Defense-minded conservatives were a bit shocked when President Trump announced that he was pursuing a new nuclear weapons deal with Iran. We know that when the ayatollahs aren’t shouting “Death to America” — which they say is a policy, not a chant — they are lying about their intent to build nuclear weapons.
Credible reports say that Tehran is plotting Trump’s assassination. To that he has barely reacted. We also know that the ayatollahs will never give up their nuclear weapons program — and the missiles to deliver them — peacefully. So what is Trump’s plan for Iran?
On April 14 the president said, “Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. ” Asked if a U.S. option would include military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said, “Of course it does.” And Trump added to those threats saying that if the nuclear talks failed, it would be “a very bad day for Iran.”
The president had re-initiated his “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against the Iranian economy on February 4 very quickly after his second term commenced. The effectiveness of that is apparently much deflated because several nations are trading with Iran and helping its economy succeed if not flourish.
A Saturday Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out that Iran’s exports aren’t suffering from Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. According to that report, Iran is exporting about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day with about 90 percent of it going to China. In contrast, at the end of Trump’s first term Iranian oil exports were about 300,000 barrels per day.
Several nations besides than China are trading with Iran. According to a World Bank report, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq import Iranian goods. Germany, China, Turkey, India, and the UAE also import Iranian goods.
Last week, the president said that any country or person that buys Iranian petrochemicals will not be allowed to do business with the U.S. Is he serious about cutting off trade with China or with the UAE? Simply put, he can’t be.
Trump is making several demands of Iran in the nuclear talks, principal among them that they do not enrich uranium. The Iranians already have a stockpile of uranium enriched to about 60 percent which is just short of weapons-grade of 90 percent. (It takes a lot of centrifuge work to enrich uranium to 20 percent. It takes a vastly smaller amount of work to further enrich it to 90 percent.)
There was some brief confusion in the Trump administration when special envoy to Iran Steve Witkoff said that Iran would be able to keep its uranium enrichment facilities but would have to limit the enrichment to a low level. He reversed himself the next day saying that a deal could only be reached if Iran eliminated its uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons facilities.
Iran wants relief from the U.S. sanctions that are barely hurting its economy. From Chinese oil purchases alone it is able to fund international terrorism and keep its economy going at a pace that also enables it to continue its nuclear weapons program.
Iran also wants a guarantee that any future president could not, as Trump did in 2018, cancel the agreement. That can only be done by a treaty that is ratified by the Senate. An Obama-era law, passed after Obama’s 2015 agreement, requires any new nuclear deal with Iran be submitted to the Senate. A friend of mine, at the time a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, agreed that there were several secret side agreements with Iran made by Obama that were never sent to the Senate for review.
Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution requires that no treaty can be ratified without a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which is 66 votes. Even this Senate couldn’t be foolish enough to ratify a treaty with Iran.
Moreover, the 2015 Obama agreement banned U.S. inspectors from Iran’s nuclear sites. The ayatollahs won’t agree to any U.S. inspection and won’t even admit where all of its nuclear sites are located. That is the means by which they limited UN inspectors from inspecting their nuclear sites. (One of the side agreements allegedly prohibited U.S. inspectors and limited UN inspectors to the sites Iran disclosed.)
Trump’s Options
As I wrote above, and have written many times, Iran will never give up its nuclear weapons ambitions peacefully.
Israeli intelligence on Iran is, almost certainly, better than ours. At some point, the Israelis — who would be Iran’s first target for nuclear weapons — will have to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. But even with our — and their — best penetrating bombs it’s very unlikely that the Israelis could destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities because the key sites are undoubtedly buried under mountains. Even with nuclear weapons, the Iranian sites could survive an Israeli strike.
So where do the talks go from here? The president seems intent on getting a deal with Iran, but there is no deal that would guarantee Iran’s future behavior. If the negotiations fail, which they are most likely to do, the president could authorize an Israeli war on Iran that could — not would — destroy its nuclear capabilities. We could, as the president has threatened, strike Iran directly.
As I have written previously, the only choices are between a secret presidential determination authorizing the CIA to attempt to overthrow the ayatollah’s regime and war. We apparently are drifting into a war that will be of an uncertain outcome.
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