Neither U.S. or Iran Know What It Has Agreed To

 

IBDEditorials.com

Secretary of State John Kerry leaves the stage at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 2, 2015.

Iran: The preliminary nuclear "deal to do a deal" with the world's preeminent terror-funding state is more Marx Brothers skit than diplomatic pact. What we say it says isn't what they say it says.

At the end of the famous contract scene in "A Night at the Opera," Groucho Marx tells his con-man brother Chico, "just you put your name right down there and then the deal is legal." Chico replies, "I forgot to tell you: I can't write." Groucho counters, "Well, that's all right; there's no ink in the pen anyhow. But listen, we got a contract!"

A Hollywood studio remaking that 1935 classic couldn't go wrong casting Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The Iran "deal" isn't one, though President Obama touts it as the diplomatic achievement of the millennium.

To save time, we're told, the two sides issued separate "fact sheets." The White House's motive, as the New York Times noted, was to head off "any move by members of Congress to impose more sanctions on Iran."

But Zarif immediately exposed the U.S. document as a contradiction of what had actually been agreed to in Switzerland.

"U.S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps," the U.S. states. "If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place."

Wrong, says Zarif: The parties agreed that sanctions will end permanently and unconditionally. And remember well that stopping the sanctions is Tehran's main goal in these talks.

"The architecture of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of the deal," the U.S. says — "much," not all of the duration — "and allow for snap-back of sanctions in the event of significant non-performance."

"Snap-back" is grifter lingo. You would think Kerry was talking about something legally binding, such as, say, a diplomat's version of the long-since-gone Gramm-Rudman federal budget sequester.

But nothing "snaps back" when Iran cheats. Read on: There is going to be a "dispute resolution process." And only after "an issue of significant non-performance cannot be resolved through that process, then all previous U.N. sanctions could be re-imposed."

"Could." That is far from "snap back."

Moreover, after the diplomats' yearslong dispute process, "could" will turn to "won't," because reimposed sanctions will be seen by American liberals, Europeans and Iran's ally Russia as not giving peace a chance.

Expecting a "snap back" of sanctions is like leaving the runway lights on for Amelia Earhart — or believing Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes' assurance to Israel's Channel 2 Monday that "certainly if Iran violates the agreement all options are on the table related to Iran, including military options."

This non-contract was signed with an inkless pen by someone who can't write. It is a lethal joke that Obama thinks Americans will take seriously.