US official: Many concerns about Iran deal based on ‘myth’
Antony Blinken warns against keeping interim arrangement with Tehran as alternative to comprehensive agreement
Rebecca Shimoni Stoil is the Times of Israel's Washington correspondent.
WASHINGTON — Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken heralded the “unprecedented inspections” currently underway in Iran under the interim nuclear agreement, and challenged opponents of a nuclear deal to come up with a better alternative to any comprehensive agreement reached by the P5+1 member states during a Friday afternoon keynote speech.
“We have negotiated, of course, an interim agreement with Iran that froze and in some places rolled back its nuclear program with unprecedented inspections, with the possibility of a comprehensive solution now before us,” Blinken told the audience at the Center for New American Security’s annual conference.
Blinken, who served as the administration’s point man for Iran talks before a number of Congressional hearings, gave a broad overview of the US’s positions and challenges worldwide, ranging from the world’s growing refugee population to the administration’s efforts to pivot foreign policy towards east Asia.
Less than a week before the deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement, Blinken also sought to calm concerns regarding key aspects of the impending deal.
Blinken reiterated administration assertions that “the deal we’re working towards will close each of Iran’s four pathways toward fissile material” – the uranium enrichment at Natanz and Fordo, the plutonium plant at Arak, and any covert path that Tehran could pursue toward acquiring fissile material.
Arguing that “many [concerns about the deal] are based much more on myth than on fact,” Blinken said that the US demands that a deal “must include monitoring and intrusive transparency measures.”
He dismissed warnings that the deal contains a sunset clause – that Iran will be free to pursue a full-scale industrial uranium enrichment program after a decade of intense monitoring.
“The deal will not expire,” he said, reiterating a point he made in early June during the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee. “There will not be a so-called sunset.” Blinken cited as proof the fact that even after the most stringent terms of a deal expire, Iran will still be required to meet the obligations of the NPT and other anti-proliferation regimes.
The deal, he said, would allow for transparency, and the US will only agree to a deal that guarantees the International Atomic Energy Agency access to relevant sites.
Blinken also delivered warnings against the idea that the US should walk away from a “bad deal” and leave in its stead the interim terms of the Joint Plan of Action. The idea was floated as recently as during a Thursday Senate hearing as a halfway point between signing on to a comprehensive deal and withdrawing completely from talks.
Blinken said that if that happened, the Joint Plan of Action would “sunset immediately,” allowing Iran to “speed towards an industrial-scale program with tens of thousands of centrifuges with no inspections and no visibility into its program.”
“Just like the Joint Plan of Action, any agreement will be subject to legitimate scrutiny,” Blinken assured the audience. “We will not agree to any deal that will not withstand that scrutiny.” At the same time, he challenged critics of the agreement with an obligation to propose a better alternative.
“It is a fantasy to believe that Iran will simply capitulate to our demands if we just ratchet up the sanctions,” Blinken warned. He reiterated administration cautions that if the US followed the path suggested by Senators Robert Menendez and Mark Kirk in threatening Iran with additional sanctions should talks fail, America’s international partners in the sanctions regime would blame America for the talks’ failure.
“The United States – not Iran – could be isolated and the sanctions regime could collapse,” he suggested.
At the same time, Blinken sought to allay fears that the US was preparing to back down on pressure on Iran regarding its human rights record and its state sponsorship of terror.
“Reaching a comprehensive deal does not change our commitment to keeping Iran from driving instability in the region,” Blinken stressed. In recent days, reports suggested that the US might reclassify some sanctions stemming from Iran’s regional sponsorship of terror as nuclear sanctions, in order to be able to lift them as part of a comprehensive deal.
Blinken argued that a comprehensive deal would actually lessen Iran’s regional impact, explaining that “Iran without a nuclear weapon will be less emboldened to take destabilizing actions across the region.”
John Kerry’s deputy, who recently stood in for the secretary of state when he was immobilized with a broken leg, spent a lengthy part of his address discussing that very instability throughout the Middle East.
“In the greater Middle East we’re seeing a period of tectonic change that has brought the older order to collapse,” Blinken said, discussing the weakening of state authority in the region, the resurfacing of sectarianism and the growth of regional rivalries, specifically mentioning the intensification in competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
He acknowledged that while “in the face of such widespread destabilization it is tempting to want some sort of grand American solution that imposes an order,” Americans “need to understand that historical transitions are underway in the Middle East that are not about us.” He noted that while the events “are not about us,” they impact the US and its partners – and that the US will continue to “build our own interests and the capacity of our partners.”
Arguing that ISIS has lost 35 percent of the territory that it held when since anti-ISIS international coalition was formed last year, Blinken said there are indications that a diplomatic process in Syria might be more possible now.
“The critical thing is to use both the changing dynamics on the ground and diplomacy for success in Syria,” Blinken said, asserting that Syrian President Bashar Assad must be “transitioned out” — a term that implies a gradual shift of power, something that Assad has rejected over the almost half-decade of civil war in Syria.
