While Iran already possesses the necessary materials for a nuclear bomb, any additional concessions would make the regime “a virtual nuclear power,”  which is why allowing negotiations to expire with “no significant change” in Iran’s demands is better than concluding a bad deal, José María Aznar, the former premier of Spain argues in The Wall Street Journal today (Google link).

Aznar notes how the international consensus about Iran has changed in recent years:

When Iran’s clandestine nuclear efforts and their possible military application were discovered more than a decade ago, the international community called—through several United Nations resolutions—for a total dismantling of Iran’s uranium-enrichment capabilities. In the past year and a half, that goal was abandoned by Western negotiators, and Iran was granted the right to enrich.

So now the nuclear talks are about what level of enrichment will be allowed and about how many centrifuges Iran can keep spinning. Those technicalities should not blind us to a basic truth: Iran will be, after any further concessions in this area, a virtual nuclear power. It will be able to produce low-enriched uranium and will have the infrastructure to move to military-grade enrichment whenever the Iranian leadership so chooses.

Aznar further critiques the idea that a nuclear deal would normalize relations with Iran, or that the regime could be “reintegrated into international circles.” While he acknowledges the appeal of having a “‘normal’ Iran,” he points out its abysmal human rights record, support of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and destabilization of Iraq and Syria.

Concluding that “presence of a nuclear-armed Shiite Islamic Republic in an already unstable Middle East would have dire repercussions around the world,” Aznar calls on the international community to exert more pressure on Iran to change, rather than offer more concessions.

[Photo: European People’s Party / WikiCommons ]