COUNTERPOINT-The famous adage of thinking globally, but acting locally applies to the current debate over US foreign policy toward Iran. This issue is hardly remote from Los Angeles, and the local press, including the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, have opened up a serious debate on the proposed nuclear deal between Iran on one side, and the P5+1 countries on the other: the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. A “framework” for a final agreement was announced on April 2. The LA Times immediately supported the deal and called for giving it a chance. The LA Daily News noted the deal extracted critical concessions from Iran, but worried that it would project U.S. weakness.
Meanwhile the Los Angeles Jewish Journal strongly panned the deal in a column by its publisher, David Suissa, who called the framework “a dangerous lemon.” But Suissa distorts most aspects of the framework agreement. To promote a serious local discussion over the US government’s rapprochement with Iran, I offer a counterpoint to his arguments.
Suissa says that Iran was “two or three months” from nuclear breakout, meaning the country had enough 90% enriched uranium to build a bomb. But despite the Chicken Little warnings, Iran was never just a few months from breakout. Iran had some 20% enriched uranium before the 2013 “interim” agreement (that kick-started the talks that led to the April 2 framework agreement) in which Iran agreed to neutralize its 20% enriched uranium and promised not to enrich above 5% used in power reactors. And even 20% enriched uranium is a long way from 90% needed for a bomb.
Suissa acknowledges that the framework extends Iran’s breakout time to over a year, but belittles that difference, insinuating that no matter what inspection protocol is in place, Iran will still cheat. Not only is there no evidence that Iran will cheat on inspections, but also according to Israel’s newspaper of record, Ha’Aretz, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said his real fear is that Iran will abide by the agreement. In fact, Suissa reaches the belief that Iran with cheat because that is what Israel did when it misled France and the United States about its nuclear reactor in Dimona. Since Israel cheated to develop its nuclear bombs, Suissa assumes that Iran has the same low standards and will also cheat.
Then Suissa belittles the ten-year inspection schedule, suggesting that at the end of that interval Iran will turn its nuclear program inside out in a matter of days. He says that Iran will not have to dismantle any of its nuclear facilities, but Suissa does not acknowledge that under the negotiated framework Iran must convert its facility at Fordow so it can no longer be used to enrich uranium.
Furthermore, enrichment at Iran’s Natanz site will be limited to 3.75%, using outdated centrifuges. Finally, no new enrichment facilities can be built under the deal.
Suissa also says that bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities will be more like the assassination of Osama bin Laden than the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Not likely according to all military experts, including Israel’s. Even limited airstrikes would require a massive military operation that would start with American warplanes destroying Iran’s air defense capabilities using “long-range bombers, drones, electronic warfare, land-based fighter bombers, carrier aircraft, and submarine-launched cruise missiles.” Follow-on airstrikes would then destroy known nuclear facilities, a military action far beyond Israel’s capabilities. Furthermore, the introduction of the new Russian air defense system in Iran further complicates any aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities .
Suissa argues that under the deal “thousands of centrifuges are to be allowed to keep on spinning.” That is true in one sense. The deal allows Iran to use 5,000 old-model centrifuges to enrich uranium, and another 1,000 for research only. What Suissa does not realize is that today Iran has about 19,000 centrifuges, many with up to date technology, so the deal reduces Iran’s enrichment capability to a small fraction of what it has today because of earlier international failures to reach a negotiated settlement with Iran.
Suissa insinuates that Obama is going for this “bad deal” because he is desperate to achieve a foreign policy success. I hope that is the case. The deal that Obama is negotiating stops Iran from building a nuclear bomb, if that was even Iran’s intention, a conclusion challenged by both US and Israel intelligence agencies.
Finally, Suissa worries that Iran will eventually attempt to develop a nuclear bomb. I share that worry. The ultimate driver for Iran to build a nuclear bomb is Israel’s arsenal of 100 or more nuclear bombs, as well as its endless threats to attack Iran. What is needed is a Middle East nuclear-free zone. But I doubt Suissa would support that because it would mean that Israel would be required to give up its nuclear arsenal of nuclear bombs.
In this violent part of the world, diplomacy is the only way to stop a technologically sophisticated country like Iran from developing nuclear bombs to match Israel’s. Obama is well aware that, at most, bombing will only delay Iran for a 2-4 year period, while giving Iran an unchallengeable right to develop nuclear weapons.
While this debate might seem remote in Los Angeles, I think it is important enough for us to not only closely follow the issues, but do all we can to avert another Middle Eastern conflagration.
(Jeff Warner is the Action Coordinator of LA Jews for Peace. He welcomes questions and comments at [email protected].)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 33
Pub: Apr 21, 2015
