If the U.S. signs an agreement with Iran, argues Max Boot, the damage done will be irreversible, even by a Republican president disposed to “tear up the treaty”:
Iran, as its leaders have made clear, is expecting an immediate payoff from signing the [nuclear] accords—a payoff that President Obama has vowed to deliver. If leaks are accurate, the President is offering Iran a $50 billion “signing bonus” by offering to unfreeze a large portion of the Iranian oil funds held overseas. . . . While President Obama cannot formally repeal all U.S. sanctions without legislative action, he can suspend most of them, and our allies will eagerly follow suit.
President Obama assures us that if Iran is caught cheating, the sanctions will “snap back,” but it’s impossible to imagine this president ever admitting that his signature achievement—a nuclear accord with Iran—has unraveled. [And even if a subsequent president were to] decide to put all of the U.S. sanctions back into place, . . . Iran could then sprint ahead with a nuclear breakout and lay the blame on the U.S. in the court of international public opinion. In any case, the next president would not be able to reapply the multilateral sanctions that have been the most important element in applying pressure to Iran. . . .
The U.S. would then get the worst of both worlds: Iran already would have been enriched by hundreds of billions of dollars of sanctions relief—and it would be well on its way to fielding nuclear weapons with de-facto permission from the international community. . . .
That makes it all the more imperative to stop a bad agreement now—not two years from now.
More about: Barack Obama, Iran nuclear program, Politics & Current Affairs, Republicans, U.S. Foreign policy