Iran wins more time and money for its nuclear ambitions -- By Reza Kahlili, The Washington Times

 (Illustration by Alexander Hunter, The Washington Times)


The Western powers once again play the fool 

For more than a decade, Iran has successfully bought time from its nuclear detractors by negotiating in bad faith as it worked feverishly to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran now has bought six more months.

As I have reported many times, the regime's strategists have always thought that the more their nuclear program is expanded, the less likely the West could demand its total dismantlement and that the Obama administration's threat of a military option is a bluff. The worst the West could do would be to impose economic sanctions, they felt. They also thought that at some point, the West would come to accept Iran's nuclear program at some level and reverse the sanctions.

The regime's strategists have been proven correct.

An interim deal reached Sunday in Geneva between the Islamic Republic and the "P5+1" world powers (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France — plus Germany) in reality accepted the Iranian nuclear program, allowing the continuation of enrichment with more than 10,000 centrifuges despite six U.N. Security Council resolutions for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment. The Geneva agreement calls on Iran to curtail only parts of its nuclear program in return for the easing of some sanctions.

Those sanctions — from the U.N., the United States and the European Union — had all but brought the mullah-dominated nation to its knees economically. Inflation is rampant, unemployment skyrocketing and civil unrest boiling below the surface.

Now, pressure will ease that financial disaster for six months, giving the regime more time to achieve nuclear-armed status. On Monday, Iran announced that as part of the deal, the United States has unfrozen $8 billion of its assets.

What are we to accomplish in the next six months in return? The radical leaders ruling Iran have been quite clear that enrichment will never stop.

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