The Obama administration spent the last two years telling lawmakers and reporters that any deal with Iran would require the Iranians to provide International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors robust access to the Parchin military base, where the Iranians conducted hydrodynamic experiments relevant to the detonation of nuclear warheads. The IAEA needs the access to determine how far the Iranians got as a prerequisite to establishing a verification regime. Here’s Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in 2013: the Joint Plan of Action requires Iran to “address past and present practices… including Parchin”; Sherman in 2014: “as part of any comprehensive agreement… we expect, indeed, Parchin to be resolved”; State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf in 2015: “we would find it… very difficult to imagine a JCPA that did not require such [inspector] access at Parchin”; etc.
Last month Republican senator Jim Risch suggested in an open Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing that the West had collapsed on the requirement and that instead the Iranians had worked out a secret side deal with Iran under which the Iranians would be trusted to collect their own samples for the IAEA. Kerry refused to confirm the arrangement citing classification issues, but the Associated Press’s Vienna reporter locked it down anyway.
White House officials and validators continued to declare that in no way would the IAEA ever agree to that kind of arrangement, since it would preclude the agency from securing a chain of custody over the evidence. But the administration refused to transmit the side deal to Congress—which would have resolved the debate—and instead claimed that the U.S. couldn’t get the text because it was a confidential Iran-IAEA bilateral agreement. Business Insider confirmed that in fact U.S. diplomats can call for the agreement at any time because Washington sits on the IAEA’s Board of Governors. Nonetheless Kerry told Congress that not only did the U.S. not have the text, but that he hadn’t even seen the final wording, though he added that maybe “Wendy Sherman may have” (she subsequently clarified she hadn’t either).
Thursday the AP revealed that its reporters had—in contrast—seen a draft reflecting the final language, and that they were in a position to confirm the concessions made to Iran. Instead of allowing IAEA inspectors to collect evidence from Parchin, samples will be collected by the Iranians using Iranian equipment. Instead of allowing the IAEA to collect everything it wants, only seven samples will be handed over from mutually agreed upon areas. Instead of giving inspectors access to facilities, photos and videos will be taken by the Iranians themselves, again only from mutually agreed upon areas.
After Wednesday’s article was published someone—presumably an overeager AP editor—tried to save some space by cutting several somewhat redundant paragraphs from the original draft. That triggered a flood of conspiracy theories about the AP retracting the story, and this morning there were a flood of snarky attacks on the outlet: “The AP’s controversial and badly flawed Iran inspections story, explained” (Vox); “BREAKING: Nuclear Stuff Really Complicated” (TPM); “Revised AP report… overwrites some of the more troubling aspects” (Haaretz); “Potentially Deal-Shattering Report About Iran Inspections Has Some Issues” (HuffPo), etc.
As the news cycle unfolded Thursday it became clear that the AP had the goods on the collapse to Iran. The AP restored the cut paragraphs and added a Washington angle. AP reporters started listing specific concessions confirmed by the document—and publicly daring critics to deny them. Meanwhile IAEA chief Yukiya Amano put out a statement that sought to defend the deal but very much did not deny the AP report. Then the afternoon press briefing happened, and again—as with Amano—State Department spokesman John Kirby pointedly declined to back the White House validators who had attacked the AP’s report:
MR KIRBY: Well, as I said yesterday, Brad, I’m not going to comment about the contents of a draft document between the IAEA and Iran. Even the director general wouldn’t go so far as to reveal the details of what is a confidential agreement…
…
QUESTION: … was there any specific item in the story that – factual item in the story that was wrong? I don’t want to know which one it is, but there are times when you guys will say this was inaccurate without saying specifically what because you can’t comment on the specifics. So was there anything you can specifically say without identifying it that was inaccurate…
MR KIRBY: Well, as I said to Brad, I’m not going to get into speaking about the details of a draft document between —
QUESTION: I’m not asking about the details.
MR KIRBY: Arshad, I know, if you’d just let me finish.
QUESTION: Yep.
MR KIRBY: I’m not going to get into speaking about the details between – of a draft document between the IAEA and Iran or any other nation for that matter…
Then finally the AP just published the full text of the side deal, confirming the previous reporting. After you read the side deal—which is short —you should also read another article the AP published Thursday afternoon, which is an explainer on the substance of the Parchin debate now that the side deal is public. “The document on Parchin,” the AP writes,
On a policy level, the side deal effectively trusts Iran to investigate its own violations, something that comes off as a bit absurd on its face (“…will let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny…”). On a political level, that absurdity will confirm suspicions that the IAEA has been pressured by parties who want to put aside substantive concerns over the viability of the nuclear deal in order to preserve it at all costs.
