Picture of Ali Khamenei
We have, today, the news that Khamenei is dubious about the nuclear deal. His two main complaints are:
- He wants sanctions ended immediately;
- He does not want military facilities inspected under the guise of enforcing the deal.
These are more reasonable than they seem at first blush. The current deal calls for an end to sanctions when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concludes that Iran has met its part of the deal. Seems fair enough, but, as Gareth Porter writes:
Iranian negotiators have pointed out to Western diplomats that the IAEA could take up to 15 years to arrive at a final judgment, as it did in the case of South Africa, the source said.
A senior Iranian official told the International Crisis Group last November that IAEA officials, responding to Iran’s question about the time required, had refused to rule out the possibility that it would take more than ten years to complete its assessment of Iran’s case.
And, as Porter points out, much of what Iran is agreeing to do is effectively irreversible.
As for the close inspection of military facilities, remember that such inspections were done in Iraq before the invasion of that country and the results were used to help draw up the bombing targets in the war. The IAEA teams will certainly include people who will share the information with America and Israel, after all.
I want to put this entire mess in perspective:
First, Iran having nukes would change nothing except making it impossible to invade Iran. That’s what we’re really talking about. If Iran were to use its nukes pre-emptively, Iran would become a glass parking lot.
Second, China and Russia messed up by allowing UN sanctions on Iran. Royally screwed up. The West has been picking off, or attempting to pick off states in order to isolate them, from Libya and Iraq to the Ukraine, with massive pressure on Venezuela. It simply is not in either Russia or China’s interest to allow such states to be destroyed.
Third, Libya gave up its weapon program. Iraq had no weapons program. Giving up your weapons program (ie, giving up your sprint capacity) is really dangerous. As commenter MFI noted, Qaddafi wound up getting sodomized by a knife because he made a deal with the West to give up his program.
The sanctions are absolutely crippling and I understand why many Iranians are absolutely desperate to make a deal. But some deterrent must be maintained. If it isn’t, well, the record of what happens to such countries is simply not good. This is one reason why Khamenei is leery–he knows his neck is on the line, and his death could be very unpleasant.
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