Dodging the Iranian nuclear bomb -- By Reza Kahlili, The Washington Times

(Illustration by Greg Groesch, The Washington Times)


Only France had the fortitude to thwart ‘a sucker’s deal’ 

Had France not balked, the P5+1 group of world powers might have allowed Iran to get its foot in the door of the nuclear-armed clubhouse.

"One wants a deal," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday in Geneva as the latest round of negotiations over Iran's illicit nuclear program broke up, "but not a sucker's deal."

Indeed, that's exactly what the Islamic Republic has been playing the world powers as — suckers — for years and years as it seeks to buy time to develop nuclear weapons and force the West to accept its nuclear status as a fait accompli.

Iran's latest bait-and-switch ploy began earlier this year as the regime's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his ruling cadre of mullahs changed tactics to buy the precious time needed to complete their goal of becoming the undisputed power in the region. They have mastered the nuclear fuel cycle and are steps away from nuclear weaponization.

The new tactics to achieve that? Present a new face of Iran to the world, one of sincere moderation and reasonableness, someone unlike the boastful bully, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

So the mullahs settled on Hassan Rouhani to become the new president in June's elections. Mr. Rouhani would give the Iranian people something to hope for, someone who would change course and help end the crush of the staggeringly strict sanctions. The Iranian economy is on the brink of collapse and so, too, feared the mullahs, might their reign be. That fear is so palpable that the theocracy has drawn up plans to deploy Revolutionary Guard, Basij and internal security forces against its own people to brutally suppress any uprising against the worsening economic crisis.

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