Nuclear deal lets Iran delay and impede inspection

Paul Michaels

In their effort to shore up support for their Iran nuclear deal, U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry argue that you either support the agreement or you favour war. In refusing to acknowledge a third way – a better agreement – they’ve set up numerous straw men, reducing their opponents to warmongers.

The media – in particular the American media, which have a special interest in covering this controversy – have largely failed to sort out fact from allegation.

The proper way to understand what’s at stake is simply to read the 159-page agreement itself.

The first 50 and the final 24 pages concern the core elements, while the middle 80 pages deal with sanctions relief, listing companies and others that will benefit. So we’re really talking about 74 pages of essential text that need to be examined.

Within those 74 pages, there’s a brief (two-page), but critical section that goes to the heart of the Obama/Kerry pledge – that everyone should have confidence in the agreement, since it provides “unprecedented verification” of Iranian compliance.  

It does not. 

Titled “Access” (what has since become known as “managed access”), it deals with the crucial issue of how verification is going to be achieved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear inspectors. This relates especially to military sites when a suspicion arises that Iran is working on prohibited activities, as happened in the past regarding suspected weaponization-related work at the Parchin military site, in violation of Iran’s commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“Access” opens with obsequious language, paying homage to “due observance of the sovereign rights of Iran,” and a pledge to keep “requests” to suspected sites to a minimum, so as not to interfere with Iran’s “military or other national security activities.”

In an effort to adhere to that pledge, the U.S.-led P5+1 negotiators yielded to a “request” process that allows Iran abundant time to delay and impede any possible inspection.

Much has been made of the “24-day” time frame that Iran has to review an IAEA request. Many nuclear experts say it gives Iran enough time to get rid of traces of weaponization activity – akin to what it did at Parchin, which, since 2005, has been off-limits to the IAEA and may well remain so. (There are reports Iran will be responsible for providing soil samples from Parchin to inspectors!)

However, what hasn’t been reported is that the 24-day period begins only after Iran receives a request in writing from the IAEA outlining the reasons for the request – that is, letting Iran know precisely what the inspectors are looking for. Not only do the 24 days start well after the IAEA first has suspicions about illicit activity, Iran is given the first crack at “resolving” the IAEA’s concerns! 

In an email exchange, Emily Landau, head of the arms control program at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), explained that “when the IAEA presents its case to Iran and requests clarification, there’s no time limit” stipulated. “If the IAEA is unsatisfied, it may request to inspect the facility, and that’s when the clock starts for counting 24 days.”

While a number of journalists and others have said that at the end of this process, Iran would be required to provide access, there’s nothing in the wording of this section indicating that such access “must” be granted.

As to the NPT’s “additional protocol,” which gives the IAEA authority to carry out short-notice inspections at covert facilities, Iran signed it in 2003, but has never ratified it. The nuclear deal now gives Iran eight more years before it’s required to do so, though, again, there’s nothing to compel Iran to do so.

Iranian officials who’ve been bragging, repeatedly, that they’re not required to, nor will they, open military sites to inspectors know whereof they speak.

Unfortunately, and possibly tragically, U.S. administration officials, however unwittingly, allowed themselves to be played for fools.