Iran’s nuclear deception

OPINION:

Anniversaries are usually celebrations of happy times, but not every milestone is worth celebrating. Thursday marks one year since Iran sealed its nuclear deal with the P5+1 world powers, and evidence is emerging that the Islamic republic is still working on its weapons of mass destruction. Peace, an alien concept in the Middle East, is as distant as ever. If the agreement is worth more than the paper it was printed on, the proof is elusive.

Germany’s intelligence service reports that the regime has been making illicit attempts to purchase banned nuclear technology from German companies “at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.” In other words, a lot. The findings by the German equivalent of the FBI, covering 317 pages, contradict Iran’s pledge to halt its nuclear program in return for $100 billion in frozen assets and a lifting of international sanctions.

Iran is moving ahead to develop and test-fire long-range missiles that could be fitted with nuclear warheads in contravention of the nuclear deal and United Nations regulations, a move that brought quick condemnation from Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Iran continued unabated to develop its rocket program in conflict with the relevant provisions of the U.N. Security Council,” she told the German Parliament last week. Iran’s evil twin, North Korea, test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile last week, also in violation of U.N. resolutions.

Iran’s subterfuge has caught the attention of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who periodically urges the mullahs to knock it off. “I call upon Iran to refrain from conducting such ballistic missile launches since they have the potential to increase tensions in the region,” he wrote in a recent report scheduled for discussion next week by the 15-member U.N. Security Council.

Less vocal about the Islamic nation’s violation of the landmark agreement is President Obama, who harbors the illusion that the roguish regime in Tehran can be trusted. Hope overwhelmed reason — and experience — a year ago as he sought a legacy to be the other bookend for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won apparently just for being a nice guy. As late as this spring, the president wrote in The Washington Post that “Iran is now being subjected to the most comprehensive inspection regimen ever negotiated to monitor a nuclear program. In other words, under this deal, the world has prevented yet another nation from getting a nuclear bomb.”

There is scant evidence that Mr. Obama has absorbed the gravity of Iran’s nuclear deception. He is said to be considering measures to further reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal before he leaves office six months hence. Among them are a “no first use” policy, a push for a U.N. nuclear test ban, a five-year extension of the New START treaty with Russia, and a cut in funds for modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

A nuclear-free world is a dream shared by Americans of every political persuasion, but wishing won’t make it so. Despite the pomp that accompanied the Iran nuclear deal, the U.S. view of the regime is still deeply dismal and suspicious. A Gallup poll earlier this year found 79 percent of respondents with an unfavorable opinion of Iran, with only 14 percent with a favorable impression.

Mr. Obama has made the quest for nuclear disarmament a top priority for his utopian agenda. As evidence emerges that the Islamic regime is violating the landmark nuclear deal, the president is on a dangerous course that would weaken the United States and contribute to a new phase of nuclear proliferation.