Dore Gold, November 12,
2013
- Eliminating Iran's 20-percent-enriched uranium, but allowing the Iranians to continue to produce 3.5-percent-enriched uranium is an unacceptable option if the goal of the West is to prevent Iran from advancing a nuclear weapon. Allowing Iran to enrich to the 3.5-percent level will not address the threat emanating from Iran's latest generation of faster centrifuges and the scenario of a fast dash by Iran to weapons-grade uranium, known as "nuclear break-out."
- President Obama's former aide on the National Security Council, Gary Samore, warned in October that ending the production of 20-percent-enriched uranium is not enough because Iran can also reach weapons-grade uranium using its stock of 3.5-percent-enriched uranium. Thus, any agreement must eliminate all of Iran's enriched uranium.
- If the Geneva talks produce a bad agreement and allow Iran to continue its drive for nuclear weapons, there will be accelerated nuclear proliferation in the Middle East among Iran's neighbors, like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. A multi-polar nuclearized Middle East will in no way resemble the bi-polar superpower balance during the Cold War and is likely to be unstable.
- Iran's global network of terrorism will obtain a protective nuclear umbrella, allowing its organizations to strike with complete impunity. Finally, given Iran's increasing propensity in recent years to remove any constraints on the supply of state-of-the-art conventional weapons to its terrorist proxies, the flow of nuclear technologies to these groups cannot be dismissed.
- Iran has argued that it has an "inalienable right" to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while Western states have contested this. If the West now accepts Iranian enrichment of uranium to the 3.5-percent level, it will be acknowledging that Iran has a right to enrichment. Moreover, the UN Security Council adopted six resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter that called on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment. Chapter VII resolutions are binding international law. If the West now says that the suspension is no longer necessary, what does that mean for the binding nature of Chapter VII resolutions?
- Turning to the question of plutonium production, up until now, the West has been encouraging states not to erect heavy-water reactors, but instead to accept light-water nuclear reactors which have a reduced risk of being used for plutonium production. At present it appears that Western proposals to Iran do not include the dismantling of the Arak heavy-water facility.
______________________________________________________________
"This is the time when
the entire pro-Israel community must stand together in opposition to the deal
being offered the Iranians-a deal which is bad for the United States, for the
West, and for Israel. The Israeli people seem united in opposition to this bad
deal. The American Congress is doubtful about the deal. This is not a
liberal/conservative issue. Liberals who view military action as a last resort
should oppose this deal, and conservatives who fear a nuclear Iran above all
else should oppose this deal. Indeed all reasonable, thinking people should
understand that weakening the sanctions against Iran without demanding that they
dismantle their nuclear weapons program is a prescription for disaster. Have we
learned nothing from North Korea and Neville Chamberlain?"
A.D.
Nuclear Peace With Iran
In Our Time
Is This Our Chamberlain Moment?
Is This Our Chamberlain Moment?
November 13,
2013
Diplomacy is better
than war...Nor is there much controversy for the preference of "jaw jaw" over
"war war," as Winston Churchill once put it.
Were Iran to use the
current diplomatic efforts as a cover to buy time to make a preventive attack
unrealistic, this would be our "Chamberlain moment," a replication of the time
three-quarters of a century ago, when the idealistic but naive British prime
minister made a bad deal with the Nazis in a desperate but futile effort to
avoid deploying the military option against Hitler's growing power.
The immediate choice
for the world today is not between diplomacy and preventive war. We have a third
option: to maintain or even increase the sanctions, while keeping the military
option on the table. It was this powerful combination that brought a weakened
and frightened Iran to the negotiating table in the first place.
The deal that has been
offered to Iran-to soften some sanctions in return for a promise by the mullahs
to preserve the status quo with regard to their nuclear program-does not serve
the interest of peace. This is not to discourage further diplomacy and
negotiations, but it is to underline what Secretary of State John Kerry has
said: namely that a bad deal is worse than no deal. This is a very bad deal for
America, its allies and peace.
Diplomacy is better
than war but bad diplomacy can cause bad wars. The U.S. is leading the noble
efforts, stalled for the moment, to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough in our
determination to prevent Iran from developing, or having the capacity to
develop, nuclear weapons. There is little dispute about this essential goal:
virtually everyone agrees that a nuclear armed Iran would pose unacceptably
grave dangers to the United States and its allies.
Nor is there much
controversy over the preference for "jaw jaw" over "war war," as Winston
Churchill once put it. But the understandable concern, expressed by Israeli,
French, Saudi and some other leaders, is that the Iranian leadership is playing
for time-that they want to make insignificant concessions in exchange for
significant reductions in the sanctions that are crippling their economy. Their
goal is to have their yellow cake and eat good food at the same time. These
leaders, and many experienced nuclear and diplomatic experts, fear that a bad
deal, such as the one that Secretary Kerry seemed ready to accept, would allow
the Iranians to inch closer to nuclear weapons capacity while strengthening
their faltering economy. The net result would be a more powerful Iran with the
ability to deploy a nuclear arsenal quickly and surreptitiously.
Were this to occur, we
would be witnessing a recurrence of the failed efforts to prevent a nuclear
North Korea but in a far more volatile and dangerous neighborhood of the globe.
Were Iran to use the current diplomatic efforts as a cover to buy time to make a
preventive military attack unrealistic, this would indeed be our "Chamberlain
moment," a replication of the time three-quarters of a century ago, when the
idealistic but naive British prime minister made a bad deal with the Nazis in a
desperate but futile effort to avoid deploying the military option against
Hitler's growing power.
Winston Churchill,
despite his preference for jaw, railed against Chamberlain's concession,
describing it as a defeat without a war. The war, of course, soon came and the
allies were in a weaker position, having ceded the industrially and militarily
critical Sudetenland to Germany while at the same time giving it more time to
enhance its military power. The result was tens of millions of deaths that might
have been avoided if the British and French had engaged in a preventive war
instead of giving dangerous concessions to the Nazis when they were still
weak.
The immediate choice
for the world today is not between diplomacy and preventive war, as it may have
been in 1938. We have a third option: to maintain or even increase the sanctions
while keeping the military option on the table. It was this powerful combination
that brought a weakened and frightened Iran to the bargaining table in the first
place. It is this combination that will pressure them to abandon their
unnecessary quest for nuclear weapons, if anything will. To weaken the sanctions
regime now, in exchange for a promise to maintain the status quo, would be bad
diplomacy, poor negotiation and a show of weakness precisely when a show of
strength is called for.
The leadership of the
pro-Israel community, both in the United States and Israel, have shown rare
unity around the issue of not weakening the sanctions merely in exchange for the
promise of a nuclear standstill from the Iranians. Liberals and conservatives,
doves and hawks, all seem to realize that the best way to avoid the Scylla and
Charybdis of a nuclear Iran or a military attack is to maintain the tough
sanctions while diplomacy continues. As usual, the only outlier seems to be J
Street, whose claim to be "pro-Israel" grows less credible by the day.
Previously, J Street claimed to support tough sanctions as an alternative to the
military option and drumbeating. But now that Israel and its supporters insist
that sanctions be maintained, J Street seems to be supporting the Neville
Chamberlain approach to diplomacy: make substantial concessions in exchange for
hollow promises, thereby weakening our negotiating position and increasing the
chances that the United States will be forced to take military action as the
only means of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
This is the time when
the entire pro-Israel community must stand together in opposition to the deal
being offered the Iranians-a deal which is bad for the United States, for the
West, and for Israel. The Israeli people seem united in opposition to this bad
deal. The American Congress is doubtful about the deal. This is not a
liberal/conservative issue. Liberals who view military action as a last resort
should oppose this deal, and conservatives who fear a nuclear Iran above all
else should oppose this deal. Indeed all reasonable, thinking people should
understand that weakening the sanctions against Iran without demanding that they
dismantle their nuclear weapons program is a prescription for disaster. Have we
learned nothing from North Korea and Neville Chamberlain?
Alan M. Dershowitz,
the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard, is a practicing criminal and
constitutional lawyer and the author of The Trials of
Zion. His autobiography, Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law, was
published last month. A shorter version of this article appeared in
Haaretz.
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