As President Trump nears his legally-mandated decision whether to recertify United States commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal), supporters of the deal repeatedly say the JCPOA is effective and includes the world’s most rigorous inspections regime.
Earlier this month, Samantha Power, President Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted that it was the “Most rigorous inspection regime ever applied to nuclear program.” Shawn VanDiver, a member of the Truman National Security Project, called the JCPOA “the most rigorous inspections program the world has ever seen.” Joseph Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund which has funded and coordinated many of the groups affirming the JCPOA, likewise called the deal, “the most rigorous inspection regime ever negotiated.”
The list goes on.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief-of-staff said, “This is the most intrusive inspection regime under the NPT or otherwise ever created,” and former Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., cited the deal’s “unprecedented inspections and verification regime.”
In reality, does the deal live up to these endorsements?
Alas, no. The truth is the Iran nuclear deal erased precedent. Consider other countries that forfeited their nuclear weapons or illicit nuclear weapons program:
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When the Soviet Union fell, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan each inherited nuclear weapons left on their soil, but each voluntarily gave them up. Today, they have neither nuclear weapons nor an infrastructure to re-acquire them.
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Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, South Africa maintained a covert nuclear weapons program. In 1991, however, South Africa agreed to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and so forfeit its right to develop nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency moved in to assess South Africa’s compliance. It demanded more than two decades of South Africa’s nuclear records in order to allow the IAEA to account for all nuclear material and verify that South Africa was in compliance.
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Then there’s the case of Libya. In order to bring Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi in from the cold, the U.S. and its allies demanded that Libya not only forfeit its illegal weapons program, but that its program be physically dismantled.
The Obama administration promised that its Iran deal would include “Any Time, Any Where” inspections, a reasonable standard given Iran’s decades-long track-record of cheating. As the goal to reach a deal trumped its substance, negotiators let this standard slide. Secretary of State John Kerry instead abided by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s red line prohibiting international inspections of military sites.
The IAEA’s willingness not to push the issue out of fear that Iran will walk away risks that organization’s credibility and encourages further rogue behavior in Iran and among future proliferators. To ignore cheating or verification responsibilities will not build international trust or convince violators not to cheat.
The Arms Control Association, a Ploughshares-funded non-proliferation think tank with a long record of downplaying violations in order to preserve deals, circulated a letter signed by 80 political activists (many of whom, contrary to the letter’s claims, were not non-proliferation specialists) claiming the Iran nuclear agreement was working. “The JCPOA mandates continuous surveillance of key activities, such as uranium mining and centrifuge production, and application of Iran’s Additional Protocol, which gives inspectors additional information about, and access to, Iran’s nuclear facilities,” it wrote.
But here’s the problem which the letter’s signatories did not address: Under the terms of the JCPOA, Iran agreed to act consistent with the Additional Protocol which closed many non-proliferation loopholes, but it did not demand Iran ratify the Additional Protocol. One hundred twenty-nine other states have signed, ratified, and put in force the Additional Protocol, however.
That means the Iran deal imposed, at best, the 130th most rigorous nonproliferation regime.
The reason why Iran’s lack of ratification matters is because of past behavior. When Hassan Rouhani, at the time a nuclear negotiator and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, suspended Iran’s nuclear enrichment in 2003, he explained that he did so voluntarily so that he could control the timeline with regard to Iran’s decision to resume enrichment.
If Iran really meant to abide by the terms of the Additional Protocol, it would not have hesitated to accede to a demand to ratify it. Secretary of State John Kerry, however, did not push the issue because he did not want the reality of Iranian motivations, ambitions, and behavior to get in the way of a deal he hoped could win him a Nobel Prize.
As Trump nears his decision on recertification, punditry on both sides of the issue will become strident. Rhetoric, however, should never substitute for reality. Proponents of the JCPOA can make many claims, but the declaration that it includes the most rigorous inspection regime cannot be among them.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
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