Iran claims they are now capable of building a nuclear weapon

Plus the whole JCPOA verification structure was based upon supply chain interdiction, and that has largely remained in place. They are essentially using their existing ability to enrich

 

Your criticism of my position is fair. I'll respond as best I can, but I'll ask your forgiveness in advance if I talk around some things. My position on the original deal with Iran is not as cut-and-dry as you might think. I was not necessarily opposed to a diplomatic solution with Iran (except as I've stated repeatedly the unconstitutional act of bypassing the Senate, which later had predictable results; what a single man can do, another can just as easily undo). This somewhat new narrative that the point was merely to delay Iranian nuclear capability, not to permanently bring Iran back into the community and remove their incentive to pursue nuclear armament, well, that would have been indeed decisive for me. We all saw the results of paying North Korea tribute to not pursue the bomb. And I don't know what good any delay got us. I would rather have kept the sanctions and pain going against them. Same with Iran. The delay was not worth the economic relief they received, especially given what they did with it.

When Trump unilaterally cancelled the deal, I was not sure how I felt about it, considering he didn't (as was his habit) communicate his reasons to the American people well at all. As far as I knew, his main and only purpose was a "drop dead" to the Obama Administration. If he would have had a single statesmanlike bone in his body, he would have taken the deal exactly as it was written and put in front of Senate for ratification, publicly declaring he would accept the will of the states' representatives. He could have given the Senators a full classified briefing. Schumer would have been in the horns of a dilemma; there is no way he could have voted for it, much less convinced other members of his party to do so. Never mind getting two-thirds for ratification; I doubt one-third would have voted for it.

In early 2021, I deployed as Operations Officer to the aviation brigade supporting SPARTAN SHIELD (the Iran deterrence mission) as well as INHERENT RESOLVE (the anti-ISIS mission). Based on the enemy situation brief I received, I came to two conclusions: first, whether we should ever have joined the deal in the first place (let's assume we should have), pulling out of it was the right move; second, killing Qasem Soleimani was the right move. I also had some involvement in removing U.S. protection from some of our Gulf allies (deliberately vague here), which I could not understand at the time. Later, it became clear we were doing this -- deliberately giving Iran military leverage over its neighbors -- to get them to come to the table for an even more unwise deal. That, by the way, is the actual reason some of our Gulf allies hate our guts right now and are not interested in helping us ameliorate the impending energy crisis in Western Europe, resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

There is an old joke from WW2 where a German general is trying to impress his mistress by showing her the plans to invade the Soviet Union. Not being very familiar with geography, she says, "Liebchen, where is the Reich on this map?" Amused, he points out Germany, and she measures its size with her thumb and index finger. "Liebchen, where is the Soviet Union?" She measures it, using both hands, having to stretch out her arms. After considering the relative sizes of the two countries for a moment, she says, "Liebchen, has the Fuhrer seen this map?"

That is precisely how I have felt watching this Administration try to get a new deal with Iran even at the expense of other considerations. If we want to say that Obama got us the best deal possible and it was worth the attempt, then fine, I'll accept that. I don't accept staying in it even after it was clear the IRGC never intended to honor whatever agreement its government had made, just to avoid political embarrassment. If we want to say that Trump pulled us out purely for the political reasons, then fine, I'll accept that, too. I would put nothing past that man. Just because he was right does not mean his being right was not an accident. I do not accept jumping into another ill-advised deal just to stick it to him the way he stuck it to Obama. I also do not accept deliberately making our allies more vulnerable just to placate Iran into coming to the table. I further do not accept continuing to play along with the fiction that Russia was negotiating on our behalf with Iran even after Russia revealed itself for what it was by invading its neighbor. We know for certain now that both Russia and Iran were playing us for time. What we may not know for some time is what our clearly being duped has cost Ukraine. There were some decisions this Administration made early in the invasion that were mind-blowing, and they had to be dragged by Congress and other allies to reversing to themselves and taking the obvious necessary measure. I can't help wonder how much our being obsessed with a new deal polluted our judgment. The obvious move, right after Russia began its disgusting conquest, was to pull out of the negotiations and say something on the order of, "Sadly, we wanted a new deal, but we are not going to deal with the Russians on this or any other matter until they are back inside their borders. If Iran wants to deal with us directly, then we will revisit." It would have been the perfect face-saving out that would have allowed us to concentrate on a strategy of defeating Russia and still being able to politically blame Trump for the absence of a deal with Iran.

Apologies for the long answer.

 

Thanks for the response. My recollection, which a quick look at some contemporaneous articles confirms, is that the headline of the deal was pushing and breakout time back to 12 months. Eg

One of the key questions surrounding the Iranian nuclear deal is what it means for the country's so-called "breakout time." That's the length of time Iran would need to produce enough highly enriched uranium to make one nuclear weapon.​

The deal would limit Iran's nuclear activity in ways that stretches the breakout time. There's a general consensus that the current breakout time is around two to three months, and that would be extended to around a year under the agreement.​

If Iran violated the deal and decided to go for a bomb, the international community would then have time to respond.​

Some people may have hoped Iran would become more integrated with the west and eventually give up its ambitions, but at the time it was most definitely a buy off type situation that would only last as long as we continued buying them off, with a 12 month buffer to respond if everything fell apart.

Maybe at this point it’s no longer worth it to pay the ransom. Maybe it never was. As you point out, does buying a few years of delay make us better off long term? Hard to say.

It appears clear that Iran will not agree to anything permanent, and even if they did it’s doubtful we could trust them. So we either continue to pay them in exchange for not taking the final steps to build a bomb, or we let it happen and figure out how to move forward in a world with a nuclear Iran.

 

My answer is pretty simple: let them have their bomb. If they want to be North Korea, then let them be North Korea. Look at what wonders the bomb has done for North Korea. We refuse trade with them and strongly encourage anyone who wants to do business with us to do the same. Make it the public policy of the U.S. to massively retaliate against Iran for using atomic weapons anywhere in the world, including by proxy. Any nuclear attack that can be forensically linked to an Iranian reactor shall be considered an attack by the Islamic Republic on the United States. Keep the IRGC on the list of international terrorist group and make clear that we will target any of its members or assets that we can identify outside of Iranian territory at any time. Any Iranian attempts to interrupt international shipping will result in Iran losing its privilege to have a navy and/or air force. Oh, and of course, any time the Iranian people have grown tired of their BS dogmatic government, we are happy to receive them back into the community of nations.

 

Jeffrey Lewis and Aaron Stein on The Last Days of the JCPOA. Sad. Stupid domestic politics on both sides make the worlde more dangerous

Arms Control Wonk : The Last Days of the JCPOA

 

What good did the Trump administration's sanctions do? It appears it hurt the Iranian people a lot more than it hurt their government and their nuclear program.

 

What are you going to do, go to war with Iran and/or bomb suspected nuclear sites? If bombing them is a good option why don't we do it to North Korea too?

 

All underground now anyway. Even with bunker busters, not going to happen. In all probability, Iran will be a nuclear power in short order. Could have been avoided

 

Hurt the economy, strengthen the opposition and demand for change is the thought. Reality is that Iran hos oligarchs called republican guard that hate losing money and travel just like the Russians oligarchs and that is who may be able to influence policy. Yes it hurts the people but not nearly as much as a war would.

 

Iran Suspects Israel Killed Two Scientists With Poison
They both graduated from Iran’s top universities — young, healthy and athletic — before they suddenly fell ill in late May. The two scientists grew sicker and sicker, and ended up in the intensive care units of hospitals in two different cities nearly 400 miles apart.

Then, they both died within days of each other.
Iran believes Israel killed them by poisoning their food, according to an Iranian official and two other people with ties to the government who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. One of them, Ayoub Entezari, was an aeronautical engineer who worked for a military research center, and the other, Kamran Aghamolaei, was a geologist.
Compounding the mystery behind their deaths, Israeli media and Persian news channels abroad reported that Mr. Aghamolaei worked at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. But friends denied that, and said he worked for a private geological research company, and The New York Times could not corroborate that he had any ties to the government or any weapons program

 

You can't destroy the existing knowledge base. That's the argument I alluded to earlier that Jeffrey Lewis has addressed. Assessing top scientists can slow things down a little bit, at least before that knowledge is institutionalized, which the Iranians have learned to do, much like the learn to go underground after the Iraqis were attacked at Osirak. But again to repeat, as Jeffrey Lewis as noted, to imagine that a technology that 70 years old in the world is somehow going to be able to be concealed and hidden by assassinating a few scientists is the height of hubris

 

Israel is the perennial gold medalist in assassinations. The whole eye-for-an-eye thing is embedded in their DNA. I'm not sure what it accomplishes except to possibly frighten some scientists away from the dark arts. If only they were as good at intelligence.

The people of Iran better hope their leaders never launch a preemptive nuclear strike against Israel. The response would make Sodom and Gomorrah look like a brush fire.

 

I've never said bombing them is an option, I said that the Israelis are likely to up their involvement in covert ops. There have very likely already been multiple ops executed by the Mossad against the facility at Natanz aimed at crippling Iranian capacity for enrichment with US backing for funding. The US can ill afford getting overtly involved in Iran without the rest of the ME having their back (which won't happen).

The diff between Iran and NK is two-fold. One is that NK is already nuclear capable. Iran is not. Two is that there is a willing party in Israel to get their hands dirty. There isn't a similar power willing to go into NK the same way because they risk angering the Chinese.