Analysts and journalists continued today to chew over recently posted footage showing Iranian president Hassan Rouhani boasting that he used negotiations with the West during the 2000’s to stall for time while Iran locked in its nuclear infrastructure. The Times of Israel, which brought renewed attention to the video, also emphasized that Rouhani bragged about eventually flouting a 2003 agreement with the IAEA that had bought Iran the time it needed to advance its nuclear program.
Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg – who supports “testing Rouhani’s intentions through intensive diplomacy and negotiations” – suggested yesterday that people should be paying more attention to the words that come out of Rouhani’s mouth:
“We halted the nuclear program?” he asked, rhetorically. “We were the ones to complete it! We completed the technology.” Abedini pushed Rouhani harder, claiming that uranium enrichment at a facility in Isfahan had been suspended while Rouhani was in charge. Rouhani denied the accusation, and then claimed credit for the development of a heavy-water reactor in Arak in 2004. “Do you know when we developed yellowcake? Winter 2004. Do you know when the number of centrifuges reached 3,000? Winter 2004.”…
Reading accounts of Rouhani’s combative interview made me wonder if this might represent his personal Hudaybiyyah moment. What is a Hudaybiyyah moment? The moment when a mask slips…
These are not the words of someone who wants to end Iran’s nuclear program. Taken together, Rouhani’s statements sound like those of a man who is proud of the program and believes he may have devised a way to carry it to completion: By speaking softly, smiling and spinning the centrifuges all the while.
Today Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens went further, wondering why the U.S. is avoiding imposing further pressure on Iran if, as Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman told Congress last week, “deception is part of [Iran’s] DNA.” He suggested sending a signal:
Mark Dubowitz, who helped design some of the most effective sanctions against Iran from his perch at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, offered this: “Effective on October 16, any financial institution providing Iran with access to, or use of, its overseas financial reserves for any purpose with the exception of permissible humanitarian trade will be cut off from the U.S. financial system.” The idea is to push forward what Mr. Dubowitz calls Iran’s “economic cripple date”—the moment when it runs out of foreign reserves—ahead of its “undetectable breakout date”—the moment when the regime can build a bomb in secret before the West can stop it.
[Photo: Mojtaba Salimi / Wiki Commons]
