Iran nuclear deal: The case for returning

He blames former US president Barack Obama and his advisers for “the one-sided Iran deal,” but it was not just the Obama administration that supported the nuclear deal, but the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, the UK, Russia, France and China – plus one, Germany (thus P5+1), in addition to the European Union. Also, there is a strong consensus of leading security advisers and intelligence agencies that the pact was the best approach to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. The Council For a Livable World stated that 32 top American scientists, more than 100 former American ambassadors, 40 US national security experts, and 67 former Israeli intelligence and military officials all issued statements supporting the deal. Carmi Gillon, former director of the Shin Bet (the Israeli Internal Security Service), stated in July 2020:

While no agreement is perfect, this achievement must not be underestimated. For decades, leaders and experts in Israel and among our allies contemplated the drastic steps we might have to take to restrain or destroy Iran’s nuclear program. That included potential military operations that might have triggered a major escalation and cost many lives – with no guarantee of achieving their goal....

While the majority of my colleagues in the Israeli military and intelligence communities supported the deal once it was reached, many of those who had major reservations now acknowledge that it has had a positive impact on Israel’s security and must be fully maintained by the United States and the other signatory nations.

So, the main objective of the nuclear agreement, preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, was being carried out. Yet, believing that all of Obama’s policies should be overturned, and with the strong encouragement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal. One of their justifications was that the agreement gave Iran an open path to getting a nuclear weapon in six more years. But, contrary to Loeffelholz’s view, pulling out of the deal gave Iran an opportunity to move toward getting a nuclear weapon right away, and they are far closer to getting a nuclear weapon now than they were when Trump pulled out of the agreement. This helps explain why an astonishing 94 percent of foreign policy scholars think Trump made the wrong choice, because the Iran deal was actually working to contain Iran’s nuclear program, according to a poll of 1,541 such scholars by the Teaching, Research, and International Policy organization, a group that regularly surveys international relations experts.

Iran has stated that it is willing to return to the agreement if the US also does, reducing the strong sanctions they have placed on them. This would return Iran to being very far from being able to develop a nuclear weapon and is thus supported by most of the world’s nations and nuclear experts

But what about Iran having a free path to get a nuclear weapon four years from now, as Loeffelholz and others argue? Since Iran. would. benefit greatly if sanctions were not reintroduced again after a renewed agreement, they would find it in their interest to have the nuclear agreement extended. If they did decide to go full speed ahead toward developing a nuclear weapon, there would be a strong international consensus that the strongest possible sanctions should be applied.

Of course, recent statements and actions by Iran should be strongly condemned and sanctions not related to the Iran deal should be continued. Hopefully further negotiations and the possibility of additional sanctions being removed and other economic incentives would lead to Iran ending its destructive policies.

It is essential that disputes with Iran be solved diplomatically and not militarily. Because Iran’s nuclear facilities are strongly protected far underground, attacking them would set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear bombs by only a few years, and would give Iran the incentive to actively pursue obtaining them. Attacking Iran would also likely result in many major threats to Israel, the US and the world, including increased terrorism; retaliatory attacks by Iran against Israel and US forces in the Middle East; rocket attacks against Israel from Hamas and Hezbollah; a disruption in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to the West, sharply increasing oil prices and possibly causing a global recession or depression; and the spreading of nuclear radiation throughout the Middle East and beyond, resulting in much illness and death to Israelis and others.