It’s Not “Absurd” That Obama Will Give In to Iran’s Demands

According to press reports, U.S. officials have said the Iran nuclear talks will be extended to about July 9 so Congress can begin a 30-day review if an agreement is reached.  Under the Corker-Cardin bill, Congress has 60 days to review an Iran deal if it is submitted to the Hill after July 9.

The inability to reach an agreement by a June 30 deadline appears to be due to backtracking by Iran. The New York Times reported today that U.S. officials have warned Iran that a nuclear deal must stick to an April 2015 framework agreement.  This suggests Tehran is moving away from the framework to extract more U.S. concessions.

The framework agreement contained major (and I believe unacceptably dangerous) concessions to Iran, allowing it to operate 5,000 uranium centrifuges, develop advanced centrifuges, and keep all of its nuclear infrastructure, including a plutonium-producing reactor which would be modified to produce less plutonium.

According to a June 30  Washington Post article, a senior Obama official balked yesterday at accusations that the administration will give in to Iranian demands as “absurd.”  According to the Post, the official said:

“Why would we put ourselves through this, why would our teams be here for as long as they have been, why would we be spending the hours doing this in the way we are if we were to just say, ‘Whatever you want, you got’?” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks. “This is a very tough negotiation.”

My colleague Clare Lopez wrote in an June 29 Newsmax article that the Obama administration began to make concessions to Iran in 2009 to lure it to the negotiating table which included releasing Iranian prisoners.  Since that time, there have been a series of huge U.S. concessions on Iran’s nuclear program, including allowing it to enrich uranium and permitting Iran to develop advanced enrichment centrifuges.  According to recent press reports, the Obama administration is prepared to cave on “any time, any place” inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and settle for “managed” inspections of some Iranian military facilities.  There also have been recent press reports that the Obama administration is prepared to write off an IAEA dossier on Iran’s past nuclear weapons-related work.

Based on these and other U.S. concessions to Iran since 2009 to get a nuclear agreement, it is far from absurd that President Obama will give in to Iran’s remaining demands.