognized and treated as beyond negotiation.
But then the Iranians started declaring that PMDs should be put off until the very
end of comprehensive negotiations. They started to frame the issue as one in which
the West was trying to extract a mea culpa from Iran over previous violations in
order to embarrass the Iranians. They started to put out statements about their
willingness to negotiate, but they made no mention of transparency measures.
Many of these statements arrived alongside frustrated reports from the United
Nations nuclear watchdog documenting Irans continued refusal to open up
facilities where full-blown nuclear-weapons-related research probably took place. By
May, the Associated Press regretfully informed readers that the once promising UN
attempt to probe suspicions that Tehran worked on atomic arms was faltering.
Meanwhile, the asymmetries that the Iranians had successfully negotiated into the
JPOA played out as they all but inevitably had to. On one side, Iran slowly built up its
uranium stockpile and bolstered its plutonium infrastructure, not only inching
toward a bomb but also amassing negotiation leverage in the process. On the other
side, the Wests leverage steadily eroded as cash infusions and sanctions relief
bolstered the Iranian economy. Salehi summed up the situation for Iranian state
television: The iceberg of sanctions is melting while our centrifuges are also still
working.
Iran had moved quickly to break free from the carefully constructed net that had
been woven around the country. In February, Zarif described Iran as now a safe,
stable business environment. In March, financial experts started describing Iran as
Turkey with oila country with an enormous population and energy resources
while Iran began to hold sector-based conferences for resources such as steel. By
April, the Foundation for Defense of Democraciess econometric models were
converging on the conclusion that Irans economy was in slow but steady recovery,
and that indirect relief was having an outsize impact beyond the direct relief and
public deals. The International Monetary Fund concluded not only that Irans
economy was stabilizing but that it would grow in 2014 even if the JPOAs sanctions
relief was terminated. By summer, global delegations had become a fixed presence
in Iran. By winter, the Iranian economy had, definitively, turned around.
And then there was the cheating. Not content to let the year play out slowly, the
Iranians advanced their nuclear program and boosted their economy beyond what
was envisioned by the JPOA. They fed gas into IR-5 centrifuges and tested IR-8
centrifuges, technology generations ahead of their current infrastructure. They
sought and illicitly acquired parts for their heavy-water reactor. They busted through
energy export caps every single month of the deal.
Needless to say, then, when they were called upon first in July and then in
November to ink an agreement with the West, the Iranians refused to accept
proposed limits on their nuclear program. They have remained intransigent despite
a near-total collapse in the Wests initial positions. Gone is the demand that Iran
dismantle its centrifuges. The alternative now is just to unplug them for a bit. Gone
is the demand that Iran cease all enrichment. The deal widely believed to be on the
table would leave them spinning thousands of centrifuges. Gone is the demand that

Iran downgrade its plutonium reactor. The plan on the table appears to be to let
them play around with the core in a way that could be quickly reversed. Gone is the
demand that Iran halt its proliferation-sensitive missile activity. Zarif was confident
in his position when he laughed in negotiators faces.
Iran will be allowed to continue amassing the materials for a massive nuclear
breakout, to happen on a day of its choosing.
Instead whats left is the promise, which the administration has been setting up for
months, that any deal will have solid verification mechanisms. White House and
State Department officials have begun hinting that theyll hang their hats on
inspections and monitoring technology. Theyre preparing to present to the
American people and the world a rock-solid commitment: The international
community will have all the resources it needs to verify the terrible deal that it has
granted to Iran.
Then 10 or maybe 15 years later, a sunset clause which the Iranians have
successfully demanded be built into any comprehensive dealwould take effect. It
would allow any and all of the agreements restrictions to be lifted. The mullahs will
have waited out the West, and they will have amassed a sprawling nuclear program
in the meantime.
Even that deal was apparently not good enough for the Iranians, and so another sixmonth extension was worked out in November. The administration is back on
Capitol Hill assuring lawmakers that progress is being made, that they need just a
little more time. And then what? In six months time, the West will be in a worse
position to extract concessions from Iran. The Iranians will be in a better position to
walk away. The spectacle will provide an interesting test case for scholars who
evaluate the relative sway of deliberation versus raw political power. Everybody else
will be watching to see how many senators and representatives are willing to get
played for chumps again, as the most immediate danger to global stability and
peace in the 21st century comes closer and closer to reality.