Iran deal: The right to despair

The United States and its allies have struck a deal with Iran that effectively ensures that it will be a nuclear state with ballistic missiles in 10 years, assuming Iran adheres to the deal’s terms, which is a very large assumption. And though I’ve only made a preliminary pass at the deal sheet and don’t want to make definitive calls about it, it appears from the language that Iran will have 24 days before it has to allow inspections at its sites, none of which has been shut down or dismantled — which will make cheating unbelievably easy. And, while the president this morning declared that violations would make sanctions “snap back,” the only way they will do so is after a U.N. commission meets and agrees such violations have happened and then imposes them — which you know Russia will never allow. The president and the secretary of state are making large claims for the deal that are not true; the same will be true of all of its signatories, who are seeing Nobel stars in their eyes. This is an infamous day, and while those of us who see Iran’s nuclearization as the threshold threat for the rest of the 21st century will not be silent and will not give up the fight against it, it is appropriate to take a moment to despair that we — the United States and the West — have come to this.