CIA Director John Brennan gave a staunch defense of the framework nuclear deal with Iran on Tuesday, calling some criticism of the accord “disingenuous,” while expressing surprise at Tehran’s concessions.
In his first public remarks since the outline agreement was announced last week, Brennan said the deal would impose a litany of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work that had once seemed impossible to secure.
“I must tell you the individuals who say this deal provides a pathway for Iran to a bomb are being wholly disingenuous, in my view, if they know the facts, understand what’s required for a [nuclear] program,” Brennan told an audience at Harvard University.
The outline deal announced last week would see the US and the EU lift all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran in exchange for a 98 percent cut in Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium for 15 years.
The accord would mean “cutting off pathways not just to uranium enrichment, but to plutonium enrichment” and include a “very intrusive inspection regime,” Brennan said.
“I certainly am pleasantly surprised that the Iranians have agreed to so much here,” he said. “In terms of the inspections regime, the reduction as far as the centrifuges, the stockpile, what they’re doing with the Arak reactor — all of that I think is really quite surprising and quite good.”
Citing Tehran’s “concessions,” including agreeing to a dramatic reduction of centrifuges, Brennan said: “Boy, nobody ever thought they would do that at the beginning.”
Some critics were less focused on Iran’s nuclear program and more on the effect of lifting sanctions, as they worry it will allow Tehran to “cause more trouble throughout the area,” Brennan said.
That was a legitimate concern, but the framework deal itself offered a way of curtailing any attempt by Iran to build nuclear weapons and is “as solid as you can get,” he said.
US and allied intelligence agencies would be closely monitoring how Iran implemented any deal and there was no expectation that Tehran would alter its stance in the region, he said.
It was unclear if the pragmatic approach demonstrated by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the nuclear negotiations would “migrate to other areas of Iranian foreign policy,” Brennan said.
“I think we’ll see, but I don’t think this is going to lead to a light switch when all of a sudden the Iranians are going to become passive, docile in the region, no,” he said.
Brennan, a career intelligence officer who served as US President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser before taking over at the spy agency, said Iran’s attitude on the issue had changed since Obama entered office six years ago mainly because sanctions had hit the country’s economy hard.
New leadership under Rouhani, who was a “more reasonable” figure, also provided an opening. Apparently recognizing the threat posed by the sanctions, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave a green light to Rouhani to try to broker a deal, Brennan said.
If the talks failed, Khamenei could then blame Rouhani and his foreign minister for the result, he added.
The CIA head also suggested obliquely that digital sabotage on Iran’s uranium enrichment work had played a role.
Asked by New York Times reporter David Sanger if the cyberattack was a factor, Brennan said: “I think their inability to progress certainly helped slow that program.”
Sanger in 2012 broke the story of Stuxnet, a US-Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s nuclear program with a damaging computer virus known as a “worm.”
Brennan made a joking reference to Sanger’s articles, saying: “I wouldn’t attribute your reporting to helping that, frankly.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in