In a new book, James Clapper admitted that the Obama Administration gave up to much in the Iran Deal.
When the final Iran nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—was signed on July 14, I knew that Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu was probably furious, and truthfully, I, too, felt we had given away too much for what we’d gotten from Iran, but at the same time, I still believed the world had just become a lot safer. Iran regained access to their $100 billion or so that had been frozen by sanctions. In return, they shipped out all of their uranium that was enriched beyond the 3.67 percent mark that capped “low-enriched uranium,†and 15,000 pounds of their low-enriched uranium, leaving just 660 pounds to be used for nuclear power and medical research.
They also placed more than two thirds of their first-generation centrifuges into storage monitored by IAEA, along with all of their advanced centrifuges necessary to advance uranium beyond a low-enriched state. They poured concrete into their heavy-water facility in Arak, destroying it, and they allowed unprecedented surveillance—cameras and sensors—into their sole remaining nuclear facility in Natanz. Iran agreed to keep all of these stipulations in place for ten years, a period I wished were longer, but that was not my call. None of this turned Iran into a “shining city on a hill,†but that was never the intent. We had taken a potential nuclear weapon out of their hands for at least a decade, and I was proud of the role the IC had played in supporting negotiations in the three months since the initial framework had been settled.
Even Clapper’s defense of the deal is wrong. He talks about how the deal hindered the Iranian’s regime ability to enrich uranium. However, as we know right after America left the Iran Deal the Iranian regime began enriching uranium.
