Op-Ed by Naji Dahi at theantimedia.org
After a long and complicated negotiation, the P5+1 (permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) and Iran arrived at a historic agreement. The agreement will allow Iran to participate in nuclear research that is scaled back to near bare bones.
Iran will have to reduce the number of centrifuges (devices that enrich uranium) from the current 20,000 to 6,100, use only first generation centrifuges, reduce its 20% enriched uranium stockpile from 10,000 to 300 kilograms, and enrich uranium to only 3.67% from the current 20%. Furthermore, only one nuclear facility will be allowed to conduct enrichment. The other two may only engage in nuclear research. Iran must also submit to an intrusive inspection regimen carried out by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).
Under the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), which Iran joined on July 1, 1968, the country is allowed to engage in nuclear research. Iran’s leaders have consistently maintained that Iran is not producing a nuclear device because the leaders believe that such weapons are contrary to the teachings of Islam. In fact, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa (religious edict) forbidding the development of nukes. The information about the Fatwa was communicated to nuclear negotiators in 2005 in Vienna. The statement said:
“The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the fatwa that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons.”
Furthermore, the IAEA has inspected Iran’s nuclear facilities multiple times and found no evidence that Iran is enriching uranium to weapons-grade capability. Weapons-grade uranium requires 90% enrichment. The highest degree Iran has achieved is 20% enrichment.
Even intelligence professionals in the U.S. and Israel have consistently stated that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. According to the New York Times,
“Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.“ [emphasis added]
Despite these realities, the West repeatedly insisted that Iran’s leaders were lying and enforced stringent economic sanctions to force Iran to negotiate a serious reduction in its nuclear research. These sanctions have reduced Iran’s ability to export oil, increased inflation, crippled economic growth, and prevented hundreds of thousands of Iranian citizens from accessing vital medication.
If Iran complies with the agreement, these crippling sanctions will be removed within six months. If Iran violates the agreement, the sanctions will snap back into place. Not all sanctions will be removed, however. The sanctions on the import of military hardware and ballistic missiles will remain for 5 years and 8 years following the implementation of the agreement.
It is a pity the Iranian people must face such adversity even as Iranian leaders and intelligence professionals have consistently maintained that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and even though the IAEA has inspected Iran’s facilities and found no evidence of weapons grade uranium.
This is a similar scenario to what happened in Iraq. Following the first Gulf War in 1991, economic sanctions were placed on Iraq. Iraq had to disarm itself from the “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs) the U.S. provided to Saddam’s regime when the Iraqi military was fighting Iran between 1980 and 1988. During those years Iraq engaged in chemical warfare against Iran without any moral outrage from Reagan administration officials.
The Iraqi leaders did just that, and by 1993, Iraq was totally free of WMDs. Just as with Iran, the U.S. and U.K. refused to acknowledge that Iraq was indeed free of WMDs. The sanctions continued on Iraq and ended up killing 1.2 million Iraqis—half of them children under the age of five. After 9/11, the U.S. and U.K. invaded Iraq and found no WMDs. President George W. Bush eventually acknowledged on national TV that no WMDs were found in Iraq, exposing the inconvenient fact that Iraq’s leaders were telling the truth and the real liars were our own elected officials.
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