Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz and the Тампа Беј тајмс" Pulitzer Prize-winning factchecking website ПолитиФакт were at each others’ throats this month over comments Cruz made about the nuclear deal–officially known as the Заеднички сеопфатен план за акција (JCPOA)–reached this past July between Iran and six world powers.
After a particularly blustery claim made by the Texas senator at an над-врв rally opposing the nuclear accord–which restricts Iran’s nuclear energy and uranium enrichment programs, reaffirming their purely peaceful nature, in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions–ПолитиФакт (9/10/15) decided to investigate whether Cruz was telling the truth.
Кај митинг, and afterward on Twitter, Cruz declared that the JCPOA “will facilitate and accelerate the nation of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.” This is, of course, a ridiculous thing to say. Beyond the fact that we’ve heard for повеќе од три децении that the advent of an Iranian nuke is just around the corner–only a few years, maybe two years, a year and half, 12 месеци, six weeks away!–and these estimates have never been based upon a shred of credible evidence, the enhanced monitoring and inspections implemented under the new deal effectively prevent any hypothetical Iranian move toward weaponizing its program for at least a decade, probably far longer.
And that’s if Iran does the thing it’s never ever done: decide to build a nuclear weapon, and to do so at exactly the time when its program is under the most intensive scrutiny of any nation’s program in history. The claim is absurd on its face.
Needless to say, it wasn’t too difficult за ПолитиФакт to judge this statement false.
Но ПолитиФакт‘s own understanding of the parameters of the Iran deal itself was surprisingly rife with errors, something that absolutely shouldn’t happen in a factchecking article. The details, relayed by the website’s editors Louis Jacobson and W. Gardner Selby, were rendered this way:
Specifically, the deal requires Iran to give up 97 percent of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the kind needed to make nuclear weapons, as well as most of the centrifuges it can use to enrich uranium. In addition, Iran agrees to only enrich uranium to a level unsuitable for weapons for 15 years, and to cease production of plutonium, the other element that can be used to build a bomb. Known nuclear sites would be monitored for 15 years to confirm compliance, and inspectors would have the ability to enter undeclared sites suspected of nuclear use, though with possible delays of up to 24 days.
ПолитиФакт got a bunch wrong here.
‘Highly enriched uranium’
First, the deal does not require “Iran to give up 97 percent of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the kind needed to make nuclear weapons.” Why not? Because Iran doesn’t have било highly enriched uranium to give up.
This is a common mistake made by коментатори, политичари, новинари експерти who should all know better. The fact is Iran никогаш не enriched uranium above 19.75 percent U-235, which is дефинирани by the IAEA itself as “low enriched uranium.” This is quite uncontroversial–no one, from the Меѓународната агенција за атомска енергија (IAEA) to non-proliferation experts до US intelligence community до Israeli Mossad, has ever claimed that Iran has produced a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU). Iran has only ever produced low enriched uranium (LEU)–to levels of under 5 percent and under 20 percent–useful only as reactor fuel or medical isotopes, respectively, not bombs (which require enrichment levels of over 90 percent). It is this stockpile of low enriched uranium that is addressed in the accord.
Furthermore, the IAEA has потврди that, “since 20 January 2014, Iran has not produced UF6 enriched above 5 percent U-235 and all of its stock of UF6 enriched up to 20 percent U-235 has been further processed through downblending or conversion.” Additionally, the agency has long affirmed:
All of the enrichment related activities at Iran’s declared facilities are under Agency safeguards, and all of the nuclear material, installed cascades, and feed and withdrawal stations at those facilities are subject to Agency containment and surveillance.
What the JCPOA всушност прави, in this regard, is limit Iranian enrichment of uranium to no more than 3.67 percent U-235 LEU and, as the Arms Control Association белешки, eliminates roughly 97 percent of Iran’s current LEU stockpile, capping it at a mere 300 kilograms for 15 years.
‘Production of plutonium’
ПолитиФакт also erroneously claims that, under the deal, Iran must “cease production of plutonium,” which makes no sense, considering Iran has никогаш произведени плутониум. Како што јас Истакна претходно овој месец:
Before it can be stockpiled, плутониум must first be extracted and reprocessed from the spent uranium fuel of an operational nuclear reactor. Iran has never done this and doesn’t even have a reprocessing plant. Iran has literally never extracted plutonium from a reactor core, let alone stockpiled it.
In short, Iran can’t “cease” doing something it’s not–and never has been–doing.
инспекциите
ПолитиФакт‘s explanation of inspection parameters under the JCPOA is also disingenuous. By claiming that Iran’s “known nuclear sites would be monitored for 15 years to confirm compliance,” ПолитиФакт is implying that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is not веќе under safeguards and constant monitoring, which it is–and е со години. Iran’s nuclear facilities have long been subject to arguably the most intrusive and consistent inspection regime on the planet.
The deal only strengthens this regime, allowing constant and immediate access to all declared nuclear sites and also to non-nuclear sites like centrifuge assembly workshops, centrifuge rotor production workshops and storage facilities, and uranium mines and mills, which, as nonproliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis has истакна, “are not safeguarded anywhere else in the world.” This enhanced and unique access will last, in many cases, as long as 20 25-години.
ПолитиФакт‘s language also suggests inspections of nuclear sites will cease after a decade and a half. This is totally wrong. In fact, all of Iran’s declared nuclear sites will remain under IAEA safeguards and surveillance in perpetuity, as mandated by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to which Iran has been a signatory since its advent in 1968.
Дури и ПолитиФакт‘s understanding of “possible delays of up to 24 days” is dubious, as this is the absolute maximum amount of time that access to a potentially suspect facility could be delayed through a process agreed to by all seven international parties (eight, if you include the European Union) to the JCPOA.
In truth, under the deal, as the Arms Control Association објаснува, the IAEA’s request to visit a suspect site
triggers a 24-day clock under which Iran and the IAEA have 14 days to come to an agreement on access. If not, the Joint Commission, created by the JCPOA, has seven days to make a determination on access, and if at least five of the eight members vote to allow the IAEA to investigate, Iran has three days to comply.
At that point, the very first time this review protocol is tested to this extent, there’s a good chance the process of re-implementing sanctions on Iran would begin, rendering the tenets of the JCPOA inoperable and signaling the imminent, if not immediate, collapse of the agreement altogether.
Who factchecks the factcheckers?
ПолитиФакт has rightly taken Ted Cruz to task for his false claims. In a petulant retort to being factchecked, Cruz published even more lies in the Националниот Преглед (9/15/15), declaring, among other things, that Iran cheated on a previous nuclear accord (тоа не беше), that Iran is allowed “in certain circumstances” to “inspect itself, and report back on the ‘results’"(не е, ниту во близина), and that the deal enables “Iran to finish their ongoing ICBM research and develop a missile that can carry a nuclear warhead across the Atlantic to America” (which is, simply, asinine).
But in its own explanation of the Iran deal, ПолитиФакт repeats a number of baseless canards that have often been used by anti-diplomacy Iran hawks and deal-supporting liberal interventionists alike to mislead the public about the Iranian nuclear program and its capabilities.
As a “factchecking journalism website aimed at bringing you the truth in politics,” ПолитиФакт should make sure to check itself before it, well, знаеш.
Nima Shirazi is an editor at the online magazine Муфтах and writes the political blog Широко заспано во Америка, каде што верзија of this article appeared.
ZNetwork се финансира исклучиво преку великодушноста на неговите читатели.
Донирајте