Ali Shamkhani, a top political, military, and nuclear adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told NBC News that Iran was willing to get rid of its stockpile of 600 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU), forswear building nuclear weapons, agree to only enrich uranium to lower levels for civilian use, and allow international inspectors to supervise the process.
In return, Iran wants the immediate lifting of sanctions.
Shamkhani's remarks are a huge leap from past statements about what Iran was willing to do to get sanctions relief. But it's not enough for Senate Republicans, 52 of whom signed a letter to Trump saying he should stick to his guns and force Iran to end its entire enrichment process.
Trump has said on many occasions that the biggest mistake Barack Obama made in signing the nuclear deal with Iran is that he didn't end Iran's nuclear enrichment program.
The letter, sent under the auspices of Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts, reminded Trump of why he abandoned the deal in the first place.
"During your first term, you withdrew the United States from the deeply broken Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and imposed maximum pressure on the regime," Ricketts and his colleagues wrote. "As you said then, a fatal flaw of the deal was that it ‘allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.’"
Iran, for all practical purposes, has had its nuclear "breakout" already. Most nations know that Iran is just a few days from being able to spin up its 60% HEU into 85-90% HEU, using its ultra-modern centrifuges that Obama allowed it to build. The International Atomic Energy Agency believes Iran can manufacture at least six nuclear devices with the HEU it has on hand.
"We cannot afford another agreement that enables Iran to play for time, as the JCPOA did," the senators wrote. "The Iranian regime should know that the administration has Congressional backing to ensure their ability to enrich uranium is permanently eliminated."
Even if Iran did everything it is promising, that wouldn't end the threat.
“I want to make a deal with Iran,” Trump said. “I want to do something if it’s possible, but for that to happen, it must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
Joe Biden, like Obama, believes that Iran should be a counterweight to Israel in the region. The senators thought that was a terrible idea.
"They immediately rescinded your decision to reimpose U.N. sanctions, allowed Iran to sell oil at JCPOA-levels, and even re-issued waivers allowing Iran to build out its nuclear program," the letter reads. "As you predicted, these policies indeed allowed Iran to reach the brink of nuclear breakout, which is where they are today."
Would Trump be willing to allow Iran to keep a civilian nuclear program? If he really wants a deal, he's going to have to give in on that point. Iran is too proud of the one thing this third-world country did that was first-world.
There are signs, however, that Trump may be distancing himself from Netanyahu. NBC News previously reported that, according to two U.S. officials, two Middle Eastern diplomats and two other people with knowledge of the tensions, the two leaders are increasingly at odds over a strategy for tackling challenges in the region, including Iran.
While Netanyahu has supported military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump has begun to see an opportunity to remove the threat of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon by making a deal with the government, the sources said.
Lifting sanctions for its nuclear work is only part of the equation. Iran has built forbidden missile technology, and its human rights violations are legion.
Perhaps when it stops building ICBMs and executing gays, the U.S. might consider lifting all the sanctions.
