July 2, 2015 | Quoted by Michael Crowley - Politico

The Iran Watchers

Making a dramatic visit to Tehran days before the July 7 deadline for a nuclear deal, the head of an international atomic watchdog agency has emerged as a central figure in the effort to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb — even as Republicans and other skeptics worry that a nuclear deal will require a dangerous reliance on his agency.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will meet with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani on Thursday to discuss details of Iran’s compliance with his agency’s inspections — a crucial element of proving that Iran is abiding by any nuclear deal.

While ostensibly a neutral arbiter, the Japanese-born Amano has been a de facto U.S. ally, meeting with senior officials like Secretary of State John Kerry and national security advisor Susan Rice as the talks have unfolded, and basing his agency’s stance toward Iran on Western intelligence assessing that Iran has sought a nuclear weapon bomb.

But skeptics of the talks are queasy about how much the emerging deal rides on a United Nations body whose leadership could change in 2017 — and whose previous director general disputed claims that Iran was pursuing a bomb.

“This deal is a massive bet on the IAEA,” says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “What if, at the end of the day, the IAEA is not capable of operating at this gold standard that everyone expects? How long is Amano going to be around?”

Dubowitz said he worries that the nuclear deal relies too heavily on the opinion of an agency that itself is subject to change.

“One can imagine that post-Amano it’s a return to ElBaradei—or worse,” he said. “The IAEA will always be susceptible to political agendas and politicization.”

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Issues:

Iran