Advertisement

Editorial: Let nuclear talks with Iran play out

 
Published March 4, 2015

The ongoing negotiations by the world's major powers to freeze Iran's nuclear program may ultimately prove futile. But they are the best and perhaps last chance to peacefully resolve a security crisis that threatens Israel and America's other allies and interests across the Middle East. Any deal should be judged on its merits, not on the false set of choices that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sketched out Tuesday in a self-serving address to Congress.

Netanyahu launched a robust attack on the negotiations from his largest stage to date, telling a joint session of Congress that the emerging deal with Iran would pave a path for Tehran to become a nuclear terror. While no agreement has been reached, the United States, Russia, China and the European powers are negotiating with Iran on a deal that would ease international economic sanctions in exchange for Iran freezing its nuclear program for 10 years. By putting the program on hold for a decade, the major powers hope to buy time until the next generation of Iranian leaders, who would presumably be more moderate, can take over and strike a permanent solution.

Netanyahu offered two major arguments: The Iranians cannot be trusted, and the deal is fatally flawed because it wouldn't force Iran to dismantle its existing nuclear facilities. The criticisms are nothing new. But none of the major powers fail to understand that any agreement must include strong controls to verify Iranian compliance. As for Iran's nuclear infrastructure, it's folly to suggest that any deal would reduce Iran's capabilities back to zero. And even if a deal doesn't reduce the time frame for the Iranians to develop a bomb, having no deal certainly doesn't narrow the time frame either. The only thing it does is deny the world's major powers advance warning, because without a deal there would be no inspectors on the ground to sound the alarm.

For all his criticisms, which congressional Republicans are echoing, the prime minister ignored one important point: What is his alternative? Scuttling these negotiations will undercut the Iranian moderates who have pushed Iran's hard-line clerics this far. Tougher sanctions would further hurt the Iranian economy, but they wouldn't stop the nuclear program or destroy Iran's existing facilities. Halting these talks only gives Iran free rein and increases its leverage by reducing the time that Tehran needs to field a nuclear weapon. And that will add to the pressure for the United States or Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike.

Netanyahu is right that no deal is better than a bad deal. But his unrealistic requirements for a good deal only made Obama's efforts more difficult. With talks on Iran entering a sensitive stage, the responsible course is to let the negotiations play out and then examine whether any deal is strong and verifiable enough to contain Iran's ambitions. This crisis will not disappear on its own, and maintaining the current standoff or increasing sanctions against Iran are not realistic options.