OPINION:
It’s natural for adversaries to each seek a pathway to victory. It is rare, though, for one side to save the other from defeat. President Biden might make just such a foolhardy mistake. By resurrecting the Iran nuclear deal, he would, in effect, give his seal of approval for a dreadful Iranian bomb. At a time when Russia’s Vladimir Putin is eying his own nuclear button, the threat posed by a nut with a nuke has seldom been more glaring.
Mr. Biden’s diplomats in Vienna are reportedly close to closing a new nuclear agreement with representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The pact is said to weaken the terms of the previously flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, negotiated in 2015 by the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China, and was subsequently nullified by then-President Donald Trump in 2018.
JCPOA 2.0 would do little to remedy Iran’s notorious practice of banning nuclear inspectors from military sites, where its scientists and engineers have taken the liberty of circumventing agreed-upon restrictions to nuclear development. The new deal would also lift economic sanctions that froze $100 billion in Iranian assets, and possibly rescind the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, providing President Ebrahim Raisi with the means to redouble his regime’s devilry.
Ominously, a newly empowered Iran would be free to put the finishing touches on its deadly weapons once the deal fully sunsets in 2030. In the meantime, Iran would halt its uranium enrichment process, which the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported is nearly completed. One draft of the agreement, reports NBC News, calls for shipping its fissile stockpile to Russia, yes Russia, for safekeeping. Heaven forbid.
The world is currently witnessing the existential threat posed by a nuclear-armed Russia. Its unstable president has hinted at a willingness to unleash his Doomsday arsenal on any party who dares to interfere with the annihilation of his Ukrainian neighbors. Indeed, his nation’s nuclear playbook includes a diabolical “escalate to deescalate” protocol, which legitimizes the use of nukes to break an enemy’s will to resist, thus shortening the duration of war.
Mr. Putin’s wanton nuclear conduct was clearly demonstrated by his military’s attack Thursday on a Ukrainian nuclear power installation — the largest in Europe — which caught fire. Thankfully, the resulting damage did not cause a meltdown and endanger the entire European continent — but it could have. With Ukraine’s prevailing winds in spring out of the east and southeast, according to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, radioactive fallout could also have blown back in Mr. Putin’s face.
Russia’s recklessness demonstrates the danger of nuclear weapons in irresponsible hands. Americans can only hope Mr. Biden grasps the lesson of this moment: Any deal that fails to block Iran’s pathway to a nuclear bomb is likely to present the rogue nation with a Putinesque chance to haunt humanity.
The world already has enough nuts with nukes.
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