The Hollow Core of the Iran Deal

William Tobey, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, writes for the Iran Task Force that the emerging agreement with Iran over its nuclear program will be fatally weakened if it does not address issues of the past military dimensions of the Iranian program. He notes that while the IAEA has reported that Iran undertook a covert military program potentially related to nuclear weapons development and that the United States initially emphasized understanding all aspects of the PMD issue, Secretary of State John Kerry has appeared to back down from this demand, raising the specter that it will not be addressed in the final agreement. He argues that this is a mistake, as the US intelligence community does not have perfect confidence in knowing every aspect of the Iranian nuclear program, failing to understand every aspect of the Iranian program will hinder verification efforts, and the Iranian willingness to come clean on PMD issues is an important indicator of their willingness to comply with a final agreement.