Fareed Zakaria’s Unconvincing Case in Favor of the Iran Deal

Dear Dr. Zakaria, 

You have just published an open letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer explaining why you found his statement of opposition to the Iran deal “unconvincing.” I commend the civil tone of your letter and the strong arguments you advance. You do a better job of defending the agreement than does President Obama, who too often engages in ad hominem invective rather than reasoned discussion. Nevertheless, I do not find your arguments convincing. Because I and so many others have great respect for you as a foreign policy thinker, I would like to explain in an open letter of my own where and why I disagree with your analysis.

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And what if Iran is caught cheating? You are more impressed than I am by the “snapback” provisions. You say the Iran deal “contains the first mechanism for the automatic re-imposition of sanctions ever created, to my knowledge. And they can be triggered by Washington unilaterally.”

Technically true, but the odds of Washington triggering “snapback” and the rest of the world going along are remote, because you neglected to mention that Iran has a “snapback” provision of its own — what sanctions expert Mark Dubowitz calls “nuclear snapback.” Paragraphs 26 and 27 of the agreement allow Iran to walk away from all of its nuclear obligations if any sanctions are imposed in response to Iranian violations, no matter how small. Paragraph 29 also forbids the US and EU from doing anything to interfere with the “normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.” Oh, and if sanctions are re-imposed, all existing contracts are grandfathered in, so the blow to Iran would be considerably cushioned.

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