Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Now We Get to the Part Where We Really Pretend

I've long said that the outline of a nuclear deal with Iran is clear: Iran will pretend not to have a nuclear weapons program; and we will pretend to believe them. Now we finalize that deal.

Iran's chief nutball Khamenei is insisting that we make the big pretend declaration before Iran commits to even the weak actions that they've pledged to take:

In a letter to President Hassan Rouhani published on Khamenei's official website, Iran's highest authority ordered the July 14 nuclear deal to be implemented, subject to certain conditions that the Iranian parliament stipulated in a law passed last week.

He said Iran should delay sending its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad and reconfiguring a heavy water reactor to ensure it cannot make bomb-grade plutonium - central aspects of Iran's obligations under the deal -- until U.N. inspectors had settled the issue of whether Tehran had ever sought nuclear weapons.

Gosh, I wonder what the UN inspectors will say? Declare Iran once did have nuclear programs--which we say is the case--and give Iran an excuse to walk away?

Or weasel word a declaration on possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear infrastructure that allows Iran to claim that they've been declared innocent of any nuclear weapons ambitions?

The suspense is killing me.

UPDATE: And remember that the Iranians deny a possible nuclear dimension to their recent missile test.