Thread by @mdubowitz

My friend ⁦@MaxBoot⁩ says the nuclear deal is the only way to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions and criticizes me for my rejection of the Biden administration’s desperate effort to return to it.

I adore Max but he’s wrong. Here’s why: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

JCPOA gives Tehran patient pathways to nuke weapons because of restrictions that sunset, advanced centrifuge R&D that permits Iran to develop easier clandestine sneakout, no prohibitions on weapon-grade uranium after 2030 & no requirement for Iran to come clean on weaponization.

It also doesn’t cover missiles and in fact permits the UN missile embargo to expire in 2023 as it permitted the UN arms embargo to expire in 2020.

It also lifts the most powerful economic sanctions thereby flowing tens of billions back into the coffers of the regime.

Max will have you believe pressure hasn’t worked. Well, pressure worked to get the JCPOA in the first place. But remember Obama took 6 years from 2009 to 2015 to leverage that pressure.

Trump only ran a pressure campaign for 2 years and even then it made considerable progress.

Regime is down to its last $4B in accessible FX from $120B. Financial crisis.

Suleimani is dead and Tehran struggling to support its proxies and recover from the loss of its most deadly commander.

Israel is inflicting severe damage on regime operations in the regime.

Through sabotage, Israel has set back considerably Iran’s advanced centrifuge manufacturing and enrichment capabilities.

Mossad has deeply penetrated Iran and is capable of much greater damage to Iranian nuke capabilities especially if close CIA-Mossad cooperation continues.

But Max is right that diplomacy must be tried. The problem is that it makes no sense to move from a policy of maximum pressure to maximum concessions and then believe the US will have leverage to negotiate a “longer, stronger, broader” deal.

Instead, after the US and Iran return to the JCPOA, that will be the end of it. Tehran will have no incentive to give more unless the Biden administration lifts all secondary sanctions, the US primary embargo, all terror designations and much more.

So we will end up with a JCPOA 2.0 more fatally flawed than the original or we will be stuck in JCPOA 1.0 as Iran takes patient pathways to nuclear weapons, immunizes its economy against the use of peaceful sanctions in the future & builds up its regional dominance.

That’s the lethal end state that we arrive at under the JCPOA.

Better to deal with a weaker Iran today than a much stronger one tomorrow where war will become more necessary and more likely in order to stop its sneakout to nuclear weapons.

Trump never really tried to effect a containment policy against the Islamic Republic, where Washington doggedly tries to roll back the clerical regime’s influence throughout the Middle East, patiently aggravating the theocracy’s internal weaknesses.

Containment is the right policy. Billions of dollars wouldn’t be transferred for a short, weak, and narrow nuclear deal. Mass slaughter and terrorism wouldn’t be rewarded.

And, unlike in most other conflict areas, we have an effective ally in Israel capable of countering our common enemy.

Worth asking: If country of 9M with a small but effective Air Force & intelligence service can counter Iran, imagine what we could do if we were serious?

Much more but I’m sure I’ve already violated Twitter policy with a 13-tweet thread. END.

Sorry one more: Just because Israel doesn’t have capacity to “eradicate” the program (a debatable claim by Max) doesn’t mean they can’t do severe damage to it with repeated operations.

And give the US critical leverage it can use instead of re-entering a fatally flawed deal.