Earlier this week, Barack Obama committed the United States to a disastrous course of action that ensures the terrorist state of Iran will be allowed, with Western assistance, to build a nuclear weapon. I outlined how Obama lied to the nation about the deal and how the Iranians, themselves, accused Obama of lying about the deal.

A translation of the Iranian version of the agreement is available and to a great extent one has to question whether the United States and Iran were even attending the same meeting. The critical issue, in my view, is the lifting of sanctions. The P5+1 negotiators apparently decided that they were cool with Iran having a nuke. We currently have no control over their enrichment processes, we don’t know for sure how many nuclear sites they have, we are very certain that both research and stockpiling are taking place in Syria and North Korea. Snap inspections by the IAEA will not be allowed leading to the same buffoonery that enabled Iraq to retain chemical weapons stockpiles until they were captured by US troops in 2003 and 2004.

This is what the Iranians say about sanctions:

Removal of Sanctions

According to the reached solutions, after the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action, all of the UN Security Council resolutions will be revoked, and all of the multilateral economic and financial sanctions of the EU and the unilateral ones of the US including financial, banking, insurance, investment, and all related services, including oil, gas, petrochemicals, and automobile industries will be immediately revoked. In addition, nuclear-related sanctions against real and legal individuals, entities, and public and private institutions, including the Central Bank, other financial and banking institutions, SWIFT, shipping and aviation industries of the Islamic Republic of Iran, oil tanker companies, will be immediately removed. Also, the P5+1 member countries are committed to restraining from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions.

International Cooperation       

International nuclear cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran, including with members of the P5+1, will be possible and enhanced in the fields of constructing nuclear power plants, research reactors, nuclear fusion, stable isotopes, nuclear safety, nuclear medicine and agriculture, etc… According to the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action, Iran will also be provided access to the global market and the international trade, finance, technical knowledge and energy sectors.

Schedule for implementing Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action

At the end of this stage of negotiations, the drafting of the Comprehensive Joint Plan of Action will begin in the near future until the timeframe of 10 Tir (July 1). With the finalization of the text, the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action will be adopted as a resolution by the UN Security Council. For the Comprehensive Joint Plan of Action to be binding and executable for all UN member states, this resolution will be approved under Article 41 of Chapter Seven of the UN Charter like the previous resolutions against Iran so that these previous resolutions can be annulled.

The parties to the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action will need a timeframe for preparatory work for the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action once the resolution is approved by the Security Council. After the preparatory phase, and at the same time as the start of Iran’s nuclear-related implementation work, all of the sanctions will be automatically annulled on a single specified day.

In the framework of the reached solutions, violations from the mutually agreed accords contained in the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action by any one country will have predetermined mechanisms of response.

What Iran is saying is that an agreement will be finalized by July 1. At that time the agreement will be presented to the UN for ratification and when it is ratified all sanctions, by the UN and by the negotiating partners, will be immediately lifted. Compare and contrast with what Obama said:

In return for Iran’s actions, the international community has agreed to provide Iran with relief from certain sanctions — our own sanctions, and international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.  This relief will be phased as Iran takes steps to adhere to the deal.  If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place.  Meanwhile, other American sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, its human rights abuses, its ballistic missile program, will continue to be fully enforced.

Iran does not refer to a phased deal. Given that Russia and China — and the United States — have been acting as Iranian proxies in the negotiations it is hard to see what sanctions will be “snapped back into place.” Indeed, if Iran keeps its side of the bargain it will have sanctions lifted AND it will have a nuclear weapon well within one year. The sanctions that Obama claims will remain in place, those for human rights abuses, terrorism, and a ballistic missile program are hardly acknowledged by the Iranians and are so inextricably interwoven with the nuclear sanctions that it will be impossible to sort them out. (As an aside, doesn’t it seen rather bizarre that we are leaving sanctions for terrorism in place while negotiating a path to make Iran a nuclear power? Shouldn’t we give Cuba and North Korea the same deal?)

The way this will play out is obvious. Iran will stonewall inspections. Obama will use his existing authority to declare success and remove sanctions. The Senate Democrats, who are much more concerned with Obama’s legacy than a nuclear weapon being popped over a US or allied city, will prevent the Congress from interjecting itself into the process. Within five years Iran will test a nuclear weapon.