Oh good grief:
In a letter to the U.N. nuclear watchdog circulated to member states on Thursday and posted on the agency's website, however, Iran argued that the deal does not require it to ship excess heavy water out of the country.
"Nothing in the (agreement) requires Iran to ship out the excess heavy water which is made available to the international market but has not yet found an actual buyer to which the heavy water needs to be delivered," Iran said.
The deal says all excess heavy water "will be made available for export to the international market based on international prices and delivered to the international buyer".
So it isn't Iran's fault that nobody wants to buy the heavy water or that Iran is producing the heavy water at a rate that exceeds the rate of sales, the Iranians essentially argue. If that was wrong, we would have agreed to it, they say, eh?
So the heavy water can stay in Iran. And the deal slips just a little bit more, getting everyone used to those little "oops" moments.
And the Iranians have a point. The deal itself is the problem as much as Iranian efforts to cheat.
The mullahs may be nutballs but they aren't stupid. Our negotiators were clearly the reverse.
