If Tehran Turns Down the Nuclear Deal

Whether congressional Democrats accept or reject Barack Obama’s Iran deal has great importance and is rightly the focus of international attention. But there’s another debate taking place over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that may be even more important.

Whether congressional Democrats accept or reject Barack Obama’s Iran deal has great importance and is rightly the focus of international attention. But there’s another debate taking place over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that may be even more critical: the one in Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the country’s decision maker, just might reject the laboriously worked-out agreement that he helped negotiate.

On one level, that makes no sense. As a plethora of analyses have established, the Vienna deal is enormously favorable to the Islamic Republic of Iran, legitimizing its nuclear research, assuring its future nuclear weapons program, helping the economy, and boosting its aggressive international goals. These advantages would make it appear absurd for Khamenei not to accept the deal. Plus, most Iranians celebrate the accord.

But rejecting it makes sense if one focuses not on those immediate advantages and instead looks at its future dangers to the Iranian regime’s surviving. Leaders of fanatical and brutal government such as Khamenei’s invariably make ideological purity and personal power their highest priorities and he is no exception. From this point of view – its impact on the regime’s longevity – the deal contains two problems.

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Source: If Tehran Turns Down the Nuclear Deal :: Daniel Pipes