Iran's Nuclear Deal Revisited

Here is a rather pessimistic appraisal of the Iranian nuclear deal I mentioned before. The article takes President Bush and the Europeans to task for giving Iran what amounts to a free pass to tacitly develop nuclear weapons just as North Korea has done.

The only question is whether the world is going to do anything about all this. The Europeans are essentially arguing that any deal with the mullahs is better than nothing, given Tehran's repeated threats to withdraw altogether from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But what's really more dangerous: immediate clarity regarding Iran's real intentions, or the country going nuclear with the quiet blessing of the IAEA and the permanent discrediting of the multilateral arms control system?

President Bush needs to pay some overdue attention to Iran now that the election is over, and put the above case to his friend and ally Tony Blair. The model for disarming Iran ought to be the process the two countries have just gone through with Libya's Moammar Gadhafi: unambiguous cooperation, including the handover of all nuclear and WMD-related facilities. Anything less--like the Agreed Framework Part II now on offer--deserves only one response in Washington and London: No deal.