Pirate's Cove

Is it any wonder that Obama and Kerry wanted nothing to do with telling Congress, nor the American People, about the side deals?

(Associated Press)  Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms, operating under a secret agreement with the U.N. agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.

The revelation on Wednesday newly riled Republican lawmakers in the U.S. who have been severely critical of a broader agreement to limit Iran’s future nuclear programs, signed by the Obama administration, Iran and five world powers in July. Those critics have complained that the wider deal is unwisely built on trust of the Iranians, while the administration has insisted it depends on reliable inspections.

“International inspections should be done by international inspectors. Period. The standard of ‘anywhere, anytime’ inspections – so critical to a viable agreement – has dropped to ‘when Iran wants, where Iran wants, on Iran’s terms,'” said U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce in a reaction typical of opponents of the broader deal.

The newly disclosed side agreement, for an investigation of the Parchin nuclear site by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, is linked to persistent allegations that Iran has worked on atomic weapons. That investigation is part of the overarching nuclear-limits deal.

Next up, Obama will claim he read about this in the newspapers

The Parchin agreement was worked out between the IAEA and Iran. The United States and the five other world powers were not party to it but were briefed by the IAEA and endorsed it as part of the larger package.

Oops.

Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection

What does this mean for the future of the Iran deal in Congress? I have no idea—but there’s no ignoring the fact that Democrats who have come out in support of this deal have either been totally snookered, or are (however unlikely) somehow in the know and thus complicit in this blatant precursor to a war crime.

Any elected official who votes for this deal, meaning only Democrats, because no Republicans plan to vote for it, have the consequences squarely on their heads. And here comes the Obama spin

Statement from Obama administration on report that Iran will be able to inspect Parchin site pic.twitter.com/O9RaMsSGiQ

— Sam Stein (@samstein) August 19, 2015