No. of Recommendations: 11
At least this deal ack's that Iran is not allowed to have a nuke.
The JCPOA also contained an affirmation that Iran's was not allowed to have a nuke. That was the whole point of the treaty! It said outright, "Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons". It's literally the first substantive statement of the JCPOA, right after enumerating the parties and saying what the goal of the agreement is.
They've always been willing to say they're not getting a nuke. They're an actual signatory to the NPT, for goodness sakes - they have a formally binding treaty that says they're not allowed to have a nuke!
And you're misreading the MOU. It does not acknowledge that Iran is not allowed to have a nuke. It does not even acknowledge that they had a weapons program.
The JCPOA was a literal kick the can down the road exercise. Had we followed it, by the timelines laid out in the deal Iran would have the bomb right now.
No, had we followed it Iran would have no weapons grade uranium right now and we would be completely free to reinstate the same sanctions programs that existed before if they tried to start a weapons program or enrich beyond low levels. I think you're misunderstanding what the JCPOA said, because it never committed the U.S. to let Iran pursue a bomb once the agreement deadlines passed. It provided that during the term of the agreement, Iran would not enrich uranium beyond the ~3% necessary for civilian nuclear power. Once it expired, both parties would be just as free to respond to each other as they were before the deal - and to be in exactly the same position that Trump put us in once he ripped up the deal. Once the restrictions on Iranian enrichment expired, so too did the limits on our ability to sanction them.
