Iran Had to "Destroy" the Reactor in Order to Save It

Behold the glorious Iran nuclear deal! Perhaps we have to save the deal for sixty days in order to destroy it.

Iran disabled the Arak reactor but retained the ability to restore it:

Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), longstanding demands for a permanent prohibition on reprocessing activities and the full dismantlement of Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor was replaced with an Iranian commitment to forgo work on such reactors for 15 years and an international commitment to help Iran “modernize” its existing reactor.

Iran agreed to disable the reactor by pouring concrete into its core on the promise of retrofitting the facility to a design that produces far less plutonium. Five years later, however, Iran retains its ability to return the reactor to a more threatening course at any time. Last year, Iran’s top nuclear official revealed that the regime had negotiated in bad faith – concealing spare tubes it can use to build a new reactor core.

Huh. Iran retained the ability to restore the core of the reactor?

Who could have seen problems with the deal's plans for the Arak reactor?

Here's an interesting provision in Annex 1 about the redesign[ed], safer Arak reactor. It will be designed not to produce weapon grade plutonium in normal operation. Pray tell, in what type of operation can it produce weapon grade plutonium, how hard is it to shift to that type of operation. and could the IAEA detect temporary changes in operation?

The calandria (a Canadian-designed reactor) will be removed from the existing reactor under construction, kept in Iran, and filled with concrete to make it unusable. I assume filling it with concrete does not make it unusable even if it takes time. Why doesn't the agreement include destroying the calandria?

On page 22, it is noted that the West will help build the new Arak plant. Although Iran is in charge of the construction. How nice.

So Iran filled the calandria (the core, as the article calls it) with concrete rather than destroy it. And Iran secretly kept spare tubes to rebuild the core of the reactor.  

Thanks Obama! With no small assist from that titan of diplomacy, our own Spongespine Spandexpants, of course.

And now we get to the really interesting part as the author of that first article says we should issue another waiver on the Arak plant only if the Europeans are serious about triggering "snapback" sanctions that the Iran nuclear deal says will automatically snap back into place if Iran violates the deal:

In January, reportedly at the urging of the Trump administration, the E3 took the first step toward a UN snapback by invoking the JCPOA’s dispute resolution mechanism.  If European leaders are seriously considering taking the final step – accusing Iran of violating its nuclear commitments under the deal – they will want to appear to be the aggrieved parties who faithfully upheld the agreement until the end. By pointing to their work at Arak, European capitals could say they are upholding their commitments, but Iran is not.

Across all of Iran--and beyond--how much more is Iran cheating on the deal? Remember, they don't have to get away from it forever. Just long enough to be freed of international scrutiny.

But I don't think that snapback provisions are legal and I don't think China and Russia (heck, France might refuse to recognize that dilution of their power) will allow them to go through (and this is quoting my post that had the calandria bits):

Can the United Nations charter be amended by this deal to carve out an exception to the veto power of the 5 permanent members of the Security Council?

Here's what the Chapter V, Article 27 of the UN charter says about the veto:

1. Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote.
2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members.
3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.

Because I can see the Russians or Chinese objecting to the whole notion that UNSC resolutions can be reimposed after 30 days of inaction by the Security Council. What do we do when the Russians and Chinese (probably correctly, but it has been a long time since I had an international law class) argue that this deal provision is invalid and that no sanctions resolutions can go into effect without 9 votes, including the concurrence of the five permanent members, and they will not go along with it?

If renewing the Arak waiver will get us to the point of testing the validity of the snapback sanctions theory of the deal in the face of the UN Security Council's powers, what the heck. What's another sixty days of pretending this deal provision works?