The argument that negotiating and reaching a nuclear deal with the mullahs of Iran will curb their nuclear ambitions and prevent the Iranian regime from obtaining nuclear weapons is, sadly, a dangerous fantasy.
The nuclear deal has sunset clauses that soon remove restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program after the deal expires. In short, the nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state after it concludes.
Even before that, however, it is important to expect that whatever the deal, the Iranian regime will continue to pursue its nuclear ambitions and clandestine nuclear activities: there are historical precedents for it.
It was not one year into the 2015 nuclear deal that two credible intelligence reports revealed that Iran had no intention of honoring the terms of the deal it had just reached with the Obama-Biden administration. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, revealed in its annual report in 2016 that the Iranian government had been pursuing a “clandestine” path to obtain illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies “at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.”
The 2016 intelligence report also stated that “it is safe to expect that Iran will continue its intensive procurement activities in Germany using clandestine methods to achieve its objectives.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel had strongly criticized Iran at the time and emphasized the significance of these findings in a statement to the German Parliament.
Another detailed report by the Institute for Science and International Security appeared to shed more light on Iran’s covert nuclear activities during what the world probably thought was an assured nuclear deal. The report stated, also in 2016 during the supposedly guaranteed nuclear deal:
