Playing Chess With Iran

    To hear Obama administration officials tell it, Iran got snookered at the bargaining table in Geneva.  The description of the deal worked out between the P5+1 and the world's largest supporter of terrorism is so one-sided, it's a wonder the foreign minister of Iran will be allowed back into his home country.  Two unnamed senior administration officials held a background conference call with reporters early Sunday morning after Secretary of State Kerry addressed the press about the deal.  Here are a few of their remarks:

• So these are very important concessions and the most significant progress that has been made in halting the progress of the uranium program in a decade...
• Along with those agreements come an unprecedented transparency and intrusive monitoring of the Iranian program...
• This is much more extensive monitoring than we have today, and it is a significant portion of this agreement...
• So, taken together, again, a halt of activities across the Iranian program, a rollback in certain important elements, and extensive and intrusive monitoring...
• First and most importantly, [Iranian sanctions] relief is limited, temporary, targeted, and reversible. It is designed so that the core of our sanctions, the sanctions that have had a tremendous bite -- the oil, banking and financial sanctions -- all remain in place. So in that very important respect, this deal is limited...
• Second, the relief that Iran gets under this agreement is insignificant economically...
• Iran is not back in business and anyone who makes the mistake of thinking so I think will be met with some serious consequences...
• The deal that was struck is very limited in terms of the additional business that Iran can engage in...
• So just looking at oil revenue alone, Iran will actually be worse off at the end of this six-month deal than it is today...

    And all of this while still explicitly acknowledging "Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism, its destabilizing role in the Syrian conflict, and its abysmal human rights record[.]"  What is in this deal for Iran?  What motive does the regime that still publicly calls for Israel's destruction have?

The purpose of sanctions were not to just have sanctions in place. They were to change the calculus of the Iranian government. We began to see that with the election of a new President who ran on a mandate to achieve sanctions relief through a more moderate foreign policy towards the West. And we had an opportunity, the best opportunity we've had in five years, to test whether we could get an agreement through diplomacy.

    The situation calls to mind an amateur chess player who has just taken an important piece in a game with a grandmaster. "Did you see that?  I took his rook! He's in trouble now!" Meanwhile, the grandmaster is saying, "Wow... never saw that coming!" but a smile is visible behind his eyes as he envisions the endgame twelve moves in the future.  If Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Egypt are any indication, the Obama administration will once again be shaking its head and saying, "But things were going so well..." This time, however, the endgame could be the worst outcome yet: a nuclear Iran.