Don't pretend a deal with Iran--let alone a mere memorandum of understanding that promises a deal--solves the mullah problem. At best it buys time.
Any deal with Iran is a problem:
While a possible agreement is reportedly on the table, negotiations for an extended truce and new nuclear framework continue in fits and starts, but the underlying dynamics that have undermined every previous agreement remain firmly in place.
For years, U.S. policy toward Iran has oscillated between maximum pressure and diplomatic engagement. Each approach has produced temporary effects followed by Iranian adaptation and renewed challenge.
The Iranians see talks and deals as a way to preserve their drive for nukes. Indeed, the awful Iran Deal of 2015 had so many holes you could drive a nuke through it. Remember, the deal actually required us to help Iran develop its "peaceful" nuclear capabilities. Capabilities indistinguishable from a weapons program for much of the development path. So end the talk about how Iran didn't enrich more until we ended the awful deal. The deal helped Iran reach the point of bomb-grade levels of enrichment in a breakout move.
Even if the new terms are good and America can enforce the terms, eventually Americans who bizarrely love the mullah regime and see it as a "friend we haven't made yet" will win an American presidential election. Then they will look the other way as Iran violates the deal--if they don't cancel it--and resume shipping money to Tehran.
But in the short run, if we can get a deal that gives us Iran's highly enriched uranium without financial concessions to Iran, that may be all we can get to buy time. Can we get even that?
Have a super sparkly day.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!
