As details of a proposed pact leaked out of the Geneva talks Monday, administration officials told us they will ask the world to judge any final nuclear agreement on the technical aspects only, not on whether the deal will spur Iranian reform.
"The only consideration driving what is part of any comprehensive agreement with Iran is how we can get to a one-year breakout time and cut off the four pathways for Iran to get enough material for a nuclear weapon, period," said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. "And if we reach an agreement, that will be the basis upon which people should judge it -- on the technical merits of it, not on anything else."
This is a long way from the grand aspirational sentiments expressed by President Barack Obama
Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back...
back in 2009, when he announced his intention to engage Iran. Obama, speaking on the Persian new year celebration of Nowruz, said he wanted "the Islamic Theocratic
Republicof Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations."
Back then, many advocates for engagement argued that the nuclear deal could unlock the key to moderating Iran's rogue behavior.
This issue has become all the more pertinent with reports from Geneva that the outlines of a 10- or 15-year nuclear deal with Iran would gradually lift some of the restrictions on the program in the final years, if Iran was meeting its obligations. The News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported that negotiators in the six-party talks were discussing the prospect of allowing the Iranians to keep 6,500 centrifuges for enrichment as a compromise and operate more of them over time if they were living up to the terms of the deal.
A similar line of thinking was promoted in the 1990s, when the U.S. struck a deal with
North Korea to put severe limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Of course, Pyongyang only increased its internal repression and nuclear ambitions.