Jeff Dunetz, at The Lid, posted parts of an interesting exchange between Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken regarding the nuclear weapons deal that President Barack Obama is about to conclude with Iran and at which Obama is desperate that Congress not look too closely. The three-hour hearing during which this exchange occurred can be seen on C-SPAN.
The set up question (from my perspective):
Menendez: So let me ask you this, isn’t it true that even the deal that you are striving towards—is not to eliminate any Iranian breakout capability, but to constrain the time in which you’ll get the notice of such breakout capability. Is that a fair statement, yes or no?
Blinken: Yes, it is.
The kicker [emphasis added]:
Menendez: Okay, so we’re not eliminating Iran’s ability to break out. We’re just getting alarm bells, and the question is how long are we going to get those alarm bells for. Now, isn’t it also true that the administration cannot lift sanctions, that it can only waive them under the present law, yes or no?
Blinken: That’s largely correct.
Menendez: So now the Iranians are going to make a deal in which this president may waive sanctions but the next president of the United States, whoever that may be, may decide you know what, this is not in our interests because it’s only going to give us a limited period of time and they’re going to go ahead and say sorry we’re not waiving the sanctions anymore. And that the Iranians are willing to make the hard decisions that they agreed to make that they have been unwilling to make for 18 months because I heard this movie’s been played before.
What this makes clear to me is that the Iranians have successfully used “negotiations” to stall and delay to the point that they’re now within two years of just that breakout. Having reached that point, does anyone really think resumed/additional sanctions will matter to the Iranian government?
No, having reached breakout, Iran will break out, will build their nuclear weapons. It’s a short step from there to use (they’ve long held that Israel must be wiped from the map) and deployment to terrorist clients and terrorist purchasers for their use.
h/t Power Line