By Fred Fleitz ~ In its desperation to get a nuclear agreement with Iran, the Obama administration made a very dangerous concession by agreeing to allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
This was a risky concession because it is very easy to turn low-enriched uranium produced for power reactors and medical purposes into nuclear weapons fuel.
Obama officials defended this concession by arguing that with intensive IAEA inspections and Iran sending its current enriched uranium stockpile out of the country and any uranium it enriches in the future, they can strike a deal that will allow Iran to enrich without advancing a nuclear weapons program.
This argument never made any sense, given Iran’s record of cheating on its nuclear treaty obligations and the fact that allowing Tehran to operate any uranium centrifuges will allow it to perfect its enrichment capabilities and make it easier to produce nuclear weapons fuel in the future.
Now it appears that this deeply-flawed arrangement is breaking down. I wrote in Newsmax last week that Iran has never agreed to fully cooperate with the IAEA and has refused to abide by a November 2013 12-step agreement with the IAEA to answer questions about past nuclear weapons related work.
The New York Times is reporting today that Iran is now refusing to agree to send any enriched uranium out of the country.
If a nuclear agreement is struck without resolving these issues, there will be no way to verify that Iran has stopped nuclear weapons research and development. Iran also would retain an enriched uranium stockpile that currently could be used to make at least eight nuclear weapons.
The nuclear agreement with Iran sought by the Obama administration was already so deeply flawed that it is unsalvageable. The latest Iranian position makes this bad deal much worse.
Obama officials have said on many occasions that no deal with Iran is better than a bad deal. It is clear that we are facing a very bad nuclear deal with Iran. I therefore believe Congress and the American people must tell President Obama in no uncertain terms, “No deal!”
Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst, followed the Iranian nuclear program for the CIA, State Department, and House Intelligence Committee. He is senior vice president for policy and programs at the Center for Security Policy.
