WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE JCPOA

The Agreement Reflects A Calculated And Necessary Risk: Better To Make ACredible Effort At Checking The Nuclear Ambitions Of Iran For A Decade ThanTest The Alternative And Likely Fallout“Will Iran keep its word? From the start, these talks have been about an exchange. Iranbacks away from seeking nuclear weapons. The United States and the other countriesease the punishing economic sanctions they have imposed. What the agreement says isthat no relief will come until Iran has moved to limit uranium enrichment, convertedthe Arak plant, provided for transparency and supplied information about its pastpursuit of nuclear weapons. More, provisions outline how sanctions would ‘snap back’if Iran violates the accord. The agreement is not perfect, by any measure. Neither doesit reflect the president and other leaders somehow giving away the store just to get adeal. The negotiations were long because they were tough. The agreement reflects acalculated and necessary risk: Better to make a credible effort at checking the nuclearambitions of Iran for a decade than test the alternative and likely fallout. So, besuspicious and skeptical. It also bears mentioning that relations with Iran, in a bad placefor 35 years, have little chance of improving without such a start.”– Akron Beacon Journal, 7/15/15PennsylvaniaWe Give Nothing Up By Testing Whether Or Not This Problem Can Be SolvedPeacefully,’ Obama Said. He’s Right.“Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush spoke for many opponents of the agreementto restrict Iran’s nuclear weapons development. It’s ‘appeasement,’ he said, evokingthe abandonment of Czechoslovakia that emboldened Hitler. But those critics mightconsider the other side of that coin. Isolation of Germany following World War I, andthe resulting resentment it produced among Germans, were major factors in Hitler’srise to power. The Iran agreement indeed is not perfect, thus reflecting the real-lifeconditions that led to it. It makes Iran a ‘nuclear-threshold state,’ meaning that itprobably would be able to develop a nuclear weapon towards the end of the agreement,in about 15 years. But anyone who thought that Iran was going to abandon its nuclearcapability was unrealistic. This agreement commits Iran to reducing its potentialnuclear material stockpile by 98 percent and diminishing its capacity to produce thatfuel by about two-thirds, and to allow independent inspections by the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency. The provisions increase the period that it would take toproduce a weapon from about three months to about a year.”– The Times-Tribune, 7/15/15