Iran plans to reopen closed nuclear sites in violation of nuclear agreement
I can't wait for those Iran sanctions to "snap back" into place. Can you?
The top leadership in Iran has instructed its atomic research organization to prepare to reopen nuclear sites shuttered by the nuclear agreement.
If Iran goes through with this, it will scuttle the agreement and force President Obama to reimpose sanctions.
Or not.
Washington Free Beacon:
Ali Larijani, the leader of Iran’s parliament, requested this week that the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization prepare a plan to reopen nuclear enrichment facilitates that had been shutdown as part of the effort to limit Tehran’s research into nuclear weapons technology, according to comments carried in Iran’s state-controlled media.
Iranian leaders are displeased with a recent United Nations report chastising the Islamic Republic for violating international agreements prohibiting the country’s work on ballistic missiles.
The U.N. described these repeated test launches as not consistent with international accords. Iranian leaders dismissed the report as “biased.”
Iranian lawmakers recently passed legislation in June 2015, mandating the country preserve its nuclear infrastructure if more sanctions are placed on the country.
“It is necessary for the Atomic Energy Organization to act in compliance with the law passed on the reopening of the nuclear plant to enrich uranium proportionate to the country’s needs and prepare a plan and keeps the [parliament] posted on it,” Larijani said.
The Iranian leader further chided the United States for pursuing “diversionary actions” aimed at undermining the nuclear agreement.
“While regretting the U.N. secretary general’s move, the Majlis warn the U.S. administration, the House of Representatives, and the Senate that diversionary actions against the nuclear deal have reached a point where Iran has no other option but to retaliate,” he said.
It may be a bluff to get the Obama administration to roll over on the ballistic missile tests. Or the Iranians have accurately gauged the mood of the Security Council, where the idea of reimposing sanctions on Tehran is a non-starter. So Iran would be able to continue with its bomb research while enjoying the benefits of the lifting of most international sanctions.
Here's Rep. Peter Roskam on the implications of the recently revealed documents showing that Iran will be able to vastly upgrade its centrifuge program years ahead of where the administration claimed it could.
Secret documents obtained by the Associated Press show that key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear procurement efforts will be lifted in a decade, putting Iran within six months of a nuclear bomb.
The Washington Free Beacon disclosed on Wednesday that lawmakers critical of the administration’s diplomacy with Iran were kept in the dark about the agreement.
The documents also call into question public claims made by Obama administration officials about the methods by which Iranian enrichment activities would be curtailed.
“Of course the administration has not told lawmakers this and of course it’s sadly predicable,” Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) said to the Free Beacon on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday. “There’s no celebration in the fact that the administration has gotten this [deal] wrong at conceivably every level. It is severe news and it has to be dealt with.”
Roskam went on to state that these documents invalidate the entirety of the nuclear deal.
In a less partisan world, Democratic senators who kept the Senate from voting the treaty down should be livid at being lied to by the president. But while the secret documents have roiled Washington, most of the media has ignored them and continues pushing the narrative that the deal is the best thing since sliced bread. Democrats don't even have to comment about the issue, because no one will be asking them about it.
The Iranians may or may not blow up the agreement by reopening closed facilities. But it's absolutely clear who has the upper hand, and it isn't President Barack Obama.