Iran's Mullahs Will Not Abandon Their Nuclear Program

Don't Waste Your Time: Iran's Mullahs Will Not Abandon Their Nuclear Program

Majid Rafizadeh

• Tehran has played this game before: Agree to talks. Make vague promises. Extract sanctions relief. Then quietly continue nuclear development under the radar. This formula has worked for more than two decades. Right now, the only reason Iran is talking is to stall, to promise just enough to prevent America from striking it -- "We are almost there!" -- to keep its regime and avoid seeing its uranium centrifuges and enrichment sites blasted to rubble. The regime does not want war -- but it also cannot accept total nuclear disarmament.

• The Islamic Republic has smoothly outmaneuvered every administration. It has accepted deals to avoid confrontation, then quietly violated them. With each round of negotiations, Iran gained what it needed -- time, money, legitimacy -- and gave away nothing it could not reverse.

• Worse, Iranian officials have themselves confirmed what skeptics have long argued: that the regime's nuclear program was always military in nature. Former parliamentary speaker Ali Motahhari openly admitted in an interview that the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities were initially designed to build weapons, not generate electricity. That was not a slip of the tongue. It was a rare moment of honesty from a system built on lies.

• [W]orse yet, [the regime] could announce one day that it already possesses several nuclear bombs -- and that there is nothing anyone can do about it. Will the world then be forced to live with a nuclear-armed theocracy that sponsors terrorism, oppresses its people, and seeks to export its ideology across the region? That does not sound like a cheery future to accept.

• The Islamic Republic has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith. It has lied, manipulated and deceived at every turn. Hoping for a different outcome, unfortunately, is self-deceptive make-believe.

• Negotiations only serve to give Iran what it wants: time and space to complete its nuclear project. Axios reported on April 10 that "sources said the Iranians think reaching a complex and highly technical nuclear deal in two months is unrealistic and they want to get more time on the clock to avoid an escalation."

• After watching what happened to Libya after it gave up its nuclear weapons program, and to Ukraine when it gave up its warheads. Iran's regime could hardly have any intention of abandoning their quest for the bomb. Diplomacy will not stop them. Appeasement will not deter them. The only solution, sadly, seems to be force. If the US and Israel fail to act now, we will soon be facing a world where the Islamic Republic of Iran has crossed the nuclear threshold and commands its bombs. Then what?

  
  

  In recent weeks, the Trump administration has called for direct talks with Iran, in the apparent belief that a fresh deal -- tougher, broader and more binding than the Obama administration's 2105 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- could prevent Iran from an imminent nuclear weapons breakout.

  Unfortunately, the Islamic Republic of Iran has never been thrillingly honest about its nuclear ambitions, although, in fairness, an Iranian "senior aid" has already let it be known that the regime might "expel UN inspectors if the threat persists" and transfer "stocks of enriched uranium to secret locations."

  
  

  Iran's acceptance of talks is a tactic, not a transformation. Cornered by growing U.S. and Israeli threats, as well as unprecedented isolation, the mullahs seem, as always, to be seeking to buy time and ease the pressure. Tehran only negotiates when it is desperate.

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