As the P5+1 negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program head into the final few weeks before the July 20th deadline, Secretary of State John Kerry wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post Tuesday arguing that Iran’s “public optimism about the potential outcome of these negotiations has not been matched, to date, by the positions they have articulated behind closed doors.”
In marked contrast to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s impolitic, mendacious and contentious op-ed last month, Kerry’s tone is mostly conciliatory. But the core of Kerry’s argument is a point that Zarif never addressed:
Iran’s claim that the world should simply trust its words ignores the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported since 2002 on dozens of violations by Iran of its international nonproliferation obligations, starting in the early 1980s. The U.N. Security Council responded by adopting four resolutions under Chapter VII, requiring Iran to take steps to address these violations. These issues cannot be dismissed; they must be addressed by the Iranians if a comprehensive solution is to be reached. These are not just the expectations of any one country, but of the community of nations.
As Kerry summarized the problem, “There remains a discrepancy, however, between Iran’s professed intent with respect to its nuclear program and the actual content of that program to date.”
The lack of knowledge about the “actual content” of Iran’s nuclear program is why The New York Times recently reported that estimates for Iran’s breakout time were “shrouded in uncertainty.” Kerry’s op-ed can also be seen as a response to Zarif’s outburst last week that the West was making “excessive demands” on Iran in the negotiations.
In How a Weak Iran Deal Makes US All Less Safe and a War More Likely, published in the January 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, Emanuele Ottolenghi argued that “overconfidence” stemming from a nuclear deal on favorable terms “could lead Iran to undertake exactly the kind of action in its nuclear program that Israel is likely to interpret as crossing a red line.”
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