An editorial that appeared Monday in the defense industry magazine Defense News admonished the P5+1 not to “let Iran off the nuclear hook.” The editorial noted that the West is “bending to Iranian demands  to allow limited enrichment and shutter, not scrap, its vast nuclear complex and banks of enriching centrifuges.” This is contrary to the goal of a good deal, which must prevent “Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”

The editorial concludes:

Iran’s nuclear program is only one element of the vast proxy arsenal Tehran is deploying across the region, from Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria as well as factions in Iraq, Bahrain and in the gulf.

For its own sake, the international community must not make a nuclear deal only for the sake of making a deal.

It must continue to use both carrots and sticks to either convince or compel Iran to abandon and dismantle its military nuclear program, not merely put it in storage.

The Defense News editorial echoes concerns also raised by Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who wrote this week that the West’s outreach to Iran has been “decidedly one-sided,” with only the West making concessions while Iran refuses to compromise, all the while continuing its longstanding policies of destabilizing other nations in the region. Last month, an unsigned editorial in The Washington Post noted that the Obama administration had sought to address Iranian concerns, but “[i]f Iran has made similar efforts to bridge the gaps between the two sides, there is no report of them.” Before that, an editorial in The Chicago Tribune argued that if Iran does not agree to a good deal, then a Senate bill calling for stronger sanctions “should be on the president’s desk right now, awaiting his signature on Nov. 24, if not sooner.”

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