The United States and its partners should not rush to make a nuclear agreement with Iran, a staff editorial in Toronto’s Globe and Mail argued Wednesday.

The editorial frames its argument around last week’s open letter signed by eighteen experts and former government officials, including five who served in the Obama administration, calling on the administration to strengthen a number of elements of the emerging deal. Echoing the letter’s concerns, the editorial argued that a final agreement should give the International Atomic Energy Agency “timely and effective access” to any suspected nuclear sites, and that Iran must reveal all of its past nuclear research.

According to the editorial, these conditions must be met before Iran receives any sanctions relief. Addressing all the suspicions associated with Iran’s nuclear program should not be rushed.

The 11th hour doesn’t have to be the last hour; in fact, it often shouldn’t be. The negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany (P5+1), and Iran itself, didn’t wrap up on the scheduled deadline, Tuesday. That’s good. They should take as long as it takes to get it right. …

Iran will have parliamentary elections next February. If there is not yet an agreement by then, the pressure of the electorate on the various religious and political factions in Iran could be beneficial.

Most Iranians want to be able to benefit from their country’s oil-export revenues and, more broadly, to deal freely with the rest of the world. That’s why no one needs to act as if grasping for straws. If Iran has to wait some months longer for the lifting of the sanctions, so be it.

In the past week, editorials in The Washington Post and The Boston Globe urged the administration to reject the conditions set out in a recent speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which would render the emerging deal ineffective at stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

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