Did The Iran Nuclear Deal Make The Middle East Safer?

Did The Iran Nuclear Deal Make The Middle East Safer?

29 April 2018

IRC And Agenices

This article is part of "The myths of JCPOA," a series of articles that answers major questions surrounding the nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers in 2015.

With the May 12 deadline looming close, where U.S. President Donald Trump will be deciding on the fate of the nuclear accord forged between the Iranian regime and world powers in 2015, proponents of leniency and rapprochement with the regime of Iran have been putting forth different arguments to defend the flawed deal and the extension of a policy of appeasement toward the mullahs ruling Iran.

Among those arguments is that the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has made the Middle East region a safer place. An op-ed in this regard, published in the New York Times, wrote, "Imagine all the mutually contaminating civil wars and internecine conflicts that rage across the Middle East today. Then turn the dial and add the possibility of a regional nuclear arms race triggered by Iran dashing for a bomb. That is the scenario which the agreement has helped to prevent."

This argument can be best described as putting the cart before the horse. Part of the premise is true, which is that the Middle East region, namely Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, is engulfed in violence and conflict. But at the heart of all those conflicts is the Iranian regime, which owes its survival to sowing the seeds of chaos in neighboring countries.

At the time the nuclear negotiations were initiated in 2013, the Iranian regime was hard hit by severe economic sanctions, a strong leverage for the international community to force the regime to cut back on its regional meddling and domestic human rights violations. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), stipulated at the time, "Evicting the regime from the Middle East and preventing its regional meddling… is a fundamental principle that needs to be included in any agreement."

But the world powers negotiating with the regime decided to narrowly focus on the nuclear dossier, tacitly giving the mullahs free pass on their other illicit activities.

Knowing that its counterparts' sole focus was the nuclear negotiations, the Iranian regime proceeded with ramping up its foreign interventions to make up for its strategic retreats on the nuclear front. And the JCPOA gave the Iranian regime billions of dollars to spend on its terrorist and extremist ambitions, such as sending weapons to Yemen, recruiting militias in Iraq and propping up the Assad regime in Syria with a constant flow of money, troops and arms.

Meanwhile, the regime virtually spent nothing from the nuclear deal bonanza to fix its broken economy, a fact that was accentuated when protests and uprisings broke out across the country earlier this year over economic grievances and financial corruption in the government.

Rogue states such as the Iranian regime want nuclear weapons as a deterrent, a power leverage, a last resort. But inciting violence and sectarian conflicts in neighboring countries is the bread-and-butter of its everyday survival. That's why, as the Iranian resistance has time and again emphasized, the threat of Iran's fundamentalist ideology is by far more dangerous than its nuclear ambitions.

So it is only fair to conclude that the JCPOA and its failure to address the multitude of threats the Iranian regime poses to the region and across the globe was a major contributing factor to instability and insecurity in the Middle East. Only a multi-pronged approach which takes into consideration the regime's terrorism and human rights violations along with its missile and the nuclear program can contain the threat posed by the mullahs ruling in Tehran.

What shouldn't go unnoticed about Iran & the nuclear deal

With only days left to U.S. President Donald Trump's May 12th Iran nuclear deal deadline, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted a YouTube video raising allegations and even resorting to low-level remarks aimed at the U.S. President.

What must not go unnoticed after recent revelations of Iran's clandestine nuclear weapons program is the fact that Tehran has actually not been loyal to the spirit of the Iran deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The JCPOA spirit calls for promoting peace and stability, in which Iran has a dismal record considering its ongoing meddling in Syria and Yemen, alongside its destructive role in Iraq and Lebanon.

Furthermore, the IAEA has been utterly denied any access to military sites where Iran is most likely cloaking its nuclear weapons program related work related. This goes against any claims of "very strict monitoring of the facts" as recently raised by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

Parchin is one particular site where Iran is known to have carried out tests with nuclear warheads detonators.

Iran raised and sanitized Parchin for years before its own engineers took environment samples, later examined by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This also goes against the "anytime, anywhere" concept claimed by former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry.

The "IAEA detected the presence of anthropogenically processed ('man-made') particles of natural uranium" in the samples, according to the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

Interesting is the fact that the IAEA later acknowledged not taking the step to ask the Iranians access military sites, knowing Tehran's refusal would leave the agency no choice but determining Iran in non-compliance with the JCPOA.

Additionally, the fact that a secret archive of sensitive files and disks documenting Iran's path to produce nuclear weapons, coming after the JCPOA implementation is concrete proof Iran again violated the controversial agreement.

Paragraph T of Annex 1 of the JCPOA clearly bans Tehran from "designing, developing, acquiring, or using computer models to simulate nuclear explosive devices."

Tehran hiding such highly important documents and evidence raises further suspicions about the regime's supposed devotion and cooperation with the JCPOA altogether.

Iran is also on the ropes and facing accusations of seeking to outsource its nuclear weapons programs in North Korea and Syria. Der Spiegel in Germany and the Institute for Science and International Security both published a variety of investigative articles shedding light specifically on an underground nuclear site in the town of Qusayr, Syria, near Lebanon's border.

Iran has also been very active in procuring material from Germany needed for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Both such measures are in violation of the Iran nuclear deal.

A 2017 German intelligePhotonce report issued by the State of Hamburg emphasizes "there is no evidence of a complete about-face in Iran's atomic policies in 2016."

Iran had also acquired "51 special valves" intended for the "sanctioned Arak heavy water reactor," a facility able to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, the same report revealed.

These are only a small number of JCPOA violations by the Iranian regime and the list continues as we speak. Iranian officials and apologists are raising a large amount of brouhaha about the consequences of the U.S. pulling out of the accord.

The necessary conclusion is that Iran desperately needs the JCPOA to remain intact and is terrified of such an outcome. This is of grave importance for Tehran, knowing the already simmering atmosphere of protests inside the country will only escalate and threaten the very pillars of their fragile rule.

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