Nuclear Issues

Ash Carter Guest Hosts MSNBC’s Squawk Box

Two specks of uranium might determine whether or not the Iran nuclear deal succeeds or fails. The U.S. government and the IAEA must not let the issue of the Parchin particles drop. In matters atomic, even minutiae can be critical.

The attacks in Brussels last month were a stark reminder of the terrorists’ resolve, and of our continued vulnerabilities, including in an area of paramount concern: nuclear security.

The attackers struck an airport and the subway, but some Belgian investigators believe they seemed to have fallen back on those targets because they felt the authorities closing in on them, and that their original plan may have been to strike a nuclear plant. A few months ago, during a raid in the apartment of a suspect linked to the November attacks in Paris, investigators found surveillance footage of a senior Belgian nuclear official. Belgian police are said to have connected two of the Brussels terrorists to that footage.

Senior Fellow William Tobey testified on March 17, 2016, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on "Reviewing the Administration’s Nuclear Agenda."

The July deal did not solve the Iran nuclear program. At best it delayed it. America and her allies, however, must join together quickly to prepare for the day in a decade or so when the question will again be upon us.

If Iran can deny inspectors access to military sites, it will create an enormous sanctuary for clandestine nuclear weapons work. The Parchin site alone encompasses hundreds of buildings spread over a dozen square miles. If military sites in Iran are off limits to IAEA inspection, the “strongest nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated” will include the largest loophole in arms control history.

It is past time to disclose and explain Iran’s secret deals with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Although the White House has downplayed the importance of these arrangements, calling them “side deals,” they raise questions that go to the heart of President Obama’s claim that the agreement the six leading powers struck with Iran will deny it a bomb for at least 10 to15 years. These “side” understandings are crucial to evaluating the potential effectiveness of the July agreement, although Secretary of State John Kerry claims not to have read them. A draft of one of them has leaked to the Associated Press, but it raises more questions than it answers.

"The Iran deal is flawed, but its outright rejection would not advance American interests. Congress should plug some holes and mitigate other weaknesses. Most important, it can provide Iran with stronger incentives to comply with the deal."

On July 28, Hudson Institute hosted a timely conversation on the Iran nuclear deal with Senator Tom Cotton and a panel of leading experts including William Tobey of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Hudson Senior Fellows Michael Doran, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith.