The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has pointed to several alarming instances of Iranian violations of the July 21015 Vienna nuclear deal, which ostensibly prevents Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capacity and to the fact that President Barack Obama is ignoring all these violations.

The international sanctions imposed on Iran for its nuclear program and related issues are due to be lifted on December 15, yet the sanctions should not be lifted, even in accordance with the fatally flawed nuclear deal, since Iran is clearly violating the deal.

• Western intelligence officials who have been following Iran’s dismantling of its nuclear program have said that Iran has not dismantled two-thirds of its active centrifuges, which is required under the Vienna deal. As a result, Iran will have far more than the permitted, 6,000 centrifuges still operating on December 15 and beyond.

• Also, Iranian stockpiles of enriched uranium (up to the grade of 3.6%) are supposed to be reduced from 7,000kg to 300kg and the medium-grade enriched uranium destroyed.

• The Iranians are also obligated to make engineering changes to their plutonium reactor at Arak to prevent it being capable of producing military-grade plutonium required for nuclear weapons.

• The Iranians must allow the continuous presence of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors at their nuclear facilities.

• Iran is banned from carrying out ballistic missile tests.

None of these conditions and requirements have been met by Iran. It has not dismantled two-thirds of its centrifuges; it has not reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium; it has not repurposed its Arak reactor to prevent the manufacture of military-grade plutonium; IAEA inspectors have not been present at selected Iranian nuclear facilities; and, in November, Iran carried out a long-range ballistic missile test near its border with Pakistan. Also, IAEA inspectors revealed last week that Iran is in fact not keeping to its commitment to give a full report of the military aspects of its nuclear project preceding the Vienna agreement. 

According to a report in Israeli daily, Yediot Achronot, “The inspectors said that there is reason to assume that the Iranians had been engaged in nuclear-military development until 2009 – contradicting a 2007 American intelligence report which stated that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The conclusion that is missing from this assessment is clear: American intelligence reports on the subject of Iran are deceptive and fixed, probably for political motives.”

Yet, most of the violations have been ignored by President Barack Obama and his Administration. The Obama Administration did express concern at the Iranian ballistic missile test, “but the State Department simply said that they needed to ‘check the nature of the test’ with satellite imagery” (Alex Fishman, We are being deceived on Iran, Yediot Achronot, December 10, 2015).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It its clear from Western intelligence reports that Iran will only meet its obligations under the Vienna nuclear deal only in the second half of 2016 — if at all.

“This only confirms our original suspicions at the time of the nuclear deal that 1. Iran would not met its obligations, limited as these are under the deal; and 2. that her violations would be ignored, as the desire in the West to maintain the deal would prove paramount. This has indeed proved to be the case.

“Accordingly, we cannot even expect that Iran will adhere to the agreement and that it might well acquire the ability to become a nuclear break-out state in well under ten years –– the period of a nuclear-free Iran that this Vienna nuclear deal allegedly bought us.”