The Iran Deal’s Dirty Little Secret

The White House is trotting out a talking point that Iran has committed to no nuclear weapons, and that Iran has committed that in writing, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will return to verify.

Let’s be clear. Iran has already committed in writing not to develop nuclear weapons. They’ve been committed to the so-called Nonproliferation Treaty since 1970, and they’ve been lying for 47 years about all of this.

As far as the IAEA returning to verify, they can say what they want. They said the same thing about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and then they immediately started hoodwinking the IAEA.

Agreements are words on paper. They are only as strong as their enforcement mechanism.

President Trump originally said Iran could have no enrichment. That standard has obviously changed. Trump told the New York Times on Sunday that they were still negotiating over whether Iran would suspend its enrichment for 20 years. Trump hinted he might settle for a 15-year suspension, but did not want to negotiate via the press. He also insisted that Iran would be forever limited to enriching at low levels and could never be used by the military.

That’s not “no enrichment.” Meanwhile, JD Vance said, “The technical details are one of the things that we’re going to work on when we start those technical talks on Friday. But absolutely, we’re talking about working with the IAEA and working with the Iranians to go in and destroy that enriched stockpile of material. Whether we play an observer role or whether we play a more active role, these are the sorts of things that we’ll figure out in technical talks. But what the president has made very clear is the United States will be there to confirm that that enriched stockpile of material is destroyed.”

Will the Iranians actually do all of that? There is a big difference between the “United States will be present at some point during the process and it will be shipped out of the country” and “The Iranians get to sit there and then water down the nuclear stock,” which is basically the same thing as the JCPOA.

You will notice there has not been a single sentence about ballistic missiles or their development throughout this entire deal. Not one word. The vice president hasn’t talked about it. The Iranians have apparently said that is not part of the deal in any way.

How about terrorism? The outside indicators suggest that this deal does not concern Iranian support for terrorism. The White House put out its talking points, which seem to achieve the reverse of stopping Iranian support for terrorism. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), according to the White House, “Ends the fighting, including in Lebanon. President Trump brought it inside the peace instead of leaving it to reignite the war,” meaning that military operations ended on all fronts, explicitly including Lebanon for the first time, “and it has teeth. The ceasefire has to hold before anything else moves forward. The end of the fighting is not a hope, but it’s a precondition.”

Just the other day, Hezbollah literally attacked northern Israel. Israel then went after Dahiya, which is where Hezbollah’s leadership lives. And President Trump called up the prime minister of Israel and yelled at him, according to Axios.

That does not sound as though terrorism is going to stop in any way, shape, or form. And then the White House says, “With the fighting ended on every front, Iran enters a dialogue with its neighbors to settle conflicts decades in the making. Many presidents tried to unite this region. None could. President Trump is doing it again, building on the Abraham Accords.”

The notion that Iran is going to be a part of the Abraham Accords is ludicrous, especially as I’m noticing that Mohammad Ghalibaf, who will apparently be in a photo op with the vice president of the United States on Friday, is a supporter of mass murder. Vance will meet him approximately five months after the regime blew away a reported 42,000 innocent people in the streets, fired missiles at all of our allies in the region, and continues to support every terrorist group in the region while controlling the Iranian street.

I cannot express to you how stomach-churning that is.

JD Vance suggested that Israel has been participating in the talks with Iran, and that the Trump administration expects everyone to honor the agreement. If Israel is not a party to the actual talks — which they are not, as they’ve not been included in the talks — how in the world could you tie Israel’s hands when it comes to self-defense regarding Lebanon, while Hezbollah is firing rockets and drones over the border at Israeli citizens?

How about opening the Strait of Hormuz? In reality, that’s what this whole thing is about. The White House’s talking points stated, “The Strait is open free of charge.” Traffic is restored and the blockade is eased in proportion. American leverage holds the entire way.

There’s only one problem. The Iranians are saying, “Sure, it’s open right now, but at the end of the negotiation, we are going to toll it. We’re not going to call it a toll. We’ll call it an environmental fee, but we remain in control.”

Vance acknowledged that there are a lot of details to discuss.

Is the Strait open or not? It’s a binary question. What exactly is the detail that remains to be worked out?

How about the cash? The White House stated that the money Iran can access in the near term is its own frozen funds. Iran wants the tens of billions released upfront for nothing. Full sanctions relief and reconstruction are tied to Iran’s performance in the final deal. The reconstruction plan is built and funded with regional partners, not by American taxpayers, and unlocks only as Iran delivers.

There are two issues here.

One is the immediate release of money to Iran. The second is the so-called $300 billion reconstruction fund. Let’s start with the first one.

If we release funds, or if we tell our Arab Gulf state allies to release funds to Iran, it doesn’t have to be American taxpayer dollars: that is us releasing money to Iran. You should remember that the Obama administration, when it sent pallets of cash to the Iranians, said it was money “owed to Iran.” We had just “unfrozen” it.

If you unfreeze money to a terrorist group, it does not have to come from America. That’s rhetorical sleight of hand. If we press people to release money to a terror state, in order for them to continue to hold the Strait and to exert control whenever they feel threatened, or for them to rebuild their ballistic missile and nuclear capacities, that is a gigantic mistake.

When you say, “Well, at least it’s not our money, it doesn’t matter,” that is foolish.

How about that $300 billion slush fund? As Marc Thiessen correctly pointed out, that is the equivalent of a Marshall plan for Germany while Hitler is still in charge.

The administration, in an attempt to say that this is not like Barack Obama’s JCPOA, claims their agreement is far better than the JCPOA. JD Vance said it’s not at all like the JCPOA because the Gulf states like this deal.

I’d love to hear that from the Gulf states when they are not under the direct missile fire of the Iranians as the United States prepares to pull out.

The JCPOA provided Iran with a pathway to hundreds of billions of dollars as sanctions were removed after Iran took initial steps to implement the deal. The regime gained access to up to $150 billion. They immediately used it to bolster terrorism.

What would you say if I said that $300 billion would be sent into Iran without any restrictions on its use with regard to terrorism or ballistic missile development?

But let’s see the MOU.

Then we will know.