The Administration Let Iran Do What?!?

For lawmakers not convinced that the Iran deal is a rotten deal (in large part because it guarantees that Iran will develop an industrial-size nuclear weapons program and assistance in upgrading its aggressive action in the region), the revelation of the side letter concerning the Parchin military site might do it.

This takes “trust us” to a whole new level and severely undermines the administration’s claim that the deal has a super-duper inspection scheme. In fact, as the report notes, “Olli Heinonen, in charge of the Iran investigation as IAEA deputy director general from 2005 through 2010, says he can think of no similar arrangement — a country essentially allowed to carry out much of the probe of suspicions against it.”

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Mark Dubowitz, a widely respected sanctions guru, tells me, “A major part of the story that hasn’t been reported is what kind of precedent this establishes for access to future military sites.” He continues: “Is this technical arrangement a one-off as it relates to Parchin or will this be the new normal for all other military sites? The former is concerning enough. The latter would be truly alarming. Since Iran repeatedly has claimed that the IAEA isn’t getting ‘access’ to military sites, is this technical arrangement how a compromise was with Iran reached?” In short, he concludes, “If that’s the case, no weapons inspectors will ever see the inside of an Iranian military base.”

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