Obama Admin Making “Disturbing Counterproposals” to Iran

“U.S. negotiators have responded to Iranian intransigence on key issues with creative but sometimes disturbing counterproposals.”

This sentence describing the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran were not the words of Republican critics of President Obama’s Iran policy.  They were part of a lead editorial that ran in the Washington Post on October 3, 2014.

Think about it: the Washington Post is accusing the Obama administration of making disturbing counterproposals to a radical Islamist state-sponsor of terror which is suspected of having a covert nuclear weapons program.

The long list of these disturbing U.S. counterproposals include:

• Dropping Western demands that Iran disassemble uranium centrifuges.
• Allowing Iran to keep its large enriched uranium stockpile.
• Allowing Iran to develop and install advanced uranium centrifuges.
• Implicitly accepting Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium.
• No longer insisting that Iran stop construction of the Arak heavy water reactor which will be a source of plutonium when completed.

While the U.S. continues to make disturbing counterproposals and concessions in the nuclear talks, Iran has given little in return and is refusing to cooperate with IAEA investigations into indications that its nuclear program has military applications.  Iran also refuses to provide IAEA inspectors with full access to its nuclear facilities.

I agree with the Washington Post’s concern that President Obama might be tempted to make more concessions to Iran to get a final nuclear agreement before the talks are schedule to end on November 24.  The Post recommends that unless there is a dramatic change in Iran’s positions, the interim deal which set up this year’s nuclear talks should be extended and Iran be threatened with tougher sanctions if it does not agree.

This recommendation does not go far enough.  A diplomatic process to reduce the threat from a nuclear Iran that includes disturbing American counterproposals and concessions is not in the national security interests of the United States.  It is therefore imperative that Congress reject these talks as well as any agreement they may produce and reestablish a responsible U.S. policy on the Iranian nuclear program by placing new sanctions on Iran until it complies with all UN Security Council resolutions on its nuclear program.