Just so there’s no misunderstanding with Iran

There’s progress in the nuclear negations with Iran.

We’re closer than we’ve ever been,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an arms control analyst at Strategic Studies Institute in London.

Critics have been saying that Iran has so many Uranium centrifuges whirring away that they are clearly aiming to build up a nuclear arsenal.

Now CBS correspondent Elizabeth Palmer said there appears to be a breakthrough, “In a nutshell, they’re ready to cut the number of centrifuges from 19,000 to between 6,000 and 7,000. Crucially, they will reduce the amount of enriched uranium from the seven-and-a-half tons they have on hand to about 700 pounds.”

It certainly sounds like progress.

Could it be that last week’s speech by Israel’s prime minister Netanyau and all those threats from the Senate made Iran blink?

Senator Lindsey Graham, said don’t you believe it. “It’s not even close. With Iran, a nuclear weapon is a nightmare for us from Israel, the entire region, you’ll have a nuclear arms race in the Mideast and the Iranians and their regime cannot be trusted.”

Senator Mitch McConnell thinks we’re being suckered into letting Iran keep most of their operation intact.

“What we do know about the deal is that it looks like it will keep the infrastructure in place with one of the worst regimes in the world,” said McConnell.

He’s saying that could claim not to have a bomb, but in fact would have all the parts and could snap it together like so many Legos.

The president wants to reassure everybody that any deal would be designed so that they couldn’t be assemble before the world has a chance to react.

“So that even they cheated, we would be able to have enough time to take action and if we don’t have that kind of deal then we’re not going to take it,” said President Obama.

That would make any weapon militarily useless, because we’d presumably destroy it as soon as they started assembling it.

But then if Iran was willing to sign a deal that strict – why bother holding on to any of the parts? Why not just get rid of them so there’s no misunderstanding?