Update: After this article was posted the morning of Tuesday, 5/8/2018, Trump announced that afternoon that he was reestablishing sanctions on Iran and pulling the US out of the Iranian nuclear agreement. Otherwise the article remains factually correct.
Our nation’s chief executive officer, Donald Trump, (I promised myself long ago I would never say or write his name and title in the same sentence) is scheduled to soon announce his decision as to whether or not he will withdraw the US from the Iranian nuclear deal. As I explained in my last blog post, “Netanyahu Offers Trump a Transparent Fig Leaf”, I believe the decision was made some time ago to pull our country our of the agreement and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “presentation” was a failed attempt to give Trump the cover he needs to finalize that decision. In my view pulling our country out of the agreement will be the height of stupidity.
Do you remember “the $150 billion including $1.8 Billion in actual cash carried out in barrels and in boxes from airplanes” which Trump said we gave Iran when the deal was signed? Well, according to PolitiFact, the actual amount to which Iran gained access when the treaty was signed was between $25 billion and $50 billion and “we” didn’t “give” them anything. The $25 to $50 Billion was actually Iranian funds in financial institutions around the world which was previously frozen by sanctions. The majority was in Chinese banks; Iranian accounts in American banks were actually relatively small.
Also according to PolitiFact, the “$1.8 Billion payed in cash” was actually $1.7 Billion and it was money owed to Iran because they prepaid that amount as part of an arms deal negotiated by the previous Iranian regime before the Shah was over thrown. However, sanctions were imposed before the arms could be delivered and those sanctions also held up the return of the money Iran had prepaid for the military hardware. Therefore the $1.7 Billion was simply the long overdue payment of money owed to Iran. And here is the real kicker – even if the agreement is abandoned today by all of the signing parties, Iran will still keep all of those funds.
It is important to understand that at the time when the nuclear agreement was signed, Iran was approximately three months away from having enriched enough uranium to make 8 to 10 nuclear weapons. Had the deal not been put in place when it was, Iran would almost certainly be another renegade nuclear power like North Korea today. I don’t think that Benjamin Netanyahu would not feel any safer if Iran were able to match Israel’s (secret) nuclear arsenal with nuclear weapons of their own. In addition, if Iran had been able to proceed with its nuclear weapons program, it is highly likely that other nations in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, would have felt the need to start up their own nuclear weapons programs leading to a Middle East nuclear arms race and making the world a far more dangerous place to live.
The Trump administration has made a great deal of noise about their fear that once some elements of the agreement begin to sunset in ten to fifteen years, Iran will quickly become a nuclear power. That is quite frankly another one of their lies. According to the exhaustive calculations presented in a definitive article by the Bipartisan Policy Center, “Can Iran Gain Nuclear Weapons Capability While Complying with the Deal?”, if Iran continues to comply with the agreement as they have thus far, it would take 16 years to for them to recover to the point where they could start producing nuclear weapons. So with the signing of the agreement Iran went from being only months away from producing nuclear weapons to being 16 years away from achieving that goal assuming that they remain in compliance.
That’s because the requirements of the agreement severely handicap Iran’s capability to manufacture nuclear bombs and those requirements are backed up with inspections of all Iranian nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). To remain in compliance Iran has already give up their three quarters of the centrifuges necessary to refine uranium into weapons grade materials. The fourth they were allowed to keep are the oldest and least efficient, which is one of the reasons Iran would need sixteen years to recover to the point where they are again only months away from building nuclear weapons.
In addition there are many other provisions of the agreement which greatly hinder Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons in the future. They had to give up 98% of their uranium stockpile, the key component uranium based nuclear weapons. This included most of the uranium that had already refined with their centrifuges to weapons grade levels. They also had to redesign their heavy water nuclear reactor which they could have used to produce enough plutonium to build plutonium based nuclear weapons. So not only did Iran have to give up their nuclear bomb making material, they gave up most of the equipment necessary to refine more. They retained only enough of that equipment to produce refined uranium for peaceful purposes such as nuclear medicine.
In addition, there are high tech monitoring equipment manned by the IAEA, including live feed HD cameras installed in every Iranian facility which is part of their uranium supply chain including in the mines where the Iranians obtain their uranium ore. Our extremely sophisticated spy satellites monitor every move the Iranians make night and day. It they restart their nuclear weapons program we will soon know it. In addition, if Israeli intelligence can make off with tens of thousands of Iran’s super-secret nuclear program documentation, there is every reason to believe that if the Iranians actually breach the agreement the Israelis would have proof of the breach in short order. Within days the IAEA would have inspectors on the scene.
If the IAEA ever determines that Iran has in anyway ceased to comply with every aspect of the agreement, the sanctions in effect before the agreement was signed would automatically snap back into existence.
We need to also remember that the US and Iran were not the only countries involved in the deal. Some of our closest allies including Great Britain, France, and Germany along with Russia and China also signed the agreement. The IAEA and all of the other countries that signed the agreement along with the US and Iran are totally satisfied that the Iran is in total compliance and very much want the agreement to remain in place. While Iran in many other ways remains a bad actor on the world stage, the rational leaders of Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China would rather keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future than allow yet another renegade country obtain a nuclear arsenal
Among the world leaders, only the irrational President of the United States, a narcissistic incompetent who thinks that only he “the great negotiator” can broker a better deal, believes that the world would be a better place to the agreement were to be torn up tomorrow and Iran were to again be free to pursue its nuclear weapons ambitions. While it would take Iran the full sixteen years to get to the point where they are again only months away from manufacturing nuclear weapons if they remain in compliance with agreement, it would take a fraction of that time for them to get that point if agreement becomes unenforceable. In that case they could kick out the IAEA inspectors, start mining uranium again, buy more centrifuges, and get back in the nuclear weapons program business in short order.
It is also very important to understand that if the US pulls out of the agreement, it does not mean that the agreement will automatically cease to exist. If Trump pulls our country out of the deal and reapplies our sanctions, it extremely likely that Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China would state inequivalently that they continue to comply with all aspects of the agreement, as long as Iran agrees to do the same. That in turn will put the Iranians in total control as to whether the agreement will remain in effect without the US or not. They can choose to continue to honor the agreement or they will have a perfect excuse to ditch the agreement in its entirety and restart its nuclear weapons program.
One would think that it would be an easy choice for Iran to remain in the deal with Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. After all the US does little business with Iran, and Iran does a great deal of business the other countries in the agreement. So one would think that American sanctions wouldn’t concern the Iranians very much. Except it isn’t that simple.
When the US puts sanctions on a country, not only are American banks and companies barred from doing business with that country, but our banks and companies are also barred from doing business with banks and companies in other nations that do business with that country. Given the power of our financial system, that is a situation which many foreign institutions would want to avoid, so our sanctions have much greater power to hurt the economy of a targeted country than we would otherwise believe.
If the Iranians trashes the agreement after Trump’s withdrawal and restarts their nuclear weapons program, that will be the reason. They could decide if they have to again endure many of the sanctions that were in place before the agreement was signed, they might as well derive some benefit in exchange for the financial hardships their people will again have to endure. And remember, they will still have those many billions of dollars they received back from the world’s financial institutions when the deal was signed which will more than pay for their restarted nuclear program.
Then imagine what kind of deal Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the US (led of course by another US president) will have to offer a nuclear armed Iran to give up its nuclear weapons. Chances are that world would have to deal with a nuclear armed Iran, and a Middle East arms race, for the foreseeable future.
That’s why the leaders of our best allies tried so hard to convince Trump not to pull out to the agreement. But Trump, being Trump, believes that he knows better. That’s why against the advice of his most knowledgeable advisors and experts in this country and around the world, he will almost certainly soon announce that he will withdraw the US from the agreement. Not because the Iranians are not in compliance, but because Trump in his ignorance promised on the campaign trail that he would pull out of the agreement and probably because President Obama’s administration had a major hand in crafting it.
Another factor to keep in mind is that the political situation in Iran is not very stable. By all reports the common people of Iran really like Americans and they have grown restless under the heavy hand of the theocracy in power. Major demonstrations against “Supreme Leader’ have broken out in the past and they have recently elected fairly reasonable civilian leadership. If that situation is left to its own devices it may resolve itself of its own accord over the next ten to fifteen with the overthrow of the religious leaders. However, if the US is responsible for the reinstitution of harsh sanctions which will make the lives of everyday Iranians that much harder, that will play right into the Mullahs’ hands. It will also serve to push Iran further into Putin’s zone of influence.
In addition, Iran is a major oil supplier to Europe, China, and much of the rest of the world. With the world financial markets well aware of Trump’s intentions to pull out of the nuclear agreement and the threat of renewed sanctions on the near horizon, crude oil prices are already rising. You may have already notices that prices at American gas pumps are quickly following suit. This will cause our inflation to increase and our stock markets to drop further as they try to absorb still another of Trump’s ill advised decisions. Our economic recovery is already long in the tooth. This is yet another factor which is likely to bring on a long overdue recession more quickly.
Trump’s ill advised course of action not only has the very real potential to make the world a much more dangerous place to live, it will drive an even deeper wedge between our country and our most loyal allies. Like it or not, Trump has become the face of our country to the rest of the world. This go it alone, I know better than anyone else action will also again demonstrate that the United States is willing to abrogate our position as the most influential, and therefore the most powerful nation on earth. Our ability to shape world consensus to our national interests will be further diminished. Nature abhors a vacuum. China and even a united Europe are well equipped to take our place on the world stage and China is more than willing to do so.
This kind of abject stupidity is why Donald J. Trump remains a clear and present danger to security of this country and that of the rest of the world.
Cajun 5/7/2018