What impact will Israel’s stunning revelations on Iran have on the nuclear deal?

Netanyahu dropped a massive intelligence bomb. What effect will it have on the Iran nuclear deal?

By: Daniel Krygier, World Israel News

During a dramatic press conference in Tel Aviv on Monday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped a massive intelligence bomb: Iran “lied big time” about its nuclear weapons program. In what will surely rank as one of the greatest achievements in intelligence history, Israeli spy agency Mossad managed to steal and smuggle over 100,000 documents, files and photos from Iran’s top-secret atomic archive in Tehran. The staggering amount of incriminating information obtained by Israel debunks the Iranian lie that it never had a nuclear weapons program.

Unsurprisingly, Israel’s international critics were quickly dismissive, claiming that Israel had not revealed any new or incriminating information regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, summarized the European position:

“…I have not seen from Prime Minister Netanyahu arguments for the moment on non-compliance, meaning violation by Iran of its nuclear commitments under the [nuclear] deal.”

However, the documents that Israel obtained do not merely prove the existence of Project Amad, Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program, which Iran’s leaders deny had ever existed. Netanyahu also revealed that even after the nuclear deal was signed, Iran continued to preserve and expand its nuclear weapons knowhow for future use. Key people from the secret Amad project, including its leader, professor Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, were moved to a new organization within the Iranian defense ministry, where their nuclear work consists of both an overt and a covert component. Iran also lied by failing to come clean in 2015 to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as required by the nuclear deal.

Supporters of the Iran nuclear deal fail to explain why the Iranian regime carefully hid its comprehensive nuclear archive, if indeed it is in compliance, as the EU and others claim.

The Iran deal is fatally flawed because Iran does not permit unannounced international inspections of its nuclear sites. The implication is cynically clear: Iran will never be officially caught violating the deal because the Europeans, the Russians and the Chinese have accepted a mechanism that prevents Iran’s regime from getting caught.

Neither have Mogherini and other supporters of the deal explained why Iran, if it has only peaceful intentions, insists on keeping its secret underground nuclear facilities and continues to develop its long-range missiles fitted for nuclear payloads. The Iran deal does not contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as claimed by EU and others. Quite the contrary. It merely freezes them in time. Even if Iran complies with the deal, its sunset clauses give the Ayatollah regime a clear path to nuclear weapons, once the nuclear deal expires in 2025.

Did Obama act in bad faith?

Former US President Barack Obama reportedly already knew the key details reported by Netanyahu. If this is indeed correct, it would suggest that not only Iran, but also Obama acted in bad faith when signing the nuclear deal.

As Dan Shapiro, Obama’s US Ambassador to Israel, told Israel’s Army Radio Monday evening, after Netanyahu’s presentation, “All the information regarding the deal was already known.”

However, “It is possible that this is the first time that some of the information was revealed to the public, and maybe that will influence public opinion,” the former ambassador conceded.

The key question is: What impact will Israel’s stunning intelligence achievement have on the future of the Iran nuclear deal? The Europeans, the Russians and the Chinese will likely continue to support the Iran deal, which will prove that that they will not let incriminating facts get in the way of their policies and commercial greed. Mogherini’s denial of the incriminating evidence against Iran indicates that suicidal commercial greed comes before even Europe’s own security. This should concern European citizens. Iran’s ballistic missiles can already reach Moscow and parts of the European Union.

Unlike Obama’s ideological cohorts, the Trump administration’s embrace of documented reality could indicate the beginning of the end of the disastrous Iran nuclear deal.

FakhrizadehIran nuclear dealObama AdministrationProject AmadTrump Iran