US has better things to do than help Iran lie about its nuclear program

The Obama administration’s apparent desperation for an Iranian nuclear deal has led to a proliferation of proposals and ideas that amount to little more than negotiating the terms of our surrender. Pundits and former officials are falling over one another in a bid to identify the world of possibilities when it comes to making concessions. Ceding a non-existent “right” to uranium enrichment has been a popular one thus far. This charitable mood is now extending to the issue of Iran’s covert weaponization program. McClatchy reports:

The Iranians “have to be given a graceful way” that “allows them to acknowledge that this research was going on without confessing that it was a government program,” said Gary Samore, the head of research at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, who served for four years as Obama’s top arms control adviser.

One approach would be for Iran to assert that the research was unauthorized or conducted without the knowledge of Khamenei or other senior officials, he said.

Or Tehran could contend that it wanted to understand how nuclear weapons worked in order to develop defenses against them, he said, a claim it made about work that was conducted at a research facility in Tehran that it demolished in 2004 and replaced with a park.

It should really go without saying, but we do not need to be in the business of helping the Iranian regime construct lies about its nuclear program; It has been doing quite well for itself in that department. One hopes that the various proposals that stop short of seeking a verified suspension and dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons program fall into the category of what Secretary Kerry describes as a bad deal that the administration would be willing to walk away from.