{"id":12130,"date":"2018-05-13T03:46:21","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T03:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=12130"},"modified":"2018-05-14T03:54:10","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T03:54:10","slug":"what-torching-iran-deal-says-about-us-commitment-to-nuclear-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-torching-iran-deal-says-about-us-commitment-to-nuclear-security\/","title":{"rendered":"What torching Iran deal says about US commitment to nuclear security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott L. Montgomery<\/a>, University of Washington<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump pulling the U.S. out<\/a> of the Iran nuclear deal flies in the face of hundreds of inspections<\/a> that showed Iran was meeting its end of the bargain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a move that many leaders in the international community opposed, including all other parties to the deal \u2013 France, Germany, the U.K., Russia and China. Trump\u2019s decision has generated a firestorm of commentary<\/a> about what may come next.<\/p>\n

But what stands out to me as a researcher<\/a> on energy policy and nuclear policy, is what it says about the agency that carried out the inspections \u2013 the International Atomic Energy Agency<\/a> \u2013 and its mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Inspections in Iran<\/h2>\n

In July 2015, after the Iran deal was signed, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution that requested the IAEA carry out<\/a> the monitoring and verifying of Iran\u2019s compliance with its nuclear commitments. Between January 2016 and February 2018, the agency conducted more than 400 site visits and dozens of unannounced<\/a>, or \u201csnap\u201d inspections. It installed cameras and employed satellites to perform surveillance work. <\/p>\n

The visits<\/a> covered more than 190 buildings, and the agency\u2019s investigations used hundreds of thousands of images. From this extensive activity, the IAEA repeatedly declared<\/a>, up through the most recent director\u2019s report of March 2018, that Iran was in compliance. <\/p>\n

None of this is affected in the least by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s recent presentation<\/a> about Iran\u2019s nuclear program, which was based on information dating from<\/a> well before the Iran deal was even conceived.<\/p>\n

And yet, Trump referenced the Israeli intelligence documents as \u201cdefinitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie,\u201d in his speech<\/a> announcing the U.S. was leaving the agreement.<\/p>\n

By pulling out of the deal, Trump discounts the IAEA\u2019s findings and signals to the world that he has little faith in it. As I see it, he is effectively saying it cannot be trusted to perform its most critical work in nuclear security.<\/p>\n

Further, Trump\u2019s action suggests that officials and intelligence agencies of all other parties to the Iran deal are gullible. Trump\u2019s position is ironic, given that the IAEA was an invention of the U.S.<\/a> It is not, however, unprecedented.<\/p>\n

US commitment to nuclear security<\/h2>\n

In 2002, the Bush administration claimed Iraq was building a nuclear arsenal. They stated that the results<\/a> of IAEA inspections, which indicated no evidence of weapons, could not be trusted. History has since shown<\/a> the Bush administration was wrong about the accuracy of the IAEA\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\"TheWhat, in the end, may really stick is the repeated example of U.S. leaders invalidating a crucial instrument for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. I would argue that Trump has deepened the world\u2019s dangers two-fold, by walking away from a successful nuclear deal and by showing a lack of respect for a key aspect of the IAEA\u2019s mission to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.<\/p>\n

Scott L. Montgomery<\/a>, Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott L. Montgomery, University of Washington President Donald Trump pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal flies in the face of hundreds of inspections that showed Iran was meeting its end of the bargain. It\u2019s a move that many leaders in the international community opposed, including all other parties to the deal \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":12131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[4481,2122,4471,4482,574,3064,2197,1602],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12132,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130\/revisions\/12132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}