**Iran DA**

This file just has the cards specific to the iran DA – use the TPP DA to get evidence about PC theory, winners win, etc

Iran Neg

Topshelf

1NCDeal passes now --solves iran prolifAaron Mehta, 7-18-2015, "Experts Praise Iran Deal, Despite Congressional Concerns," Defense News, http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/2015/07/18/experts-praise-iran-deal-despite-congressional-concerns/30261893/

Substantively, a general consensus quickly emerged following the July 14 unveiling of the agreement that the deal is as close to a best-case situation as reality would allow . ¶ Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, believes “the deal is excellent compared to where we are today."¶ “It puts a gap between [Iran’s] ability to build a bomb and actually doing it, and the gap is big enough for us to do something about it if we detect them moving toward a bomb ,” Lewis said. “At the highest macro level, I think that’s fantastic.” ¶ As to critics who say a better deal should have been reached, Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, puts it in simple terms: “A perfect deal was not attainable.¶ “Overall, it’s a very strong and good deal, but it wasn’t negotiations that resulted in a score of 100-0 for the US,” Reif said. “That’s not how international negotiations go.”¶ Added James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment: “You can’t compare this to a perfect deal, which was never attainable."¶ Speaking July 15, Obama called the agreement “the most vigorous inspection and verification regime by far that has ever been negotiated,” something Reif agreed with fully.¶ “The monitoring and verification regime in this deal is the most comprehensive and intrusive regime that has ever been negotiated ,” Reif said. “But there is no country which would grant [total open access to all its territory], and there has never been a settlement where that has happened.”¶ Jon Wolfsthal, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the US National Security Council, echoed the president by insisting that the treaty is “a very good deal that not only met, but exceeded" parameters laid out in the interim Lausanne accord from November 2013.¶ “Limitations imposed through this agreement are for the long term. There is no sunset clause here. Limitations are permanent and we have the ability to enforce them,” he told a July 15 gathering of the Atlantic Council in Washington.¶ An overriding concern with any Iranian nuclear deal, identified by all interviewed for this story, is the possibility of them starting up a covert nuclear program, one which inspectors possibly could miss.¶ In theory, Tehran could keep inspectors focused on the known nuclear sites while developing weapons elsewhere. And under the treaty, Iran can deny access to inspectors of any non-negotiated site for up to 24 days, raising concerns from some that an Iranian nuclear program could be moved frequently and kept underground.¶ If Iran refuses to allow inspectors to look at a site after 24 days, the US and its partners can reinstate the sanctions being lifted.¶ Given past Iranian behavior and attempts to conceal key aspects of its nuclear program, Wolfsthal said US negotiators and other world powers crafted the agreement on the assumption that Tehran would try to cheat.¶ “Our expectation is that Iran will implement the agreement, but the verification mechanism is structured to assume otherwise,” Wolfsthal said.¶ Obama hit back at the idea that the Iranians could develop and produce nuclear weapons without inspectors being aware of the issue, noting that inspectors will be keeping a close eye on the potential streams of nuclear material and have 24/7 access to known sites.¶ “The nature of nuclear programs and facilities is such, this is not something you hide in a closet. This is not something you put on a dolly and kind

of wheel off somewhere,” Obama said. “And, by the way, if we identify an undeclared site that we’re suspicious about, we’re going to be keeping eyes on it.”¶ Wolfsthal noted that compared with previous agreements with North Korea, Iraq and the Moscow Treaty of 2002, which numbered a handful of pages, the treaty is meticulously detailed and annexed.¶ “We assume they will try to cheat. But this agreement is more than 100 pages long; it’s like no nonproliferation agreement that’s ever been signed. It will prevent them from cheating.”¶ Acton agreed the document is crafted to address such concerns, noting that “it is impossible” to hide evidence of a nuclear program within that 24-day time period.¶ “If Iran wants a secret program, they have to procure yellow cake and centrifuge components,” Acton said. “It now can’t do that from existing facilities because they will be monitored. So then it will have to build more facilities or acquire it on the black market — creating opportunities for detection.”¶ Joe Cirincione, president of the Washington-based Plowshares Fund, addedIran has very little, if any, room for error to hide a secret attempt at a nuclear program.¶ “The claims about the inspection regime are particularly ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about inspecting nuclear programs. If Iran were to flush the evidence down the toilet, they’d have a radioactive toilet. And if they were to rip out the toilet, they’d have a radioactive hole in the ground. They simply won’t be able to cheat,” he said.¶

“There is no silver bullet,” to preventing a secret Iranian program, Acton noted. “There is nothing else that could be included in this agreement that solves the problem. What it does contain is a series of provisions that significantly mitigate the chance.”¶ In other words, while a black program may be hypothetical, it is logistically very, very difficult . And Iran was never going to allow inspectors 24/7 access to its entire territory, so the system put in place here helps create roadblocks to a secret program being spun up, Reif said.¶ According to Wolfsthal, Washington aims to expand the funding, technological expertise and personnel it contributes to the IAEA to ensure “24/7 monitoring.¶ “We’re providing satellite coverage, live camera feeds, radio identification, tamper seals. … We will know whatever goes on in those facilities,” he said.¶

Barbara Slavin, senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and host of the July 15 event, noted that Iran has abided by previous commitments put forth in the interim agreement and believes the public focus of its people will help keep the agreement on track.¶ “This is a nation that, despite the rhetoric of its leaders, is influenced by its public.”¶ Slavin, who has made repeated visits to Tehran, added the Iranian people aspire to turn a new page with regard to their place in the world.¶ Congressional Challenge Ahead?¶ Cirincioni said the debate surrounding the deal needs to be broken down into three parts.¶ “On its nuclear merits, the expert community is overwhelmingly in favor of this deal . There is not a serious debate on whether it blocks Iran from the bomb; it does,” he said. “ But then you get into policy, and that’s where you’ll find a divide among regional experts. And where it really gets contentious is at the political level ; that’s where facts don’t really matter anymore.” ¶ Indeed, while experts are happy with the deal, members of Congress moved quickly to criticize the agreement — in some cases, before the final wording was even released publicly. ¶ The most audible criticisms are coming from Republican members of the House and Senate, as well as the bevy of GOP presidential hopefuls who seem to view a deal with Iran as a cudgel that can be wielded during campaign season. ¶ Much of the criticism is of the same flavor: that the US and Israel are less safe because of the agreement reached with Tehran.¶ Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said the deal "appears to be an historic capitulation on Iran's nuclear program," while her counterpart on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., slammed the deal in a series of television appearances. Graham, notably, is a GOP presidential hopeful who is staking his campaign on his foreign policy and defense credentials.¶ The committee's chairman, Sen. John

McCain, R-Ariz., cited concerns that Iran already is expanding in other parts of the region and that loosening restrictions will allow the Iranian government to spread its influence unchecked.¶

“Ultimately, the problem with this agreement is that it is built far too much on hope, on the belief that somehow the Iranian government will fundamentally change in the next several years,” McCain said in a statement. “"This is delusional and dangerous.”¶ Realistically, Lewis sees little chance that Congress successfully blocks the deal, as it would require veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate. Instead, he said, expect a lot of talk, a lot of posturing, and potentially, a way for members of Congress to avoid the issue entirely.¶

But, it will be a battle – PC is key to hold off republican spoilingBy: Kimberly Atkins 7-8 “Atkins: Expect a battle on the Hill after Iran deal done” Boston Herald http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/kimberly_atkins/2015/07/atkins_expect_a_battle_on_the_hill_after_iran_deal

WASHINGTON — As Secretary of State John Kerry and a team of negotiators continue eleventh-hour talks in hopes of securing a nuclear pact with Iran, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are gearing up for a battle over whatever plan emerges — and the GOP -dominated Congress could have considerable influence over how the deal is implemented , even if Republicans cannot swing enough Democratic votes to shoot the pact down . ¶ “Congress can establish a ‘Team B,’ a technique that has been used in the past to monitor the implementation of this agreement so that there are outside experts with access to all the intelligence who can confirm compliance or ensure that noncompliance is detected,” said Robert Joseph, senior scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy and former George W. Bush administration State Department undersecretary.¶ The White House has already begun an urgent behind-the-scenes campaign to sell the pact to Democratic lawmakers not only to prevent intra-party defections that could help Republicans torpedo the agreement, but also to help combat the expected firestorm of criticism from GOP presidential candidates . ¶ President Obama met with several Democratic senators last night, and Iran was on the agenda.¶ The pact is expected to ease sanctions against the Iranian regime in exchange for limits on its nuclear program and monitoring intended to prevent the development of weapons.¶ Critics, including Israeli officials, have said the U.S. appears likely to give too much in exchange for too little. Although negotiators have extended the deadline for reaching a deal to Friday, the timing for Kerry is more urgent.¶ If a deal is sent to Congress for review by tomorrow, lawmakers will have 30 days to approve or reject it.¶ If a deal is reached after that, lawmakers get a 60-day review, giving critics more time to drum up opposition, and giving GOP presidential candidates another talking point as debate season begins next month.¶ Even if a deal is approved, lawmakers have already promised to push to continue or even ratchet up sanctions against Iran, a move White House officials have warned could derail the pact.

<<Insert Link>>

iran prolif snowballs and causes nuke warMatthew Kroenig 12 (1-24, Stanton Nuclear Security fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Five reasons to attack Iran” http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0124/Five-reasons-to-attack-Iran/A-strike-is-the-least-bad-option

1. A nuclear-armed Iran poses a grave threat to international peace and security Iran currently restrains its foreign policy because it fears US and Israeli retaliation . With nuclear weapons, Tehran will be emboldened by the confidence that it can engage in provocation and use its nuclear weapons to deter the worst forms of retaliation. A more aggressive Iran will increase its support to terrorists and engage in tougher coercive diplomacy. Nuclear weapons in Tehran will cause global nuclear prolif eration, as other states in the Middle East seek their own nuclear weapons in response, and as Iran provides uranium enrichment tech nology to US enemies . The global nonprolif eration regime would be weakened . A nuclear Iran could threaten nuclear war to stop developments contrary to its interests, giving the world a nuclear scare every few years. And given that the nuclear balance between Iran and its adversaries would be less stable than the one that held between the U nited S tates and the Soviet Union during the cold war, these future crises could very well spiral out of control resulting in a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel or even Iran and the United States.

Impact Overview 2NCDeal failure outweighs -- prolif snowballs and causes escalatory spirals of nuclear conflict—crushes the global nonprolif regime – that’s KroenigIran deal failure causes nuclear war – Israel strikePhilip Stevens 13, associate editor and chief political commentator for the Financial Times, Nov 14 2013, “The four big truths that are shaping the Iran talks,” http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af170df6-4d1c-11e3-bf32-00144feabdc0.html

The who-said-what game about last weekend’s talks in Geneva has become a distraction. The six-power negotiations with Tehran to curb Iran’s nuclear programme may yet succeed or fail. But wrangling between the US and France on the terms of an acceptable deal should not allow the trees to obscure the forest. The organising facts shaping the negotiations have not changed. The first of these is that Tehran’s acquisition of a bomb would be more than dangerous for the Middle East and for wider international security. It would most likely set off a nuclear arms race that would see Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt signing up to the nuclear club . The nuclear non- prolif eration treaty would be shattered . A future regional conflict could draw Israel into launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike. This is not a region obviously susceptible to cold war disciplines of deterrence. The second ineluctable reality is that Iran has mastered the nuclear cycle. How far it is from building a bomb remains a subject of debate. Different intelligence agencies give different answers. These depend in part on what the spooks actually know and in part on what their political masters want others to hear. The progress of an Iranian warhead programme is one of the known unknowns that have often wreaked havoc in this part of the world. Israel points to an imminent threat. European agencies are more relaxed, suggesting Tehran is still two years or so away from a weapon. Western diplomats broadly agree that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not taken a definitive decision to step over the line. What Iran has been seeking is what diplomats call a breakout capability – the capacity to dash to a bomb before the international community could effectively mobilise against it. The third fact – and this one is hard for many to swallow – is that neither a negotiated settlement nor the air strikes long favoured by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, can offer the rest of the world a watertight insurance policy. It should be possible to construct a deal that acts as a plausible restraint – and extends the timeframe for any breakout – but no amount of restrictions or intrusive monitoring can offer a certain guarantee against Tehran’s future intentions. By the same token, bombing Iran’s nuclear sites could certainly delay the programme, perhaps for a couple of years. But, assuming that even the hawkish Mr Netanyahu is not proposing permanent war against Iran, air strikes would not end it. You cannot bomb knowledge and technical expertise. To try would be to empower those in Tehran who say the regime will be safe only when, like North Korea, it has a weapon. So when Barack Obama says the US will never allow Iran to get the bomb he is indulging in, albeit understandable, wishful thinking. The best the international community can hope for is that, in return for a relaxation of sanctions, Iran will make a judgment that it is better off sticking with a threshold capability . To put this another way, if Tehran does step back from the nuclear brink it will be because of its own calculation of the balance of advantage. The fourth element in this dynamic is that Iran now has a leadership that, faced with the severe and growing pain inflicted by sanctions, is prepared to talk.

There is nothing to say that Hassan Rouhani, the president, is any less hard-headed than previous Iranian leaders, but he does seem ready to weigh the options.

U: Will Pass 2NC

Will pass now and obama is pushing – solves Mideast warMatt Spetalnick and Patricia Zengerle, Reuters, 7-16-2015, "Republicans are honing in on their plan to derail the Iran nuclear deal," Business Insider, <span class="skimlinks-unlinked">http://www.businessinsider.com/r-republicans-target-un-arms-embargo-rollback-in-bid-to-derail-iran-deal-2015-7?r=UK&amp;IR=T</span>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans on Thursday honed their attack plan against President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in Congress, targeting part of the pact that calls for eventually rolling back a U.N. arms embargo on Tehran. ¶ Opponents of the landmark nuclear agreement hope to use the arms embargo issue, one of the final obstacles to the accord sealed in Vienna on Tuesday between Iran and six world powers, to draw some of Obama’s wavering Democrats into helping to derail it. ¶ “It blows my mind that the administration would agree to lift the arms and missile bans,” John Boehner, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the top Republican in Congress, told reporters.¶ But even as Republicans who control Congress sharpened their criticism, Obama’s top aides stepped up their defense of the historic deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. ¶ Vice President Joe Biden met Democrats on Capitol Hill for the second day in a row to make the administration’s case. ¶ Participants said much of the questioning focused on a final compromise that Obama agreed to for lifting the United Nations ban on Iran after five years for conventional weapons and eight years for ballistic missile technology.¶ “It’s hard for us to accept it, so we just want to take a look at it,” said Senator Ben Cardin, top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.¶ Obama says the deal is the only alternative to Iran moving forward on developing a nuclear weapon, risking more war in the Middle East. Tehran has denied seeking a bomb.¶ Critics of the broader deal say easing sanctions will empower Iran financially to expand its influence in the Middle East in the near term. But many lawmakers are just as worried that Tehran’s access to advanced arms – even years down the line – would give it even greater ability to fuel regional sectarian strife and threaten U.S. ally Israel.¶ With Congress due to begin a 60-day review of the Iran deal, Republicans hope that misgivings expressed earlier by top Pentagon officials when the arms embargo issue was still under negotiation would give them further leverage with Democrats. ¶

Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional hearing last week: “Under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking.”¶ Obama, at a news conference on Wednesday, shrugged off such concerns, saying that the U.S. arms embargo would remain in effect and that the United States and its partners would still have other ways of preventing Iran from acquiring and sending weapons to militant groups.¶ While critics accused the United States of caving on a last-minute Iranian demands in order to salvage Obama’s legacy achievement, Wendy Sherman, a key U.S. negotiator, said the American team always knew it would have to be resolved at the end of the talks. Russia and China, two of the world powers involved, had taken Iran's side and pushed for the arms embargo to be lifted.¶ She insisted that while Iran wanted an immediate lifting of the embargo, the United States won a “very tough” bargain in stretching it out for years.¶ With a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution considered likely as early as next week, the Republican chairs of the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security Committees have sent a

letter to Obama asking him to delay the vote.¶ The embargo issue was the final major holdup before a deal was sealed.¶ On July 8, Obama, under pressure from critics who accused him of giving too much ground, held a video conference with his team in Vienna in which he "essentially rejected the deal that was on the table", in part because he didn’t like the how fast the U.N. embargo would be removed, a White House official said.¶ The compromise that ultimately won Obama’s approval extended that timetable.¶ Republicans would need the support of dozens of Democrats to sustain a "resolution of disapproval" that could [destroy] cripple a deal. But the odds are considered slim that they could muster enough support to overrule an Obama veto.

Veto threat holds now – it will passFriedman 7-1415 Dan Friedman joined the Washington bureau of the Daily News in December 2012. He covers Congress, the White House and the New York delegation. Dan Friedman. 7/14/2015. “Opponents of Iran nuclear deal blast pact, Obama after agreement reached” http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/opponents-iran-deal-blast-pact-obama-article-1.2291488. 7/14/15.

WASHINGTON — Congressional opponents of diplomacy with Iran rushed Tuesday to condemn President Obama's nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, but are unlikely to round up the votes needed to block the deal. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed Tuesday to fight what he called "a bad deal that is wrong for our national security and wrong for our country." "The agreement will hand Iran billions in sanctions relief while giving it time and space to reach a break-out threshold to produce a nuclear bomb - all without cheating," Boehner said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "this agreement is an historic mistake for the world." But congressional Democrats mostly praised the agreement or remained silent, suggesting Republicans will be hard-pressed to find Democratic support needed to reject the agreement. Instead they will hope to make opposition a campaign issue next year. Obama said in remarks Tuesday morning that the will "veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this agreement." WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed to fight what he called ‘a bad deal that is wrong for our national security and wrong for our country.’ Congressional opponents will need two-thirds of votes in both congressional chambers to overcome his veto. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who weighed in in favor of the agreement, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will work to ensure the Democrats don't join in veto override efforts. But it may not even come to that. Obama can probably avoid using his veto pen. With 54 Senate seats, Republicans will be hard pressed to gather 60 votes they will need to pass legislation rejecting the agreement. Within minutes of Obama's early morning remarks on the agreement, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) a vocal critic of the talks, called the agreement "a terrible, dangerous mistake that's going to pave the path for Iran to get a nuclear weapon." Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Long Island) a hawkish freshman said Obama "just negotiated away our sanctions that made for critical leverage to deal with so many other completely unacceptable acts."

Iran deal will likely pass, but Republicans will make it a tough fight, Obama will have to go all out to make sure it passesBorger 7/15; JULIAN BORGER is the Guardian's diplomatic editor. He was previously a correspondent in the US, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Balkans; 7/15/15; “Iran nuclear deal moves to battleground of US Congress”;

(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/14/iran-nuclear-deal-moves-to-battleground-of-us-congress)

The battle over the Iran nuclear agreement is set to move to Washington as the Obama administration begins a three-month campaign to stop the hard-won deal being derailed by congressional Republicans. The deal – reached in a Vienna hotel early on Tuesday morning after prolonged

talks between foreign ministers – binds Iran, the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China to a series of undertakings stretching over many years. Iran will dismantle much of its nuclear infrastructure,

while the UN, US and European Union will remove a wall of sanctions built around Iran over the last nine years. Republicans and some Democratic hawks in Congress, who have long argued that there should be no nuclear programme on Iranian soil whatsoever, are determined to find ways to sabotage an agreement that they argue seeks to manage rather than prevent an Iranian nuclear programme and endangers Israel . The struggle to win over wavering Democratic votes in the Senate will pit some American allies against others. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, signalled that he would intervene assertively in the debate on Capitol Hill in an attempt to kill the deal, which will grant sanctions relief to Iran in return for its acceptance of long-lasting curbs on its nuclear programme. In that debate, Israel will be assisted by the Gulf Arab monarchies. On the other side, Britain, France and Germany – all parties to the historic agreement – will be called on to support the administration’s argument, that the agreement protects the US and its friends in the region. In a statement to coincide with

the announcement of the deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Barack Obama said: “I am confident that this deal will meet the national security interest of the United States and our allies. So I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal.” The president’s Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, said a new phase had begun in Iran’s relations with the rest of the world, while the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who led his country’s delegation in Vienna, described the agreement as a “win-win” solution, but not perfect. “I believe this is a historic moment,” he said. “We are reaching an agreement that is not perfect for anybody but is what we could accomplish. Today could have been the end of hope, but now we are starting a new chapter of hope.” Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the agreement would “open the way to a new chapter in international relations” and show that diplomacy can overcome decades of tension. “This is a sign of hope for the entire world,” she said. Netanyahu, who has faced mounting criticism at home over his handling of the diplomacy around Iran, denounced the deal even before the details had emerged. Heading a chorus of condemnation from Israeli politicians – including many members of his rightwing coalition – he said the agreement was a capitulation and a mistake of historic proportions. The hardline former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman described it as “a total surrender to terror”. Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, said Netanyahu’s campaign

over Iran had been a “colossal failure”. The Obama administration has a few days to present the agreement to Congress, which then has 60 days to review it. Another 22 days is set aside for an initial vote, in which the Republican majority is likely to reject the deal, and then a second vote, over which there is a presidential veto. The Republicans have to win over just a handful of Senate Democrats to ensure a congressional vote of disapproval is not blocked by a filibuster. They would have to peel off 12 Democrats or independents to override Obama’s veto, an uphill task . Republicans were vociferous in denouncing the JCPOA. One of the party’s presidential hopefuls, the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, said: “Shame on the Obama administration for agreeing to a deal that empowers an evil Iranian regime to carry out its threat to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ and bring ‘death to America.’” Other

Republicans echoed the near-apocalyptic rhetoric consistently used by Netanyahu in denouncing the deal. The Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, supported the deal, calling it “an important step, which puts a lid on Iran’s nuclear programmes”. However, the Democrat Chuck Schumer, who is likely to become the Senate minority leader, was noncommittal. He said he would “go through this agreement with a fine-tooth comb ... Supporting or opposing this agreement is not a decision to be made lightly, and I plan to carefully study the agreement before making an informed decision.”

Speaking in the Austrian capital, the secretary of state, John Kerry, who led the US negotiating team, said: “If Congress were to veto the deal, the United States of America would be in non-compliance with this agreement and contrary to all of the other countries in the world. I don’t think that’s going to happen. “I really don’t believe that people would turn their backs on an agreement which has such extraordinary steps in it with respect to Iran’s programme as well as access and verification,” he said. The UK’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, who

was in Vienna for many of the last critical days of negotiations, said the US administration “is confident that it will carry the argument with Congress”. “[The agreement] will give the international community the confidence it needs that Iran will not have the capability to go for a bomb,” Hammond said. “There is an opportunity now for an opening that will allow us to understand each other better, get behind some of the mythology and hopefully create a new dynamic in the region, where Iran can play a more constructive and transparent role in regional affairs.” Hammod said the UK had fought hard in the last days of the bargaining to ensure an arms embargo on Iran would remain in place for five years, with restrictions on the transfer of missile technology remaining for eight years. Those measures were essential to “reassure Iran’s neighbours in the region”, he said. Under the terms of the agreement, a UN security

council resolution will be passed later this month, codifying the JCPOA, which would be an attachment to the resolution. The agreement, however, would not come into effect for 90 days, allowing time for domestic review processes in Washington and Tehran. Iran would then take a series of steps to reduce the scale of its nuclear programme, which would be verified by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which Hammond said had been given “excellent access provisions … so that we can be highly confident that the obligations that Iran is entering into will be complied with”.

The Iran Deal will pass barely, there will be a huge political battle, Obama will have to push the bill to pass

- So I am split about this card. It could be used as the bill will or won’t pass. It could technically be used for either side. It could also be an ! extension card.

Abdullah 7/15; HALIMAH ABDULLHA is published by CNN. He is also published by ABC News, Google News, Market Watch, The Next Web, and The New York Times; 7/15/15; “Obama: Iran Nuke Deal Makes Our Country, World Safer”; (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coming-obama-takes-questions-iran-nuclear-deal-n392511)

President Barack Obama fiercely defended the historic nuclear deal with Iran as he faced White House

reporters Wednesday at a press conference. "The bottom line is this. This nuclear deal meets the national security interest of the United States and our allies," the president said. "It prevents the most serious threat, Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, which would only make the other problems that Iran may cause even worse. That's why this deal makes our country and the world safer and more secure." Six world powers, including the United States, reached the deal on Tuesday. It aims to limit Iran's nuclear capability in exchange for lifting punishing economic sanctions. Obama has said the deal eliminates every pathway

to an Iranian nuclear weapon. The president is also keenly aware that it will take work to convince U.S. lawmakers, especially those who have expressed deep skepticism, to support the agreement. "I expect the debate to be robust, as it should be," the president said on Wednesday. During the press conference, the president referred to notes and dissected point by point the type of criticism leveled at the deal since it was announced. He also said that critics of the deal have not presented a better alternative and indicated that

he was ready for an engaged conversation on the matter. "I suspect this is not the last we've heard of this debate," the president said. The deal still faces a vote in Congress, although it is unclear whether Republicans and some Democrats who object to the deal will actually be able to override the decision — and Obama threatened Tuesday to veto any attempt to reject the accord. Republicans have said it amounts to appeasement of a dangerous regime. Sen. Lindsey Graham of

South Carolina, a presidential candidate, said on TODAY that the deal was like throwing gasoline on a fire . After House Democrats emerged from a briefing Wednesday morning with Vice President Joe Biden, New York Democrat Rep. Steve Israel said he is a "skeptic" of the agreement, but will take the entire 60-day review period to figure out if this deal is worth supporting. "I think the vice president made as convincing of an argument as he can make, but I think there are a lot of questions to be answered," Israel said. "I had been skeptical from the beginning of this. I am still skeptical. I read the Joint Comprehensive plan of action last night and there was nothing in it to relieve my skepticism." Israeli leadership has been more blunt in its criticism. Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told Lester Holt that Iran "has two paths to the bomb: One if they keep the deal, the other if they cheat on the deal." The agreement involves limiting Iran's nuclear production for 10 years and Tehran's access to nuclear fuel and equipment for 15 years in

return for hundreds of millions of dollars in sanctions relief. However, the sanctions would not be lifted

until Iran proves to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has met its obligations under the terms of the deal. The agreement also includes the provision of a "snap back" mechanism that could lead to the reinstatement of sanctions within 65 days if Iran violates the terms of the deal, according to officials. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Iran also has signed a roadmap with his organization to clarify outstanding issues. The agreement also makes no mention of the four Americans who have been held in Iran for

years, a fact Obama said "nobody is content" over in fiery remarks. Nuclear and foreign policy experts say that while the agreement isn't perfect it is the best option on the table right now. "The deal will happen ," said David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and editor of Foreign Policy Group, a collection of

foreign policy publications. " Congress can't stop it. So its critics ought to start focusing on how to make it work in the context of a broader strategy rather than simply trying to score political points."

U: Obama Pushes 2NCPC gets it over the finish lineReuters, 7-19-2015, "Obama Sends Congress the Iran Nuclear Deal," Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/obama-sends-congress-iran-nuclear-deal-355293

Obama has promised to exercise his veto if Congress rejects the deal, which curbs Iran's nuclear program while allowing an easing of economic sanctions. ¶ Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week ¶ Overriding it would require a two-thirds majority of both the House of Representatives and Senate, so the administration is working to win over enough of Obama's fellow Democrats to offset strong Republican opposition.

U: A2 “U Overwhelms”Uq doesn’t overwhelm- obama’s involvement is keyChris Villani, 7-19-2015, "Dem, GOP reps: Murky forecast for Iran deal in Congress," Boston Herald, http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/07/dem_gop_reps_murky_forecast_for_iran_deal_in_congress

The future of the Iran nuclear deal in Congress is uncertain, congressmen from both sides of the aisle said on Boston Herald Radio today.¶ “I think it’s going to be close, but it’s hard to tell ,” Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano said. “It looks at the moment as though most of the Republicans will be in lock-step against whatever the president supports and there are some Democrats who will have some problems with this. I think there are enough votes to support a veto, but the president has his work cut out for him.” ¶ “On my side of the aisle, I think there will be strong agreement to override, the question is ‘what to the Democrats do?’” Oklahoma Republican Jim Bridenstine said. “From what I have been hearing from some Democrats, it seems they are very concerned about this.”

U: A2 “Deal Expires”Even if the deal expires in 10 years, sanctions and other regulations will be in place which checks Iran’s nuclear capabilitiesJalabi 7/15; RAYA JALABI is a reporter and editor for The Guardian; 7/15/15; “Obama defends Iran nuclear deal as battle moves to Congress – live updates”; (http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jul/15/barack-obama-iran-nuclear-deal-congress-live-updates)

Obama addresses what happens if the deal holds, at the end of the set 10 years. Some of the restrictions will still be in place, he says. The inspections will not go away. There’s no scenario in which the US president is not in a stronger position 15 years from now, if Iran wanted to develop a nuclear weapon down the line, he says. Even if what the critics say are true, Obama says, that at the end of 10-15 years, Iran is now in a position to develop a nuclear weapon, that they are at a breakout point, they won’t be at a more dangerous breakout point than they are now. It won’t be shorter than the one that exists today, he says.

U: A2 “Future Prez Rollback”Future presidents won’t roll backAaron Mehta, 7-18-2015, "Experts Praise Iran Deal, Despite Congressional Concerns," Defense News, http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/2015/07/18/experts-praise-iran-deal-despite-congressional-concerns/30261893/

Acton said that if a deal goes through, it is highly unlikely that the next president will look to end it — despite widespread condemnation of the deal from the current crop of GOP hopefuls. ¶ “If this goes into effect and a future president decides to roll it back, they will be responsible for giving Iran carte blanche to do its nuclear program. End of story,” Acton said.¶ If Congress were to overcome the barriers in its way and override the treaty, it would likely lead to the crumbling of sanctions from the international community, said several of the experts.

IL: Deal Good/Solves Prolif 2NCIran deal good - prolifGreg Myre, 7-14-2015, "How The Iran Nuclear Deal Could Reshape The Middle East," NPR.org, Greg Myre is the international editor of NPR.org http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/07/14/422536452/how-the-iran-nuclear-deal-could-reshape-the-middle-east

Is it a good deal? President Obama and his detractors are headed for a ferocious debate on this question following the nuclear agreement announced Tuesday in Vienna between Iran and six world powers. The evidence will likely trickle in over an extended period. What's certain is that the narrow and highly technical negotiations on Iran's nuclear program will influence the much broader trajectory of the Middle East in many ways, large and small. One impact was instant: Oil prices tumbled in response to the prospect of increased Iranian oil on the world market. The nuclear deal was more than a decade in the making and bars Iran from moving toward nuclear weapons for at least another decade in exchange for relief from international sanctions that have been squeezing hard. "Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off," Obama said Tuesday morning. For Obama, it's a signature diplomatic achievement that he regards as the best available option for keeping Iran out of the nuclear weapons club. Beyond that, he's hoping for an added bonus in which Iran, its international isolation eased, will be more inclined to reduce rather than inflame Middle East tensions. But the many critics, including U.S. Republicans, Israel and Saudi Arabia, say they don't trust Iran to abide by the terms. And an Iran unshackled from sanctions will have even greater resources to stir up trouble in the region, they say. Related Coverage President Obama, standing with Vice President Joe Biden, delivers a statement about the nuclear deal reached between Iran and six major world powers during an address from the White House on Tuesday. THE TWO-WAY The Latest On Iran Deal: Obama Says Deal Provides New Way Forward Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement before the deal was formally announced, saying, "From the initial reports we can already conclude that this agreement is a historic mistake for the world." Intelligence Squared U.S. debate stage. INTELLIGENCE SQUARED U.S. Debate: Is Obama's Iran Deal Good for America? NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep interviews President Obama on April 6 at the White House. POLITICS Transcript: President Obama's Full NPR Interview On Iran Nuclear Deal Of the many possible scenarios that could play out, there's also a middle ground between the visions offered by Obama and his critics. The nuclear deal could proceed as planned, but Iran may remain an aggressive actor that continues to be at odds with the West and many Sunni Muslim states across the Middle East. Here's a look at the key issues, as well as the wider impact it could potentially have. Iran Faces Tough Inspections: The U.S. says this is the most intrusive inspection regime ever placed on any country. The International Atomic Energy Agency will have regular access to all nuclear facilities, according to the agreement. Without an agreement, Iran could kick out or limit IAEA access, making it far more difficult, if not impossible, to keep tabs on the nuclear program. During the negotiations, Iran described the inspections in different language, calling it "managed access." One key question was over inspections at military sites. Iran has often balked at this, saying the military installations are not part of its nuclear facilities. A compromise was reached that would allow inspectors to monitor military sites, but Iran could challenge requests for access, according to The Associated Press. Iran's 'Breakout Time' Will Be Lengthened: There's broad consensus that Iran, at present, could produce enough highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon within a few months. The deal is designed to extend Iran's nuclear "breakout time" to at

least a year. The thinking is this would give the U.S. and others plenty of time to respond if Iran scraps the agreement and makes a sprint toward a weapon. Iran will be required to reduce its current stockpile of enriched uranium by 98 percent, according to the White House. The remaining uranium it keeps will be at low levels, sufficient for a power plant, but nowhere near what's needed for a weapon. Iran will also have to reduce by two-thirds its centrifuges that can enrich uranium. This has not impressed critics who say Iran developed its program at secret, hidden facilities in the past and could do so again. Some say they would not be satisfied even if Iran sticks to the letter of the deal. They argue that Iran's nuclear enrichment program is now entrenched in the agreement and that, after a decade, many restrictions will begin to fall away. Sanctions Relief: Sanctions have been biting. Perhaps the most punitive measure took effect three years ago, when Europe and others stopped buying Iran's oil, its main export. Iran's oil exports have been down by roughly half, delivering a major economic blow. Iran wanted all sanctions lifted immediately. But the U.S. says inspectors must first verify that Iran has met all its obligations, and this process could take months. The U.S., the United Nations and the European Union all have their own sanctions against Iran, and each would have to act independently to lift them. Republicans in the U.S. Congress are authorized to review the agreement, but they will need a two-thirds majority to block the deal and override a veto by Obama. From Iran's perspective, the EU oil and banking sanctions are the ones that have the greatest adverse effect on their economy. Assessing the overall sanctions picture, analysts have tossed around the figure of $100 billion in relief that could come Iran's way in the short term. The Broader Middle East: Obama has sketched an optimistic scenario in which Iran observes the nuclear deal, which builds trust and shows Iran the benefits of cooperation in the region and with the West. One possible example: Both the U.S. and Iran are battling the self-described Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, though they insist there's no formal collaboration. If the nuclear deal goes well, it could open up the possibility for the U.S. and Iran to work together, formally or informally, for the first time since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. But the critics see a much more pessimistic future. Iran is emboldened by the deal, receives a badly needed influx of cash and pushes to further extend its influence in countries where it already plays a key role, including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Reaching a deal was tough. Some of the hardest questions are still ahead.

Iran deal Good solves prolifJames Conca, 11-30-2013, "The Iranian Nuclear Deal Is A Good One," Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/11/30/the-iranian-nuclear-deal-is-a-good-one/, WGR 7-16-14

This Thanksgiving had an extra reason to be thankful – the new deal between Iran and six superpowers. Last week, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China (the P5+1 group) reached an interim deal with Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program. Four key provisions were obtained in this deal:

1) no enrichment of U above 5% U-235, and all highly-enriched materials, some as high as 20% U-235, must be blended down to less than 5% or altered to a form not usable for weapons. 2) no additional centrifuges are to be installed or produced, and three-fourths of the centrifuges at Fordow and half of the centrifuges at Natanz will be inoperable, 3) stop all work on the heavy-water reactor at Arak, provide design details on the reactor (which could be used to produce Pu for the other type of atomic weapon) and do not develop the reprocessing facilities needed to

separate Pu from used fuel, 4) full access by IAEA inspectors to all nuclear facilities, including daily visitation to Natanz and Fordow, and continuous camera surveillance of key sites. Despite all the rhetoric of horror and claims that this deal is a mistake, this deal is just what we all hoped for as the first step to resolving the Iranian nuclear weapons issue, the structure of which we’ve been proposing for years. It is the first step to bringing Iran into the world’s nuclear community as a partner instead of an adversary, making Iran a compliant signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. While this may make some of its neighbors nervous, there is no real alternative that does not involve lots of destruction and death. Old orders are falling in the Middle East. The region is in upheaval, Shia and Sunni are as far apart as ever, and Iran’s theocracy, embodied by their new President Hassan Rouhani, has decided that the cost/benefit of maintaining an expensive, useless nuclear program that is still a long way from producing a reliable weapon, while being starved by a barrage of sanctions, on the heels of a global economic meltdown, has now gone into the too-much-cost-and-not-enough-benefit category. Thus, there is now an opening to change the game. This deal is not about trust, as the last point above about access addresses. No one trusts governments, even supposedly good ones. There must be unfettered access to verify that the nuclear facilities are not being used to produce weapons and that is what this deal allows, and it will be easy to determine when Iran breaks this deal (The Economist; The Guardian; Fox News).But the facilities can, and will, be used to support nuclear power, as was the original purpose of Iran’s nuclear program when the United States set it up under the Shah in the 1960s, and that is the actual end point of this whole deal. Not the end of Iran’s nuclear program or the destruction of their facilities, their country or their people.

Iran deal goodChristopher A. Preble, 7-14-2015, Christopher A. Preble is the vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. "The Pros and Cons of the Iranian Nuclear Deal," Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/blog/pros-cons-iranian-nuclear-deal, WGR, 7-16-14

Earlier today in Vienna, international negotiators reached a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. The New York Times reports that the agreement will eventually lift oil and financial sanctions, “in return for limits on Iran’s nuclear production capability and fuel stockpile over the next 15 years.” The international restrictions on Iranian arms exports will remain in place for up to 5 years, and the ban on ballistic missile exports could remain for up to 8 years. In a televised statement this morning, President Obama defended his decision to engage in the negotiations “from a position of strength” and assured the American people that , under the deal, “Iran will not be able to achieve a nuclear weapon .” His opponents are sure to challenge both assertions. The deal , Obama said, “is not built on trust, it is built on verification .” Those verification provisions appeared to have been one of the final sticking points in the negotiations. According to the Associated Press, the Iranians agreed to allow inspection of Iranian military sites, “something the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had long vowed to oppose,” but such inspections are not the surprise, snap inspections that some had pushed for. The focus now turns to the Senate, which has 60 days to review the agreement. Senators could vote to block it, but Obama has already pledged that he would veto any legislation that prohibits the deal’s implementation. He has a reasonably strong hand to play. Even if all

Senate Republicans vote to kill the deal, opponents would need at least a dozen Senate Democrats to vote with them in order to override the president. Expect the details of the nearly 100-page document to come under close scrutiny, even though many opponents don’t appear to believe that the specifics matter that much. For them, nearly any deal is a bad deal. For example, the latest entrant into the 2016 Republican presidential contest, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, yesterday pledged to “terminate the bad deal with Iran on Day One” – before the terms were even finalized. And he predicted that any other Republican president would do the same. Arkansas’s freshman Senator Tom Cotton has publicly stated that his object has been to blow up any deal. For Walker, Cotton, and others you don’t negotiate with a regime like Iran’s – you destroy it. But counter proliferation by means of regime change has a bad odor today, thanks chiefly to the Iraq war that, coincidentally, many of the most outspoken Iran deal opponents had a hand in pushing on the American people beginning in the late 1990s. They have learned nothing, it appears, but most Americans have: refusing to engage diplomatically with an odious regime, or waging war to separate said regime from its weapons – by removing the regime from power – is a costly proposition, and there is no guarantee that the government that emerges in its place will be better than that which came before. George W. Bush came around to this view by the middle of his second term in office: the man who in 2002 cast Iran as a charter member of the Axis of Evil – along with Iraq and North Korea – supported the P5 + 1 negotiating process that eventually led to today’s deal. So keep all this in mind in the coming weeks as the details of the Iran deal are debated in Washington and around the country. Deal opponents have an obligation to describe their preferred alternative, not merely what they are against.

Iran solves terror, Middle East war, and prevents proliferationJalabi 7/15; RAYA JALABI is a reporter and editor for The Guardian; 7/15/15; “Obama defends Iran nuclear deal as battle moves to Congress – live updates”; (http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jul/15/barack-obama-iran-nuclear-deal-congress-live-updates)

That’s it from Barack Obama’s press conference on Iran. Here’s a summary of what the US president said: Obama argued the debate over the landmark nuclear agreement was ultimately a choice between diplomacy and war. He praised the historic deal, preempted critics by saying the deal “meets the national security interests of the US and its allies”, and reminded all present that the sole priority was always to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Obama said he hoped the deal would help encourage Iran to decrease its regional involvement and terrorist activities, but he wasn’t betting on it. Obama said that Iran’s support for terrorism remained a concern, but said blocking Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was more important than blocking Iran from funding its regional proxies. Obama said he hoped Congress would evaluate the deal based on the facts, though he conceded that politics would inevitably intrude.

Iran deal goodHaaretz, 7-16-2015, "Iran deal: good or bad? Five analyses you don't want to miss," http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.666240, Haaretz is a newspaper based out of Israel. WGR 7-16-15

Barak Ravid acknowledges various shortfalls in the agreement, but says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mistaken and misleading when he suggests a good agreement was even possible. At least this deal, Ravid says, will compel Iran to take steps that it would unlikely take under any other scenario. Ravid adds that a decade in the Middle East is a long time, and an Iran that is closer to the U.S. could be an Iran that's less dangerous for Israel.

Iran deal good for USHaaretz, 7-16-2015, "Iran deal: good or bad? Five analyses you don't want to miss," http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.666240, Haaretz is a newspaper based out of Israel. WGR 7-16-15

Peter Beinart, on the other hand, says this deal, while imperfect, achieves America's goal of peacefully preventing Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon. He says the real reason behind the drama playing out between Israel and the United States over the deal is that the two countries have conflicting vital interests: the U.S. does not want to keep Iran weak. In fact, the United States would prefer a relatively strong Iran to maintain the balance of power in the Middle East and possibly even help in the fight against Islamic State. Israel, on the other hand, has a vital interest in keeping Iran weak. What scares Jerusalem most is that the deal legitimizes Iran’s regime internationally and ends sanctions, giving Tehran a lot more cash, and with it a lot more power.

Iran deal goodJames M. Acton, 7-14-2015, "Iran Deal: Not Perfect, But Better Than Nothing," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/07/14/iran-deal-not-perfect-but-better-than-nothing/idfg, WGR 7-16-14

Carnegie’s James Acton talked to CNBC about why Tuesday’s nuclear deal with Iran is better than existing alternatives. Acton argued that the agreement has very stringent limits on Iran’s nuclear activities lasting between ten and twenty-five years, as well as some very stringent verification provisions to detect cheating.

“It’s not a perfect deal, but the result I believe is better than any of the reasonably achievable alternatives at this point,” Acton said.

Acton added that it would be very hard to undo the deal and that that is “a good thing.” Responding to criticisms of the deal, Acton pointed out that the Soviet Union lied and yet the United States successfully did arms control with the USSR.

“This idea that the Iran deal is somehow based on trusting Iran is simply wrong. There are stringent verification provisions associated with this deal,” Acton said.

Plan stops gangbusters, slows down enrichment programs, and has many safeties to stop a country breaking of the agreement"I would give it an A": Why nuclear experts love the Iran deal”, Max Fisher 7-15, July 15, 2015, online @ http://www.vox.com/2015/7/15/8967147/iran-nuclear-deal-jeffrey-lewis

Jeffrey Lewis is the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and also runs an excellent arms control blog network and arms control podcast and has a regular arms control column in Foreign Policy.

Jeffrey Lewis was so eager to read the Iran nuclear deal that he woke up at 3:30 am California time to pore through all 150-plus pages of the text. Lewis is a nukes super nerd: He's the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and also runs an excellent arms control blog network and arms control podcast and has a regular arms control column in Foreign Policy. He is the person to talk to on this. 1When Lewis and I first spoke, in early 2015, he was skeptical, as a lot of arms control analysts were. He was skeptical that the US, world powers, and Iran would ever reach a nuclear deal. And he was skeptical that if they did reach a deal, it would be good enough. But when the negotiators released the "framework" in April, describing the broad strokes, Lewis came away impressed and happily surprised — but with some caveats and some unanswered questions. I called up Lewis to see what he thought of the final deal. His assessment was very positive: Asked to grade the deal, he said, "I would give it an A." Max Fisher: Talk me through what your reactions were as you were reading through the text of the deal. Jeffrey Lewis: I'm reading it and I'm bored, because it looks like exactly the fact sheet from the spring [from the framework deal] and the explanations that Obama administration officials gave privately. There were little points where I though, "Oh, that's an interesting little detail, I'm glad they caught that." Or, "Oh, they dealt with that problem." It's exactly the deal they had in the spring. There are little things that they improved on, or that they fussed with, but it's the same. Max Fisher: Well, but there are some holes they filled in, some unresolved stuff in the framework, and I want to ask you about that later on. But first I want to ask more broadly, back in April you told me that the framework was very good if they could get it on a formal agreement and if they could resolve the open issues. So did they do that? Jeffrey Lewis: Yes. That's exactly what I was going to tell you. The thing I was saying at the time was, "The fact sheet looks great, good luck getting that on paper." And then they did it. Max Fisher: Are you surprised? Jeffrey Lewis: Well, there was always a deal to be had here if reasonable people could make reasonable compromises. I never really count on that, but it seems like they did it. I wouldn't say I'm surprised, but I am pleased. I'm happy with it. I was talking to a colleague who is unhappy [with the deal], and it's kind of fascinating. He's unhappy because, he said, "We spent eight years, and the deal we got is not better than the deal we could have gotten eight years ago." And it's like, oh, no kidding. That's not an indictment of the deal, my friend, it's an indictment of eight years of fucking around. " I SEE IT AS A REALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD MEASURE TO SLOW DOWN AN ENRICHMENT PROGRAM THAT WAS GOING GANGBUSTERS " Max Fisher: Why is this a good deal? Jeffrey Lewis: It's a good deal because it slows down their nuclear program — which they say is for civilian purposes but could be used to make a bomb, and which we think was originally intended to make a bomb. And it puts monitoring and verification measures in place that mean if they try to build a bomb, we're very likely to find out, and to do so with enough time that we have options to do something about it. There's a verifiable gap between their bomb option and an actual bomb. That's

why it's a good deal. Max Fisher: So that rests on Iran looking at all of this and saying, "It's not worth even trying to cheat on the deal." Jeffrey Lewis: It's a slightly more resigned attitude. I can't get inside the supreme leader's head. He might be a guy who likes to take risks. He might be stupid, he might get bad advice. So I don't ever look at a situation where you're trying to deter someone and say, "This will work." Because you can never know that . What I try to do is ask, "Have we done all of the things that we reasonably can so that more will not help, and we can't imagine more intrusive mechanisms that are likely to be accepted?" What you want is to feel like the administration has maxed out what they could have reasonably hoped to achieve. You can't know that [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] will be deterred. But I don't know that there's any way to make him more deterred than this . "I KNOW IT MAKES THE FRENCH REALLY ANGRY WHEN THEY HEAR THIS, BUT..." Max Fisher: When we talked in April, just after the framework came out, the biggest unresolved issue was sanctions relief for Iran. It wasn't clear how the timing would work, how the sanctions would come off. So how did this work out in the final deal? Jeffrey Lewis: It looked like we thought it would look. They knew they would have to massage the Iranian demand for immediate sanctions relief, and the American demand for sanctions to be lifted conditionally, and they did it the way we thought they would do it, which is with an implementation period. The simple version is that the US can say, "Sanctions don't come off until the agreement is implemented," and Iran can say, "Sanctions come off immediately." And that satisfies the requirements of each political system. Max Fisher: The two other components that are getting a lot of discussion are "managed access" for inspectors to certain Iranian military sites, which I talked about with Aaron Stein in a separate Q&A [to be published soon]. The second is the "snapback" process for bringing back sanctions in case Iran cheats. What do you make of that? Jeffrey Lewis: The snapback thing is really clever , I had to read it a couple of times to make sure it said what I think it said. According to the deal, the way this is going to work is that sanctions will be lifted, but in a conditional fashion. If any party to the deal — and, not to spill the beans, that means the United States — is dissatisfied with Iran's compliance, then first it has to go to the joint commission [of the seven states that signed the Iran deal plus the European Union]. If they don't get satisfaction, then they go to the UN Security Council. And they can notify them that they're not satisfied with the compliance of another party. That starts a 30-day clock ticking. The Security Council must act to resolve the concerns of the state. If the Security Council does nothing — which could include them trying to pass something and the US vetoing it — at the end of the 30 days, if there's no action from the Security Council, the sanctions are reimposed automatically. Max Fisher: You wonder how they got Russia and China on board for this, given that the entire snapback arrangement is basically a fancy way of cutting Russia and China out of any decision on reimposing sanctions and stripping them of their Security Council veto authority on this issue. Jeffrey Lewis: This was, I suspect, satisfactory to Russia and China for two reasons. One is they seem to really care about the principle of their veto, and so even though this in practice provides an end run around their veto, it doesn't take it away from them. I think they cared about that principle more than anything else. It's the same way that they set it up so that the cowards in Congress don't have to vote on the deal if they don't want to. They can talk for 60 days, and talk about how much they hate it, and then filibuster it into action. Lotta profiles of courage on this deal. The second reason, which I do think makes sense, is that through the perspective of the Chinese and Russians — and even the Iranians — this is really a deal between the US and Iran. I know it makes the French really angry when they hear this — they played an important role, and I don't want to diminish it — but at the end of the day, if this deal collapses it's the US that would end up bombing Iran. So even though it sounds like the US can blow up the deal any time it wants and revert to sanctions, that's just how things are

anyway. So it's kind of a nod to the reality that, on some level, this is really just a US-Iran deal. "THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE BUILDING NUCLEAR WEAPONS — THERE ARE NO NOT-MORALLY-DUBIOUS PEOPLE INVOLVED" Max Fisher: A lot of what you wrote throughout 2014 was skeptical. Not of the idea of the Iran deal, but rather skeptical that they could make it work, that they would get there in time, that they would have all the right conditions. Jeffrey Lewis: That's right. I had no faith whatsoever that they could pull this off. Max Fisher: Now that we're here, what grade would you give it? Jeffrey Lewis: I would give it an A. Max Fisher: A solid A! Jeffrey Lewis: I mean, it's hard. There are two pieces to this. Compared to the deal we could have gotten 10 years ago, if the Bush administration hadn't had their heads up their butts? Not an A! That would have been a great deal! I remember when they had 164 centrifuges, in one cascade, and I said, "You know what, we should let them keep it in warm standby. No uranium, just gas." And people were like, "You're givin' away the store!" Max Fisher: We would kill for that now! They got cut down to 5,000 centrifuges, and it's a huge deal. Jeffrey Lewis: Exactly. And that's been the fundamental experience of this for me. Every six months, the deal we could have gotten six months before looks better. Every time we tried to hold out for a better deal, and every time we got in the position of a worse deal. So, compared to where they started, and what I thought was feasible to achieve, this team I thought did a fantastic job. If this team had been in place in 2003 or 2004 or 2005, it might have looked even better. But they inherited what they inherited, and they did a pretty decent job with it. How could I give them less than A? Max Fisher: We did a post just rounding up tweets from arms control analysts on what they're saying about the Iran deal, and it was really hard to find arms control analysts who seem to be critical of the deal on the nonproliferation merits. Maybe there are some we just missed, but it seems like the consensus was overwhelmingly positive, which was so interesting to me because it's very different from the conversation among Middle East policy analysts, which is much more divided. Why do you think that is? Jeffrey Lewis: If you are interested in the nonproliferation piece — how to say this. As a deal, this is what deals look like. Actually, they usually don't look this good. So if you don't know that... When I read people saying, you know, "I can't believe we're making a deal with these morally dubious people," I understand why a regional security specialist might feel that way. But when you work in the arms control field, they're all morally dubious people! These are people who are building nuclear weapons — there are no not-morally-dubious people involved. So when you take that out of the equation, you end up just looking at, "Do these limits slow them down, are they verifiable, are we likely to catch them if they cheat, are we likely to have enough time to do anything?" The problem [for regional analysts] is not going to be the terms. It's not going to be how it's written. It's going to be the fact that one side or another decides they don't like the idea of it. But the deal itself can still be perfectly workable. "WHEN I SEE IRANIANS POURING OUT INTO THE STREETS WITH JOY, THAT GIVES ME A LITTLE BIT OF ANXIETY" Max Fisher: So if regional analysts look at a deal with a terrible regime and see it as morally dubious, and arms control analysts look at it and aren't bothered, is that because arms control people are just amoral monsters? Jeffrey Lewis: Maybe! But I think it's more that they're looking at it differently. Whenever I hear regional security specialists talk about the deal, it is just a bizarre conversation . Because they all talk about how either it will fundamentally alter our relationship with the Islamic Republic [of Iran], which I think is just silly, or about how it's a mistake to try to fundamentally alter our relationship with the Islamic Republic . I just don't think that the deal does any of those things . I see it as a really straightforward measure to slow down an enrichment program that was going gangbusters . So you ask, " Does it slow it down ?" Yes . " Does it slow it down in a way that is verifiable ?" Yes . " Does it slow it down more than bombing it would?" Yes . "Okay, good deal." That might be a

different way of looking at it. But when two countries have a security situation that is so poor that one or both of them feels the need to acquire weapons, you're really just trying to keep them from killing each other. You're not hoping for a fundamental transformation. Like the reason that the Agreed Framework [the 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea] didn't work — well, it didn't work for lots of reasons, but at its core, North Koreans want to be accepted as a normal country. And that was not going to happen. We wanted them to be a non-nuclear pariah as opposed to a nuclear pariah; we did not want to accept them as a normal country. So they were always disappointed that this tiny little bit of disarmament that they engaged in didn't cause us to forget that that they have labor camps and that they execute people with anti-aircraft guns. Libya's the other place where this happened [after Libya negotiated a 2003 deal with the US to give up its entire nuclear program]. Qaddafi thought this would give him a good relationship with the West. Except guess what! Max Fisher: But if you're saying that part of what Iran wants here is to not be a pariah state anymore, doesn't that mean transforming the relationship on some level beyond just nonproliferation? Jeffrey Lewis: I interpret them as being interested in sanctions relief, and that's I suppose a way in which they're becoming less of a pariah, that they can trade. So I guess in a narrow sense that's not being a pariah. But until they stop supporting [Lebanese terrorist group] Hezbollah, doing what they're doing in Syria and Iraq and Yemen, I don't think there's going to be a transformation in the relationship. If that's their hope — when I see Iranians pouring out into the streets with joy, that gives me a little bit of anxiety. They need to manage their expectations a little better than that.

US protects venerable countries and prevents escalation Rosenberg, 7/15 (Matthew Rosenberg, national security reporter for the New York Times, 7-15-2015, "U.S. Offers to Help Israel Bolster Defenses, Yet Iran Nuclear Deal Leaves Ally Uneasy," New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/world/middleeast/us-offers-to-help-israel-bolster-defenses-yet-nuclear-deal-leaves-ally-uneasy.html?_r=0, accessed 7/16/15, SAM)

WASHINGTON — When President Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to discuss the nuclear deal with Iran, the American president offered the Israeli leader, who had just deemed the agreement a “historic mistake,” a consolation prize: a fattening of the already generous military aid package the United States gives Israel. The nuclear agreement, which would lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for restrictions designed to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon, would ultimately provide a financial windfall to Israel’s sworn enemy in the region, and Mr. Obama said he was prepared to hold “intensive discussions” with Mr. Netanyahu on what more could be done to bolster Israel’s defenses, administration officials said. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Mohammad Javad Zarif, center with gray hair, Iran's foreign minister, negotiated the end nuclear deal and the end of sanctions. After Iran Nuclear Deal, Foreign Business Opportunities Will Be SlowJULY 15, 2015 President Obama during a news conference at the White House on Wednesday.Obama Begins 60-Day Campaign to Win Over Iran Deal Skeptics at Home and AbroadJULY 15, 2015 Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was dispatched to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, and other members of the Democratic Caucus.White House Lobbying Democrats and Independents to Support Iran Nuclear DealJULY 15, 2015 President Obama is essentially betting that once sanctions have been lifted, Iran’s leaders will have no choice but to use much of the new money to better the lives of their citizens.News Analysis: Obama’s Iran Deal Pits His Faith in Diplomacy Against SkepticismJULY 15, 2015 Consensus Gives Security Council Momentum in Mideast, but Question Is How MuchJULY 15, 2015

Naghmeh Abedini, left, the wife of a prisoner, and Sarah Hekmati, the sister of another, at a congressional hearing in June.Nuclear Pact Raises Kin’s Hopes of Freedom for 3 Held in IranJULY 15, 2015 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Tuesday that the accord with Iran would allow Tehran to continue Iran Deal Denounced by Netanyahu as ‘Historic Mistake’JULY 14, 2015 But, as in previous talks with Mr. Obama, Mr. Netanyahu refused to engage in such talk “at this juncture,” the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail the private discussions. And on Tuesday, as administration officials fanned out to make the case for the Iran agreement, one aide suggested in a phone call to Jewish and pro-Israel groups that Mr. Netanyahu had rebuffed their overtures because he believes accepting them now would be tantamount to blessing the nuclear deal, say people involved in the call who did not want to be quoted by name in describing it. Photo Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel with President Obama at the White House in 2013. Credit Charles Dharapak/Associated Press The president himself has hinted that he believes the Israeli prime minister is loath to talk about any additional security assistance he may want from the United States until after Congress has had its say on the Iran deal. Lawmakers have 60 days to review the deal, which Mr. Netanyahu has urged them to reject. Mr. Netanyahu “perhaps thinks he can further influence the congressional debate, and I’m confident we’re going to be able to uphold this deal and implement it without Congress preventing that,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman on Tuesday, hours after announcing the accord. He went on: “But after that’s done, if that’s what he thinks is appropriate, then I will sit down, as we have consistently throughout my administration, and then ask some very practical questions: How do we prevent Hezbollah from acquiring more sophisticated weapons? How do we build on the success of Iron Dome, which the United States worked with Israel to develop and has saved Israeli lives?” That conversation may begin as soon as next week, when the defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter, is planning to travel to Israel and meet with Israeli leaders. The Iran deal is likely to feature prominently in the discussions, defense officials said, but it remains unclear what, if anything, he might offer the Israelis. That issue is the latest chapter in the long history of tensions and mistrust between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu, who have clashed publicly and privately over the nuclear deal and whose relationship became particularly strained this year after Mr. Netanyahu arranged to address Congress to denounce the pending agreement without first notifying the White House. “The idea that somehow Israel would be compensated for this deal in the way the Gulf states would be is rejected by this prime minister as signaling that he is somehow silently acquiescing to it,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The negative optic would be, he is being bought off from his principled opposition. He sees any package now as muddying what he sees as the moral clarity of his objection.” In Israel, the question was not whether the deal would be followed by a robust new military aid package from Washington, but rather when such discussions would commence and what might be on the shopping list. Isaac Herzog, the leader of the opposition in Parliament, said Tuesday night that he would soon travel to the United States “to advance a package of security measures to suit the new situation.” Yuval Steinitz, the senior Israeli minister sent Wednesday morning to brief international journalists, was blunt when asked about Mr. Obama’s promises: “It’s wrong to use the word ‘compensation’ because there is no real compensation from a nuclear threat.” When pressed, he said, “Of course we are ready to speak on everything — we never said no.” “Our attitude is first to focus on the agreement,” Mr. Steinitz said, adding that there might still be room to “fix some things.” American officials said the Israelis were not interested in engaging in the kind of quid pro quo that appeared to go on when Mr. Obama invited Persian Gulf leaders to Camp David earlier this year. During that May visit, Mr. Obama offered Saudi

Arabia and smaller Arab states new support to defend against potential missile strikes, maritime threats and cyberattacks from Iran. The United States has offered Israel an array of defense capabilities in recent years, some of which Israel decided against because of budget constraints. United States Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel offered V-22 Osprey aircraft and aerial refueling tankers when he visited Tel Aviv in 2013. But Israel decided that its own money and the security aid provided by America were better used on other items, said Derek Chollet, a United States assistant secretary of defense at the time. Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser, said that adding batteries, radars and missiles to the Arrow missile-defense system should be “the No. 1 priority.” Focusing on such defensive capabilities would enable both sides to frame the deal not as political “compensation” but rather as a response to Israel’s concerns that lifting sanctions will increase the threats against it by Iranian-backed groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, he said. Some officials suggested that one way to indirectly placate Israel involved how much security assistance the United States will offer in coming years, under a memo of understanding being renegotiated before it expires in 2018. The current agreement, which went into effect in 2009, provides for $3 billion a year, most of which is used by Israel to buy American military hardware, such as jets and components for missile defense. In talks that started long before the Iran nuclear deal began to take shape, Israel requested between $4.2 billion and $4.5 billion a year for the next 10 years, an official familiar with the talks said.

Iran Prolif Impacts (Neg)

Iran Prolif Bad – Middle East InstabilityNuclear Iran creates instability and insecurity in the Middle EastKahl ’12 (Colin H.,an associate professor in the Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he teaches courses on international relations, international security, the geopolitics of the Middle East, American foreign policy, and civil and ethnic conflict. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington, DC-based think tank. Current research projects include assessments of the geopolitical implications of Iranian nuclearization and a separate study of the evolution of U.S. counterinsurgency practices during the Iraq war. , “Iran and the Bomb

Would a Nuclear Iran Make the Middle East More Secure?” ,September/October, Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2012-07-17/iran-and-bomb, LS)

Kenneth Waltz is probably right that a nuclear-armed Iran could be deterred from deliberately using nuclear weapons or transferring a nuclear device to terrorists ("Why Iran Should Get the Bomb," July/August 2012). But he is dead wrong that the Islamic Republic would likely become a more responsible international actor if it crossed the nuclear threshold. In making that argument, Waltz mischaracterizes Iranian motivations and badly misreads history. And despite the fact that Waltz is one of the world's most respected international relations theorists, he ignores important political science research into the effects of nuclear weapons, including recent findings that suggest that new nuclear states are often more reckless and aggressive at lower levels of conflict. RATIONAL BUT DANGEROUS Waltz correctly notes that Iran's leaders, despite their fanatical rhetoric, are fundamentally rational. Because Iran's leadership is not suicidal, it is highly unlikely that a nuclear-armed Iran would deliberately use a nuclear device or transfer one to terrorists. Yet even though the Islamic Republic is rational, it is still dangerous, and it is likely to become even more so if it develops nuclear weapons. Iran's government currently sponsors terrorist groups and supports militants throughout the Middle East, in part to demonstrate a capability to retaliate against the United States, Israel, and other states should they attack Iran or undermine its interests. If the Iranian leadership's sole concern was its own survival and it believed that a nuclear deterrent alone could give it enough protection, then as a nuclear state, it might curtail its support for proxies in order to avoid needless disputes with other nuclear powers. But Iran is not a status quo state, and its support for terrorists and militants is intended to be for more than just defense and retaliation. Such support is an offensive tool, designed to pressure and intimidate other states, indirectly expand Iran's influence, and advance its revisionist agenda, which seeks to make Iran the preeminent power in the Middle East, champion resistance to Israel and "arrogant powers" in the West, promote its brand of revolutionary Islamist ideology, and assert its leadership in the wider Islamic world. Tehran currently calibrates its support for militants and sponsorship of terrorism to minimize the risks of a direct confrontation with more powerful states. But if Iranian leaders perceived that a nuclear arsenal provided a substantially more robust deterrent against retaliation, they would likely pursue their regional goals more aggressively. Specifically, a nuclear-armed Tehran would likely provide Hezbollah and Palestinian militants with more sophisticated, longer-range, and more accurate conventional weaponry for use against Israel. In an effort to bolster the deterrent capabilities of such allies, Iran might consider giving them "dual-capable" weapons, leaving Israel to guess whether these systems were conventional or armed with chemical, biological, or nuclear material. A nuclear-armed Iran might also give its proxies permission to use advanced weapons systems instead of keeping them in reserve, as Tehran reportedly instructed Hezbollah to do during the militant

group's 2006 war with Israel. A nuclear-armed Iran, believing that it possessed a powerful deterrent and could thus commit violence abroad with near impunity, might also increase the frequency and scale of the terrorist attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets carried out by Hezbollah and the Quds Force, the covert operations wing of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And a bolder Iran might increase the number of Revolutionary Guard forces it deployed to Lebanon, allow its navy to engage in more frequent shows of force in the Mediterranean, and assert itself more aggressively in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. To further enhance its image in the eyes of domestic and regional audiences as the leader of an anti-Western resistance bloc, a nuclear-armed Iran might respond to regional crises by threatening to use all the means at its disposal to ensure the survival of the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah, or Palestinian groups. And Iran might be emboldened to play the spoiler in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by encouraging large-scale militant attacks and might try to destabilize its neighbors through more coercive diplomacy and subversion in Iraq and the Gulf states. The growing influence of "principlist" hard-liners in Tehran makes those possibilities even more likely. The principlists' view of the world is shaped by their ideological belief in the inevitability of U.S. decline, Israeli defeat, and Iranian ascendance. They see the competition with the United States and Israel as a zero-sum game. If Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, the principlists will see it as a confirmation of their convictions and push the Iranian government further in the direction of risk and provocation. To be sure, a nonnuclear Iran already engages in many destabilizing activities. But equipped with nuclear weapons, Tehran would likely dial up its trouble-making and capitalize on its deterrent to limit the response options available to threatened states. THE STABILITY-INSTABILITY PARADOX "History shows that when countries acquire the bomb, they feel increasingly vulnerable and become acutely aware that their nuclear weapons make them a potential target in the eyes of major powers," Waltz argues. "This awareness discourages nuclear states from bold and aggressive action." In writing this, Waltz ignores a long history of emerging nuclear powers behaving provocatively. In 1950, for example, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave North Korea the green light to invade South Korea, thus beginning the Korean War. Stalin apparently assumed (incorrectly) that the United States was unlikely to respond because the Soviets had by then developed their own nuclear weapons. Waltz also claims that China became less aggressive after going nuclear in 1964. But in 1969, Mao Zedong authorized Chinese troops to attack Soviet forces on the Chinese-Soviet border. The attack was meant to warn Moscow against border provocations and to mobilize domestic Chinese support for Mao's revolution. Like Stalin before him, Mao was probably confident that China's recently acquired nuclear capabilities would limit the resulting conflict. (In the end, the border clashes produced a larger crisis than Mao had expected, raising the possibility of a Soviet nuclear strike, and China backed down.) Waltz also asserts that "India and Pakistan have both become more cautious since going nuclear." But Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons has in fact facilitated its strategy of engaging in low-intensity conflict against India, making the subcontinent more crisis-prone. As the political scientist S. Paul Kapur has shown, as Islamabad's nuclear capabilities have increased, so has the volatility of the Indian-Pakistani rivalry. Since 1998, when both India and Pakistan openly tested nuclear devices, Islamabad has appeared more willing to back militant groups fighting in disputed Kashmir and to support groups that have conducted terrorist attacks elsewhere in India. Furthermore, in 1999, Pakistan sent conventional forces disguised as insurgents across the Line of Control in the Kargil district of Kashmir, triggering a limited war with India. This move was encouraged by the Pakistanis' belief that their nuclear deterrent placed clear limits on India's ability to retaliate with conventional weapons. Additionally, over the past decade, Pakistani-backed militants have engaged in high-profile terrorist attacks inside India itself, including the

2001 attack on the New Delhi parliament complex and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Waltz writes that "policymakers and citizens in the Arab world, Europe, Israel, and the United States should take comfort from the fact that history has shown that where nuclear capabilities emerge, so, too, does stability." In fact, the historical record suggests that competition between a nuclear-armed Iran and its principal adversaries would likely follow the pattern known as "the stability-instability paradox," in which the supposed stability created by mutually assured destruction generates greater instability by making provocations, disputes, and conflict below the nuclear threshold seem safe. During the Cold War, for example, nuclear deterrence prevented large-scale conventional or nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. At the same time, however, the superpowers experienced several direct crises and faced off in a series of bloody proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and elsewhere. A recent statistical analysis by the political scientist Michael Horowitz demonstrated that inexperienced nuclear powers tend to be more crisis-prone than other types of states, and research by another political scientist, Robert Rauchhaus, has found that nuclear states are more likely to engage in low-level militarized disputes with one another, even if they are less likely to engage in full-scale war. If deterrence operates the way Waltz expects it to, a nuclear-armed Iran might reduce the risk of a major conventional war among Middle Eastern states. But history suggests that Tehran's development of nuclear weapons would encourage Iranian adventurism, leading to more frequent and intense crises in the Middle East. Such crises would entail some inherent risk of a nuclear exchange resulting from a miscalculation, an accident, or an unauthorized use -- a risk that currently does not exist at all. The threat would be particularly high in the initial period after Iran joined the nuclear club. Once the superpowers reached rough nuclear parity during the Cold War, for example, the number of direct crises decreased, and the associated risks of nuclear escalation abated. But during the early years of the Cold War, the superpowers were involved in several crises, and on at least one occasion -- the 1962 Cuban missile crisis -- they came perilously close to nuclear war. Similarly, a stable deterrent relationship between Iran, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel, on the other, would likely emerge over time, but the initial crisis-prone years would be hair-raising. Although all sides would have a profound interest in not allowing events to spiral out of control, the residual risk of inadvertent escalation stemming from decades of distrust and hostility, the absence of direct lines of communication, and organizational mistakes would be nontrivial -- and the consequences of even a low-probability outcome could be devastating. A VERY REAL THREAT Because Waltz is sanguine about the effects of Iranian nuclearization, he concludes that "the United States and its allies need not take such pains to prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon." Waltz believes that the only utility of continued diplomacy is to maintain "open lines of communication," which "will make the Western countries feel better able to live with a nuclear Iran," and he argues that "the current sanctions on Iran can be dropped." Waltz is wrong. The threat from a nuclear-armed Iran might not be as grave as some suggest, but it would make an already volatile Middle East even more conflict-prone. Preventing Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold should therefore remain a top U.S. priority. Because a preventive military attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure could itself set off a series of unpredictable and destabilizing consequences, the best and most sustainable solution to Iran's nuclear challenge is to seek a negotiated solution through a combination of economic pressure and diplomacy. It is possible to oppose a rush to war with Iran without arguing, as Waltz does, that a nuclear-armed Iran would make the world a better place. COLIN H. KAHL is an Associate Professor at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East. He is also

a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a co-author of its report Risk and Rivalry: Iran, Israel, and the Bomb, from which this response is adapted.

(**note** this article was written in response to the previous card “Nuclear Iran balances out powers in the Middle East creating stability and security” by Kenneth N. Waltz)

Iran Prolif Bad – Cascading Prolif?Iran will need some sort of nuclear weapon to satisfy it’s political needsWaltz 12 (Senior Research Scholar at Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb”, August 2012, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2012-06-15/why-iran-should-get-bomb)

The crisis over Iran's nuclear program could end in three different ways. First, diplomacy coupled with serious sanctions could convince Iran to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. But this outcome is unlikely: the historical record indicates that a country bent on acquiring nuclear weapons can rarely be dissuaded from doing so. Punishing a state through economic sanctions does not inexorably derail its nuclear program. Take North Korea, which succeeded in building its weapons despite countless rounds of sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions. If Tehran determines that its security depends on possessing nuclear weapons, sanctions are unlikely to change its mind. In fact, adding still more sanctions now could make Iran feel even more vulnerable, giving it still more reason to seek the protection of the ultimate deterrent. The second possible outcome is that Iran stops short of testing a nuclear weapon but develops a breakout capability, the capacity to build and test one quite quickly. Iran would not be the first country to acquire a sophisticated nuclear program without building an actual bomb. Japan, for instance, maintains a vast civilian nuclear infrastructure. Experts believe that it could produce a nuclear weapon on short notice. Such a breakout capability might satisfy the domestic political needs of Iran's rulers by assuring hard-liners that they can enjoy all the benefits of having a bomb (such as greater security) without the downsides (such as international isolation and condemnation). The problem is that a breakout capability might not work as intended. The United States and its European allies are primarily concerned with weaponization, so they might accept a scenario in which Iran stops short of a nuclear weapon. Israel, however, has made it clear that it views a significant Iranian enrichment capacity alone as an unacceptable threat. It is possible, then, that a verifiable commitment from Iran to stop short of a weapon could appease major Western powers but leave the Israelis unsatisfied. Israel would be less intimidated by a virtual nuclear weapon than it would be by an actual one and therefore would likely continue its risky efforts at subverting Iran's nuclear program through sabotage and assassination -- which could lead Iran to conclude that a breakout capability is an insufficient deterrent, after all, and that only weaponization can provide it with the security it seeks. The third possible outcome of the standoff is that Iran continues its current course and publicly goes nuclear by testing a weapon. U.S. and Israeli officials have declared that outcome unacceptable, arguing that a nuclear Iran is a uniquely terrifying prospect, even an existential threat. Such language is typical of major powers, which have historically gotten riled up whenever another country has begun to develop a nuclear weapon of its own. Yet so far, every time another country has managed to shoulder its way into the nuclear club, the other members have always changed tack and decided to live with it. In fact, by reducing imbalances in military power, new nuclear states generally produce more regional and international stability, not less.

Iran Prolif Bad – TerrorismIranian proliferation increases terrorism (Nahal Toosi- a foreign affairs correspondent at POLITICO. She joined POLITICO from The Associated Press, where she reported from and/or served as an editor in New York, Islamabad, Kabul and London. She was one of the first foreign correspondents to reach Abbottabad, Pakistan, after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Toosi worked for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,. , 6-19-2015, "Iran still a proliferation 'concern' State Dept. says," POLITICO, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/iran-proliferation-concern-state-department-report-119208.html)Accessed July 15th 2015//PEG

Iran remains a state of nuclear “proliferation concern,” has kept up its support for terrorism in the Middle East and is trying to grow its influence in regions as far away as Latin America, the State Department said in its latest report on global terrorism. The 388-page report, released Friday, notes that the number of terrorist attacks jumped 35 percent from 2013 to 2014, and fatalities rose 81 percent. Much of that was due to terrorist activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Iran, however, is of special concern in Washington because the U.S. is currently engaged in talks aimed at stopping the country’s nuclear program, which the West has long suspected is aimed at creating weapons. The U.S. designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984, and the latest report’s section on Iran is emblematic of the dizzying nature of the alliances and enmities convulsing the Middle East today. The document notes Iran’s affiliations with Palestinian groups such as Hamas, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and various Shiite militias in Iraq. The Shiite militias, which have been accused of many abuses, nonetheless share the American aim of stopping the spread of the Sunni extremist Islamic State terror network, which has grabbed territory in Iraq and Syria. Iran uses its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force as its “primary mechanism” for cultivating terrorists abroad, the report says. It also discusses Iran’s support for the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, which has led it to “provide arms, financing, training and the facilitation” of Iraqi Shiite and Afghan fighters to support Assad’s “brutal crackdown that has resulted in the deaths of at least 191,000 people in Syria.” “While its main effort focused on supporting goals in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iran and its proxies also continued subtle efforts at growing influence elsewhere including in Africa, Asia and, to a lesser extent, Latin America,” the report says, adding: “Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior [Al-Qaeda] members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody.” A comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran is due by June 30, although negotiators may miss the deadline. U.S. officials have stressed that although the accord could lead to a lifting of some nuclear-related international sanctions, the Iranians will still face sanctions related to their support for terrorism and abuses of human rights. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, and many lawmakers from both parties in Congress remain skeptical that Iran will fulfill its end of a deal. Arab allies of the U.S. also fear that once Iran gets access to billions of dollars in frozen assets, it will use that funding to foment more unrest in the Middle East.

Prolif General Impacts (Neg)

Prolif Bad – EconNuclear proliferation will have a drastic effect on the economyReichmuth, Short, Wood, Rutz, & Schwartz 05 (Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, “Economic Consequences of a Rad/NNuc Attack: Cleanup Standards Significantly Affect Cost”, April 2005, http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/effects/PDFs/economic_consequences_report.pdf)

Property destruction, loss of life, and injuries sustained from a nuclear or radiological attack have significant economic consequences . The loss of productive assets can extend for long periods and generate significant economic loss. Economic impacts caused by an event need to be addressed in sequential order beginning with the detonation, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition of the fallout from the weapon. Weapon characteristics provide the boundary conditions for the response, including defining how large the response area is and what specific actions need to be taken to protect the population in the target area. These economic consequences are highly dependent on the magnitude of the weapon event and do not scale in a linear fashion. The cost to clean up or remediate the affected area will depend on the cleanup standard applied to the event and is highly sensitive to this standard. Currently, there are no cleanup standards specifically designed for Rad/Nuc terrorist events, but it is likely that the existing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) standards would apply defacto. The Department of Energy (DOE) has spent billions of dollars on superfund cleanup, under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) guidance, at former weapons production sites, and the cleanup is expected to continue through 2035. This paper offers an economic perspective on the magnitude of the consequences for a selected class of targets in the United States, with an emphasis on cost sensitivity as the cleanup standard changes. The prospect of a nuclear attack on the United States was long thought to be restricted to the domain of state actors.

Prolif Bad – Risk MagnifierThreat of nuclear proliferation has increasedReichmuth, Short, Wood, Rutz, & Schwartz 05 (Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, “Economic Consequences of a Rad/NNuc Attack: Cleanup Standards Significantly Affect Cost”, April 2005, http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/effects/PDFs/economic_consequences_report.pdf)

Following the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, and other more recent terrorist activities around the world, concerns about all types of terror attacks, including potential radiological and nuclear attacks, have been magnified. The spotlight has shifted to countermeasures that will either reduce the likelihood or reduce the consequences of a radiological or nuclear (Rad/Nuc) terrorist attack. The decision to invest in Rad/Nuc countermeasures can be viewed as a tradeoff between investment cost of the countermeasure and the consequences of the event. There are both physical consequences and economic consequences that would result from a Rad/Nuc event. Economic impacts caused by an event, and the subsequent response to the event, need to be addressed in sequential order and begin with the physical impacts of the detonation, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition of the fallout from the weapon. Physical consequences dictate the response function including the long-term cleanup and site restoration actions taken. One of the recurring themes regarding event response is that there are currently no federal standards that cover the long-term site restoration and cleanup following a radiological or improvised nuclear device (IND) terrorist attack. The cost to clean up or remediate the affected area is highly sensitive to the cleanup standard applied to the event. There are currently no cleanup standards specifically designed for Rad/Nuc terrorist events, but it is likely that the existing EPA and NRC standards would apply defacto [1]. The General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that the current EPA and NRC cleanup standards differ and these differences have implications for both the pace and ultimate cost of cleanup [2]. The Department of Energy (DOE) has spent billions of dollars on superfund cleanup at former weapons production sites and the cleanup is expected to continue through 2035 [3]. In 2003 recognizing the importance of this issue, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tasked an interagency working group to address the issue of Protective Action Guidelines (PAGs) for radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) and improvised nuclear device (IND) incidents. DHS anticipates a draft of that guidance to be issued in the Federal Register in June of 2005.

Prolif Bad – WarNuclear weapons will likely lead to warWaltz ’81 (Ph.D, M.A. in political science from Columbia University, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Better”, 1981, http://polsci.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/10B_Waltz.pdf

What are the principal worries? Because of the importance of controlling nuclear weapons—of keeping them firmly in the hands of reliable officials—rulers of nuclear states may become more authoritarian and ever more given to secrecy. Moreover, some potential nuclear states are not politically strong and stable enough to ensure control of the weapons and of the decision to use them. If neighhouring, hostile, unstable states are armed with nuclear weapons, each will fear attack by the other. Feelings of insecurity may lead to arms races that subordinate civil needs to military necessities . Fears are compounded by the danger of internal coups in which the control of nuclear weapons may he the main object of the struggle and the key to political power. Under these fearful circumstances to maintain governmental authority and civil order may be impossible. The legitimacy of the state and the loyalty of its citizenry may dissolve because the state is no longer thought to be capable of maintaining external security and internal order. The first fear is that states become tyrannical; the second, that they lose control. Both these fears may be realized, either in different states or, indeed, in the same state at different times. What can one say? Four things primarily. First, Possession of nuclear weapons may slow arms races down, rather than speed them up, a possibility considered later. Second, for less developed countries to build nuclear arsenals requires a long lead time. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons programmes, like population policies, require administrative and technical teams able to formulate and sustain programmes of considerable cost that pay off only in the long run. The more unstable a government, the shorter becomes the attention span of its leaders. They have to deal with today's problems and hope for the best tomorrow. In countries where political control is most difficult to maintain, governments are least likely to initiate nuclear-weapons programmes. In such states, soldiers help to maintain leaders in power or try to overthrow them. For those purposes nuclear weapons are not useful. Soldiers who have political clout, or want it, are less interested in nuclear weapons than they are in more immediately useful instruments of political control. They are not scientists and technicians. They like to command troops and squadrons. Their vested interests are in the military's traditional trappings. Third, although highly unstable states are unlikely to initiate nuclear projects, such projects, begun in stable times, may continue through periods of political turmoil and succeed in producing nuclear weapons. A nuclear state may be unstable or may become so. But what is hard to comprehend is why, in an internal struggle for power, any of the contenders should start using nuclear weapons. Who would they aim at? How would they use them as instruments for maintaining or gaining control? I see little more reason to fear that one faction or another in some less developed country will fire atomic weapons in a struggle for political power than that they will be used in a crisis of succession in the Soviet Union or China. One or another nuclear state will experience uncertainty of succession, fierce struggles for power, and instability of regime. Those who fear the worst have not shown with any plausibility how those expected events may lead to the use of nuclear weapons. Fourth, the possibility of one side in a civil war firing a nuclear warhead at its opponent's stronghold nevertheless remains. Such an act would produce a national tragedy. not an international one. This question then arises: Once the weapon is fired, what happens next? The domestic use of nuclear weapons is, of all the uses imaginable, least likely to lead to escalation and to threaten the stability of the central balance. The United States and the Soviet Union, and other countries as well, would have the strongest reasons to issue warnings and to assert control.

Prolif Bad – WarProlif bad- intimidates other countries and escalates war conflictsQuester 74(George Quester, "More Nuclear Nations?: Can Proliferation Now Be Stopped?," Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1974-10-01/more-nuclear-nations-can-proliferation-now-be-stopped)Accessed July 15th 2015//PEG

Proliferation is indeed still bad for the world. The spread of nuclear weapons in some cases may make war more likely, because such weapons temptingly suggest preemptive strikes by the air forces of a region. And in most cases the spread of nuclear weapons will make war enormously more deadly and destructive, as entire cities become vulnerable to the strike of a single bomber. If one concluded that the Indian detonation made the further spread of nuclear weapons inevitable, this author would see that detonation as a disaster for the world. An alternative possibility will be explored here, however, that proliferation may yet be containable, even after the Indian action.

Prolif Bad – Impact MagnifierProliferation greatest existential threat- increased use in instable countries and terrorism Wilson 2015(Valerie Plame Wilson-the former CIA covert operations officer, was born on Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska in 1963. She holds a bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University and a master's degrees from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. Her career in the CIA included assignments in counterproliferation operations, working to ensure that enemies of the United States could not threaten America with weapons of mass destruction., 5-13-2015, "Looking Forward, Nuclear Proliferation Is Still Greatest Existential Threat We Face," Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-plame-wilson/nuclear-proliferation-existential-threat_b_7118460.html, Accessed 7-15-2015)//PEG

As a former covert CIA operative, specializing in counter-proliferation, I still believe that the spread of nuclear weapons and the risk of their use is the greatest existential threat we face. Twenty-six years after the end of the Cold War, the world still has more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. Whatever other issues people care about -- poverty, the environment, inequality and so many others -- if we don't get this one right, and soon, nothing else will matter. We are at a crossroads on this issue and the decisions we make over the next 10 years will set us on a course either toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons or toward expanding arsenals and proliferation. There are some disturbing trends. All of the nuclear countries are investing heavily, or planning to do so, in modernizing their forces and/or expanding their arsenals. President Obama is proposing a massive overhaul of the U.S. nuclear arsenal that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years. Russia has already begun a major upgrade of its arsenal. China is ramping up each leg of its nuclear triad, India is close to having a full nuclear triad with the addition of a nuclear submarine to its forces, and North Korea continues to develop its nuclear capability. Perhaps most worrisome is Pakistan, which has the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal and is plagued by persistent political instability and extremist elements. In addition to developing new types of weapons, nuclear weapons countries also appear to be taking steps toward establishing the dangerous nuclear high-alert posture that the United States and Soviet Union adopted during the Cold War (and still maintain) -- shortening the decision time for launch and increasing the risk that nuclear weapons will be used in conflict, by accident or through unauthorized launch. Longstanding regional conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries remain unresolved and tensions high, including on the South Asian Peninsula, the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East. Relations between Russia and the West have spiraled dangerously downward; Russia has even threatened to use nuclear force to defend its annexation of Crimea. Meanwhile, terrorists are working to get their hands on the bomb. This danger has risen as states have failed and ungoverned zones have spread, especially in the Middle East and Africa. In the last two decades there have been dozens of incidents of nuclear explosive materials being lost or stolen. The so-called "Islamic State" group has already seized low-grade nuclear material from a facility in Mosul. These are very difficult challenges. But there are also significant factors that could provide opportunities for progress. A final agreement with Iran would verifiably prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb. It would negate a long-standing leading argument of opponents to Global Zero -- that Iran and countries like it would never agree to forgo nuclear weapons. And it provides a model -- multilateral negotiations and intrusive verification -- for pursuing global reductions in nuclear arsenals.

Aff Answers

Aff: NonuniqueVotes for veto override nowFox News, 7-19-2015, "Congressional Democrats acknowledge Iran deal will be tough sell on Capitol Hill," http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/19/congressional-democrats-acknowledge-iran-deal-will-be-tough-sell-on-capitol/

A top Senate Democrat said Sunday he will decide whether to approve the Iran nuclear deal based on “the best interest of the county,” not on his allegiance to President Obama or the entire party. ¶

“It’s not a matter of what party I belong to,” Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.” “It's not a matter of supporting the president. The question is: What's in the best interest of this country?”¶ Congress has 60 days to approve the deal in which Iran agrees to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of billions of dollars in sanctions.¶ There has been widespread concern about the deal since it was signed last week by Iran, the United States and five other world powers, including its provision to lift an arms embargo, if it includes enough authority to inspect nuclear-related sites and whether Israel is protected enough.¶ The GOP-led Senate will likely have enough votes to disapprove of the deal, based on strong and early opposition. However, Senate Republicans will need support from about 13 Senate Democrats to get the 67 votes needed to override President Obama’s almost certain veto of a disapproval resolution. Roughly 15 Democratic senators appear skeptical of the deal. ¶ The Republican-control House would also need Democratic support for an override. ¶

Cardin’s committee is expected to hold at least three public hearings on the issue before a projected September vote, starting Thursday when Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are scheduled to testify.¶ “There is bipartisan skepticism” about the deal, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, told Fox News on Sunday.¶ Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he agrees with Cardin and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., that the administration shouldn’t take the deal to the United Nations before Congress decides.¶ However, he said the more important issue is the $150 billion in sanction relief and what Iran might do next. ¶ “Iran is a terror-sponsoring, anti-American outlaw regime,” Cotton said. “And if you think Iran is going to change their behavior in a decade, I can tell you how unlikely that is because just nine years ago, they were trying to kill me and my soldiers.” ¶ California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that she hopes fellow congressional Democrats will support Obama’s nuclear deal but “the jury is out.”

Iran won’t passRogin 7/14/15; JOSH ROGIN is a highly credible columnist for the Bloomberg Review and has previously written for publications such as The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Foreign Policy Magazine; “Grahm: Iran Deal 'Akin to Declaring War' on Israel”; 7/14/15; (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-14/graham-iran-deal-akin-to-declaring-war-on-israel)

The newly announced deal between Iran and six world powers is “ akin to declaring war on Israel and the Sunni Arabs ,” and will be a huge problem for Hillary Clinton, according to GOP presidential candidate and Senator Lindsey Graham, who promised to not uphold the deal if he is

elected next year. “My initial impression is that this deal is far worse than I ever dreamed it could be and will be a nightmare for the region, our national security and eventually the world at large,” Graham told me in an interview early Tuesday morning, just after Iran, China, France, Russia, Britain, the U.S. and Germany confirmed they had reached terms for a historic deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Graham reacted harshly to many of the details about the deal that were emerging early Tuesday, including the news that the conventional arms embargo on Iran will be largely lifted and replaced by a limitation of Iranian arms imports and exports for five years. Reports also stated early Tuesday that limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program will begin to ease after eight years . “If the initial reports regarding the details of this deal hold true, there’s no way as president of the United States I would honor this deal,” Graham said. “It’s incredibly dangerous for our national security, and it’s akin to declaring war on Sunni Arabs and Israel by the P5+1 because it ensures their primary antagonist Iran will become a nuclear power and allows them to rearm conventionally.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted Tuesday that the deal was “a historic mistake .” Hillary Clinton has not yet reacted publicly; in the past she has expressed cautious optimism about the deal and said she was waiting to see the details. “Hillary Clinton’s reaction to this deal is the first real test of her ability to be president and her judgment,” said Graham. “If she believes it’s a good idea to lift the arms embargo without first seeing a behavior change by the Iranians, then her judgment as commander in chief will be very much in question.” He said President Obama put Democrats in an impossible situation: "He’s pitted Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party against common sense and the security of the American people." Congress will have 60 days to review the deal, after it is submitted to them by the administration. After that, Congress will have the option of debating and passing a resolution of approval or a resolution of disapproval, or doing nothing and letting the deal stand. If Congress passes a resolution of disapproval, the president is likely to veto it, and then Congress will struggle to muster an override vote. Many Democrats have kept their powder dry, awaiting the details of the final deal. They will likely be looking toward Clinton for guidance, as she is the favorite to be the party’s presidential nominee. The negotiations in Iran began while Clinton was secretary of state. “She bears some responsibility for starting the process. The only question is, will she ratify the results,” said Graham. In addition to the lifting of the embargo, Graham said lawmakers in both parties will be put off by the fact that the restrictions on Iranian enrichment expire over time. " There is no chance that this deal will be approved by Congress ," he said, predicting rejection by "an overwhelming super majority in both the House and the Senate ." Graham also predicted that the deal would lead to an arms race in the Middle East and expanded hostilities between Shiite and Sunni Arabs all over the region. “If I had property in the Middle East, I would think about selling it after this deal.

Won’t pass in congressStoil, 7/12, (Rebecca Shimoni Stoil, Washington Correspondent for the Times of Israel and PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University, 7-12-2015, "Lawmakers warn Iran deal won’t have easy time in Congress," Times of Israel, http://www.timesofisrael.com/lawmakers-warn-iran-deal-wont-have-easy-time-in-congress/, accessed 7/14/15, SAM)

SHINGTON — As reports emerged from Vienna that a nuclear deal could be struck as early as Sunday night, Washington’s leading congressional point people on nuclear talks with Iran warned that the Obama administration would have a tough time selling the pact in Washington. Get The

Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP! Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Fox News Sunday that the deal “is going to be a very hard sell for the administration,” amid reports that both sides are looking for ways to sell the deal at home once it is reached. If an agreement is reached between Iran and the P5+1 member states, Congress will have 60 days to review the deal, and then can vote either on a resolution of approval or disapproval of the agreement. During his interview, McConnell suggested that the Senate would consider a resolution of disapproval, and said that he believed that a number of Democrats would join the Republican majority in the Senate in voting against the deal. “I know there will be a strong pull not to go against the president on something as important as this is to him, but I hope there will be enough Democrats willing to look at this objectively,” McConnell added. A resolution of disapproval that passes could serve to prevent the president from lifting some of the congressionally imposed sanctions against Iran. Unlike a failed vote of approval, however, a vote of disapproval is subject to a presidential veto. McConnell said that after a near-inevitable presidential veto, the deal’s opponents would have to enlist 13 Democrats to override the veto.

Aff: UQ OverwhelmsRepublicans not likely to acquire enough support to topple Iran nuclear agreement—the agreement will passZengerle 7-14-15 Patricia Zengerle covers foreign policy and national security on Capitol Hill for Reuters. She recently covered the 2012 campaign and the White House and had been an editor in Washington, D.C., an editor in London, and a correspondent in Miami, Pittsburgh and New York. 7/14/15. “Iran deal faces fight in Congress, but will likely survive” http://www.businessinsider.com/r-iran-deal-faces-fight-in-congress-but-will-likely-survive-2015-7. 7/14/15

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The nuclear deal between world powers and Iran starts a new phase of intense negotiation - this time between the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress, where some Republicans have long been working to sink an agreement. Any effort in Congress to overturn the deal would face an uphill fight. Republicans have majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate, but they would need the support of dozens of President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats to sustain a "resolution of disapproval" that could cripple a deal. The chances of that happening are slim. A resolution of disapproval would need only the support of the Republican majority to pass the House, but would require the votes of at least six Democrats to get the 60 to advance in the Senate. The chances of mustering enough votes to then overrule a near-certain Obama veto are slimmer still. The second-ranking Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer, said after the deal was announced: "It is now up to members of Congress to work carefully through every detail, particularly given Iran’s likelihood to exploit any ambiguity or loophole to its benefit and to the detriment of the security of America, Israel, and our allies in Europe and the Gulf." Senate Democrats have stood firm to date against Republican-led efforts to interfere with the talks, which included Iran and the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. In the House, more than 150 Democrats, including party leader Nancy Pelosi, signed a letter in May strongly supporting the nuclear negotiations. "I understand the heavy lift that's involved," Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters when asked about the chances of passing a "resolution of disapproval." Obama in May signed a law, authored by Corker, giving Congress the right to review the agreement and potentially sink it by passing a disapproval resolution that would eliminate the president's ability to waive sanctions passed by Congress. Easing sanctions is an integral part of the deal, under which Iran will curtail its nuclear program. Under the Iran Review Act, lawmakers have 60 days to review the agreement and decide whether to seek a resolution of disapproval. During that period, plus an additional 22 days in which Obama could veto a resolution and Congress could try to override it, Obama cannot waive the congressional sanctions. A veto override would require a two-thirds majority in both houses - or 13 Democrats along with all 54 Republicans in the Senate, and 43 Democrats plus as all 236 House Republicans. Party leaders have said there is no guarantee that every Republican would back a disapproval resolution. Sanctions passed by Congress account for the overwhelming majority of those imposed by the United States. U.S. sanctions are especially important to the international sanctions regime because of the country's influence on global trade and banking. "CONGRESS GAVE AWAY ITS POWER" The congressionally mandated sanctions can be temporarily waived by the president for national security reasons, which he would do under the deal with Iran. That waiver ability stays in place unless Congress is able not just to pass a disapproval resolution, but override Obama's expected veto of it. "Congress gave away its power by granting national

security waivers with all of these sanctions," Corker said. Congressional leaders said they plan to begin briefings and hearings on the Iran deal as soon as they receive the agreement, with an eye toward deciding on a course of action this month, before lawmakers leave for summer recess. Obama administration officials, including the president himself, have reached out to members of Congress, holding hundreds of meetings and hearings and making telephone calls in the past four months. Those efforts are expected to intensify now with a deal. Acknowledging the difficulty of passing a disapproval resolution, some lawmakers suggest that Congress would do better to consider, and then reject, a "resolution of approval." Defeating such a resolution by a large margin would not affect the sanctions regime, but would send a strong message that the United States is not united behind a "bad" Iran pact and was prepared to act if Iran made moves toward building a bomb, they said. Lawmakers from both parties acknowledged that the debate will not end with the review period this year. Some Republicans have discussed passing legislation to impose more sanctions over Iran's human rights record or for supporting terrorism. The Iran Review Act requires the president, Obama and his successor after the 2016 election, to regularly certify that Tehran is adhering to terms of a deal. There is no guarantee a Republican president, in particular, would do so. Several of the GOP White House hopefuls have already said they are skeptical about the deal. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-iran-deal-faces-fight-in-congress-but-will-likely-survive-2015-7#ixzz3fsebmEJM

Partisan polarization makes Iran deal passage highly likely.McManus 7-15 Doyle McManus is Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He has been a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, a White House correspondent and a presidential campaign reporter, and was the paper’s Washington bureau chief from 1996 to 2008. McManus, a native of San Francisco, has lived in Washington, D.C., since 1983 but still considers Hermosa Beach his spiritual home. Why partisan polarization will be Obama's friend on the Iran deal. 7/15/15. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-polarization-obama-iran-20150715-story.html. 7/15/15

I noted in my column today, President Obama thinks he can win the fight over his nuclear deal with Iran by invoking a three-word argument: What’s the alternative? lRelated The danger of a 'no' vote on the Iran deal OP-ED The danger of a 'no' vote on the Iran deal SEE ALL RELATED 8 But Obama has another ace in the hole that is likely to frustrate Republican-led efforts to block the agreement: partisan polarization. Don't like the Iran deal? What's the alternative? Don't like the Iran deal? What's the alternative? The same polarization that has produced congressional gridlock and frustrated occasional attempts to strike a fiscal “grand bargain” will be the president’s ally in the case of Iran. Here’s why: To block the Iran agreement, Congress must pass a resolution of disapproval — and Obama has already said he will veto any such bill. To override the veto, opponents of the deal will need to assemble a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. That’s always a difficult bar to clear — and it’s even harder when partisan passions are running high. cComments The fact that politics plays anything in this agreement stinks. It makes me feel that these lawmakers are in government for themselves not for the good of the nation. RKAMINS AT 12:07 PM JULY 15, 2015 ADD A COMMENTSEE ALL COMMENTS 2 In the Senate, if all 54 Republicans voted to kill the Iran deal, 13 Democrats or independents would need to join them to reach the 67 needed to override a veto. But so far, only one Democrat, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, has indicated that he’s likely to vote against the deal — and even he hasn’t made a final decision, a spokeswoman said Wednesday. Plenty of others, including the incoming Democratic leader, Charles E. Schumer of New York, are on the fence. But at this point, as my colleague Lisa Mascaro notes, it’s not even clear that opponents of

the deal can muster the 60 votes they would need to bring a resolution of disapproval to the floor. Is the Iran deal good enough? Is the Iran deal good enough? In the House, the obstacles are even higher. To override a veto, opponents of the deal would need at least 44 of the House’s 188 Democrats (assuming all members voted and all 246 Republicans stayed together). But the House has been even more polarized than the Senate, mostly because so many members come from lopsidedly partisan districts. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco has already made it clear that she plans to fight to protect the deal — and Pelosi has been able to keep her members in line on key votes. One more factor may prevent many Democrats from bolting: Hillary Rodham Clinton. The presidential front-runner announced on Tuesday that she not only supports the Iran deal, she intends to campaign for it. That means any Democrat who votes against the deal would be going up not only against the party’s incumbent president, but against the party’s most likely presidential nominee. So while Obama has often bemoaned the partisan polarization that has made bipartisan cooperation impossible, in this case he may be (quietly) grateful for it.

Aff: Deal Bad 2AC

Deal bad – destabilizs the region, funds terrorism, creates fast breakout capacity for prolifGREG COROMBOS, 7-14, news director for Radio America " ‘Time for Congress to get involved’ to stop Iran deal ," http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/time-for-congress-to-get-involved-to-stop-iran-deal/

The man who first publicly warned the West about Iran’s nuclear intentions is blasting Tuesday’s agreement as one that allows the world’s top sponsor of terrorism to grow its program, fails to provide meaningful inspections and does not force Iran to change it’s behavior at all. ¶

Alireza Jafarzadeh is deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the Iranian parliament in exile from the government that was overthrown by Islamic radicals in 1979. Jafarzadeh says assurances from President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that this agreement will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon are fiction.¶ “First, the agreement does not prevent the Iranian regime from having a nuclear weapons capability,” he told WND and Radio America. “Second, it actually maintains and legitimizes the entire nuclear infrastructure of the Iranian regime.” ¶ Jafarzadeh has reviewed the agreement and is troubled by many aspects, starting with how little it actually restricts Iranian activities. ¶ “It puts some cap on for the next 10-15 years, but it allows the regime to build an industrial-size nuclear program with very little limitations in about a decade,” he said. “It also allows the Iranian regime to conduct research and development on advanced centrifuges.¶

“These are significantly more efficient centrifuges that allow the Iranian regime to use a much smaller number of centrifuges in a hidden place to provide fissile material that they need for the bomb.”¶ Listen to the WND/Radio interview Alireza Jafarzadeh:¶ And inspections? Jafarzadeh said not to count on those to accomplish anything.¶ “It doesn’t provide anytime, anywhere access to suspect nuclear sites, including the military sites,” he said. “It basically provides what they call managed access with significant delays, which takes away the whole surprise element completely. It undermines the very purpose of intrusive inspections.”¶ The deal also provides no specifics on allowing inspections of several sites that Iranian officials have blocked United Nations weapons inspectors from visiting.¶ While the agreement is light on verification in his estimation, Jafarzadeh said U.S. and allied concessions are very clear.¶ “It is very specific when it comes to sanctions relief and the kind of break that is provided to the Iranian regime, including giving them relief in five to eight years on weapons and missile trade, which is a big problem,” he said. “It actually enhances the terrorism network of the Iranian regime.” ¶ He added, “When you have the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism having a nuclear weapons program legitimized by the international community, and over time they can actually expand it and not diminishing it or having any requirement to change their behavior, it’s a major, major concern.”¶ Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, are the most likely delivery system for a future nuclear weapon. Jafarzadeh said that program isn’t addressed in the agreement, either.¶ “Why do you want to have an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile program?” he asked. “The only use for is delivering nuclear weapons. There’s no country in the world that has so far developed ICBM without using it for nuclear weapons.”¶ What do YOU think? Sound off on Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran in today’s

WND poll¶ Along with the legitimizing of the Iranian nuclear program, some of the most nefarious groups associated with Iran would no longer be considered pariahs in the eyes of the U.S.. ¶ “A number of entities and individuals who have been involved in terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and the exporting of violence in the region are going to be off the list,” said Jafarzadeh, specifically listing the Quds force and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in that category.¶ Earlier this year, after Obama announced he would not submit any agreement to Congress as a formal treaty, congressional leaders pushed legislation to give lawmakers the power to review and vote on the deal. However, instead of needing a two-thirds majority to approve it as in the case of treaties, a two-thirds majority is now needed to override a promised Obama veto and sink the deal.¶ Jafarzadeh also blasted Obama for insulting the Iranian people by referring to them and the Iranian regime interchangeably, which he called “an insult to the people of Iran.”¶ “The Iranian people reject this regime,” he said.¶ Jafarzadeh also disputes Obama’s contention that the agreement will prevent rather than trigger a Middle East arms race. He said Iran’s neighbors know exactly what this regime is capable of. ¶ “Look at the countries that are all being troubled by the Iranian regime when they don’t have the bomb,” he said. “Imagine what things would look like in the region when the Iranian regime will get the bomb.”

Aff: Deal Bad Ext

Iran Deal makes nuclear war likely- compels other countries to obtain wmdsGass 2015(Nick Gass- breaking news reporter. He joined POLITICO as a web producer in November 2012, following a reporting internship with The Dallas Morning News’ Washington bureau. Gass first worked in D.C. as ABC News’ David Kaplan Fellow while studying at the Missouri School of Journalism in 2011. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Missouri in May 2012 with a degree in convergence journalism and a minor in French. ., 7-15-2015, "Dick Cheney: Iran deal makes 'actual use of nuclear weapons' more likely," POLITICO, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/dick-cheney-iran-nuclear-deal-reaction-120137.html), Accessed 7-15-2015//PEG

Not since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 70 years ago has the world been closer to the use of nuclear weapons, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night. And if Iran ends up with nuclear weapons, Cheney said, it would compel others in the region to work toward getting their own. As for the nuclear deal with Iran, Cheney called it “a lie” on the part of President Barack Obama to claimed that the accord would stop further nuclear proliferation. “What Obama has done has, in effect, sanctioned the acquisition by Iran of nuclear capability. And it can be a few years down the road. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s a matter of months until we’re going to see a situation where other people feel they have to defend themselves by acquiring their own capability,” Cheney said. “And that will, in fact, I think put us closer to use — actual use of nuclear weapons than we’ve been at any time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.” Cheney added that nuclear ambitions in the region posed some of the biggest problems during his time in the White House, noting the 1981 Israeli destruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor, the 1991 U.S. destruction of the Iraqi nuclear program during Operation Desert Storm and the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, which he said led to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi giving up his country’s nuclear program. “I think that was one of the biggest problems that we had when we were in office, that we were concerned with about this nuclear proliferation. We’d seen the Iraqis in ’81 with a nuclear reactor, the Israelis took it out. In ’91, they had a second program, we took it out in Desert Storm. When we took down Saddam Hussein in ’03, Qaddafi gave up his nuclear materials, and that let us wrap up [Pakistani nuclear scientist] A.Q. Khan,” he said.

Iran will purchase conventional weapons, leading to a nuclear arms race in the middle eastWelna, 7/15 (David Welna, 7-15-2015, "Iran Nuclear Pact Could Spark Buildup Of Conventional Weapons," National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/07/15/423101307/iran-nuclear-pact-could-spark-buildup-of-conventional-weapons, accessed 7-15-15, SAM)

The deal between Iran and six world powers is limited to keeping that nation from building a nuclear bomb. But it's inevitable that the agreement, announced Tuesday in Vienna, will have broader consequences and one of them could be a buildup of conventional arms in the Middle East. As part of the nuclear deal, a United Nations arms embargo on Iran, which was imposed in 2007 in response to the country's nuclear program, will be lifted in five years for most weapons, and in eight years for ballistic missiles.

This is making some U.S. allies in the region uneasy, and they're likely to seek more conventional weapons to counter an anticipated buying spree by Iran. The U.S. has assured its allies that they can count on Washington's help standing up to Iran. Two months ago, President Obama invited the Arab leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, to Camp David, where he promised them greater security cooperation. "We'll help our Gulf partners improve their own capacity to defend themselves," the president said. "The United States will streamline and expedite the transfer of critical defense capabilities to our GCC partners. We will work together to develop an integrated GCC defense capability against ballistic missiles, including an early warning system." All of which could prove a bonanza for U.S. arms manufacturers, says William Hartung, who closely tracks the arms trade in the Middle East for the Washington-based Center for International Policy. "It'll definitely be a kind of an arms bazaar environment," he says. "If they go ahead with an integrated defense system, it'll be a huge boon to U.S. contractors — like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and others that work in the missile defense area — because those systems could easily cost tens of billions of dollars." Related Stories An Iranian family walks past anti-U.S. graffiti on the wall of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran on Tuesday. President Hassan Rouhani told Iranians that "all our objectives" have been met by a nuclear deal agreed upon Tuesday after talks with six world powers, including the U.S. PARALLELS The Iranian Nuclear Deal: What Happens Next? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at his Jerusalem office on Tuesday. THE TWO-WAY Netanyahu: 'This Deal Gives Iran A Path To A Nuclear Arsenal' Intelligence Squared U.S. debate stage. INTELLIGENCE SQUARED U.S. Debate: Is Obama's Iran Deal Good for America? That would be in addition to the tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons U.S. arms contractors already have sold to Israel, Saudi Arabia and other adversaries of Iran. Anthony Cordesman, an expert

on Middle East military matters at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that, far from starting an arms race, these developments will be about keeping Iran from getting back into a game in which it's already very far behind. "Its air forces, its surface-to-air missile forces, its land forces are worn and really not highly capable," Cordesman says. "They're large in numbers but low in war-fighting ability." Despite that disadvantage, there were warnings on

Capitol Hill that the agreement reached in Vienna could touch off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

"Saudis are already taking steps now, maybe working with Pakistan, to produce their own nuclear capability," says Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "Then Turkey's going to want that, and Egypt's going to want it, and on and on and on." That concern is unfounded, says Philip Gordon,

who was the top Middle East adviser at the White House until three months ago. "You're taking Iran away from the brink and giving reassurance that

it's not close to breaking out and suddenly having a nuclear capability, which is what would lead the other countries to get one," he says. Cordesman says that, above all else, the Arab Gulf States want Washington's reassurance. "They're going to want to make sure that the U.S. will make good on its security guarantees, that it will be a partner, that there will be, in any emergency, U.S. support," he says. Those assurances will likely be delivered next week, when Defense Secretary Ash Carter travels to Israel and other nations in the Middle East.

Plan only slows down a terrible deal, doesn’t solve for itCruz: Iran Legislation is a ‘bad bill’, by Jordan Carney, May 06, 2015, online @ Online @ http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/241280-cruz-iran-legislation-is-a-bad-bill, The Hill

Jordain Carney is/was a Staff Writer for The Hill, Defense Reporter for the National Journal, Daily Briefings Team Reporter, National Journal.

Presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday slammed legislation that would allow Congress to review and vote on a final Iran nuclear deal, 2 the proposal a "bad bill."

"I agree that it is of paramount important to give Congress its proper role in an international agreement of this magnitude," he said. "As the legislation

stands, this legislation is unlikely to stop a bad Iran deal." The Texas Republican didn't explicitly say that he would vote against the measure, expected to come up for a vote on Thursday. But, he's previously said that without changes he would have a hard time voting for it, and added on Wednesday that " this issue is far too important to send a bad bill simply to send a message.""This legislation at best will slow down slightly a terrible deal ," he said. "Don't have a fig leaf vote."

Iran deal badCongress’ Iran Deal a Disaster, Marc. A. Thiessen, April 28, 2015, online @ https://www.aei.org/publication/kill-corkers-disastrous-iran-bill/, American Enterprise Institute

Marc. A. Thiessen, is a professional in the fields of counterterrorism, and presidential leadership in America, he’s a writer at AEI, and at the US Foreign and Defense Policy. He also studies counterterrorism at AEI.

The Iran deal is a disaster. No, I’m not talking about the nuclear agreement President Obama is negotiating with Tehran (though that is a disaster, too), but rather the Iran deal that Obama cut with Congress.

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act that Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn .) negotiated with Obama comes up for a vote in the Senate this week. It is a terrible bill that virtually guarantees that Congress will give its de facto stamp of approval to any agreement Obama concludes with Iran. The reason is simple: Instead of requiring that Congress vote to affirmatively approve any Obama-Iran agreement before it can take effect, the Corker-Cardin bill allows the agreement to take effect unless it is disapproved by Congress. Big difference. An affirmative vote would have required Obama to persuade a simple majority in both houses of Congress to approve his agreement. If he failed, the agreement would be dead. Now, under a disapproval mechanism, the burden shifts to congressional opponents of the Iran deal, who need to convince not simple majorities, but super majorities, in both houses if they want to kill the deal. The bill allows opponents to pass a “resolution of disapproval,” which requires only a simple majority. That allows congressional critics to claim that they voted against the agreement. But Obama can veto the resolution of disapproval and send it back to Congress. When that happens, opponents need two-thirds of the House and Senate to override his veto. There is no chance that will happen. In fact, this is precisely why the Corker bill is so appealing to some Democrats. They get the political cover of voting against Obama’s Iran deal without being responsible for actually delivering an embarrassing defeat to Obama. That’s a “win-win” on Capitol Hill. Failure to override Obama’s veto would mean that Congress will have effectively assented to the deal, giving the agreement a congressional imprimatur. Obama will be able to claim that Congress reviewed the agreement under a procedure of its own creation, and the result of the review was that the agreement was approved for implementation . That is worse than if Congress had never voted in the first place. While Obama strong-arms Congress, he continues to capitulate to Iran. The Obama administration has long insisted that there would be no immediate sanctions relief for Iran. Just two weeks ago, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke reiterated “Sanctions will be suspended in a phased manner upon verification that Iran has met specific commitments under a finalized joint comprehensive plan of action,” adding “The process of sanctions suspension or relief will only begin after Iran has completed its major nuclear steps and the breakout time has been increased to at least a year.”

Deal bad- prolifCheney: Iran Deal Moves us towards nuclear war, Ben Kamisar, July 15, 2015, online @ http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/247984-cheney-iran-deal-moves-us-toward-nuclear-war

Ben Kamisar graduated from Northestern University and got a bachelors degree in Political Science and Journalism, then went to the Georgetown University School of continuing studies.

“ What Obama has done is in effect sanctioned the acquisition by Iran of nuclear capability. And it can be a few years down the road, it doesn't make any difference , it's a matter of months until we're going to see a situation where other people feel they have to defend themselves by acquiring their own capability, ” Cheney said Tuesday night on Fox News’s “Hannity.” “ And that will in fact I think put us closer to use — actual use — of nuclear weapons than we've been at any time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II .” Cheney joins the large swath of Republicans who are criticizing Tuesday’s deal, in which Iran promised to scale down its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. President Obama and his administration have lauded the deal as a victory for diplomacy, one that greatly scales down Iran’s nuclear program with verifiable proof along the way. Those concessions include a drastic reduction of Iran’s uranium stockpile and centrifuges, which lengthens the time Iran would need to build a bomb if it violates the deal. While an independent nuclear agency gets full access to Iran’s declared nuclear sites, the steps needed to gain access to an undeclared site are a sticking point with some, since it could take up to 24 days for inspectors to be granted access. Cheney said that the delay is “certainly” enough for Iran to hide potential weapons and that we’ve “historically underestimated the nuclear efforts of others.” “I don't think we know everything there is to know about the nuclear program in Iran. Fact of the matter is, our capabilities have never been perfect in terms of being able to read other nations and what they were doing ,” he said. “ This is a situation where we don't have the kind of access we need to be able to get in and know what is going on from a covert standpoint. They've had covert programs in the past. And I wouldn't be at all surprised that they have things underway now that we don't know about.”

Enables fast prolifKrauthammer on possible Iran nuclear deal: 'An unbelievably bad idea', by foxnews.com, February 24, 2015, online @ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/24/krauthammer-on-possible-iran-nuclear-deal-unbelievably-bad-idea/

This article was written in collaboration with multiple writers and editors from foxnews, all of which have a college level education with degrees varying from a combination to political science, to journalism, to both of those.

Charles Krauthammer told viewers on "Special Report with Bret Baier" Tuesday that a proposed agreement that would allow Iran to development nuclear capabilities would be "simply catastrophic." "The latest details that are coming out now about the agreement being time-limited meaning that in a decade, Iran can essentially become a legitimate nuclear power, develop its weapons, without any restraints is simply catastrophic. It's really unbelievable," the syndicated columnist said. Iranian and US officials on Monday wrapped up a round of negotiations on the issue in Geneva, Switzerland. The plan reportedly limits Iran's nuclear activities for

10 years, but would then slowly ease restrictions on the country's capabilities. The details drew a decidedly mixed reaction in the United States. " It allows enrichment, it's going to allow a new generation of centrifuges, it's going to allow the development of ballistic missiles, " Krauthammer said. " It doesn't do anything about the development of an actual warhead that will go on a weapon that will attack either Israel or Europe or the United States." "It is an unbelievably bad idea, " he added. " It makes the Cuba deal look like a really good bargain."

Iran deal badHaaretz, 7-16-2015, "Iran deal: good or bad? Five analyses you don't want to miss," http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.666240, Haaretz is a newspaper based out of Israel. WGR 7-16-15

Ilene Prusher raises the concern that the deal does not provide for an inspections regime that is nearly as "robust and intrusive" as U.S. President Barack Obama promised it would be back in April, when the framework agreement was signed. She cites an atomic energy expert who provides specific examples of the inspections mechanism's shortcomings. One such example is that if the world powers suspect Iran is violating the terms of the agreement, they will unlikely gain access to an inspection of the nuclear site in question, for under the terms of the agreement, this would require revealing the intelligence that aroused suspicion – and the world powers are unlikely to want to reveal such sources.

Iran deal “nothing to rejoice over”Haaretz, 7-16-2015, "Iran deal: good or bad? Five analyses you don't want to miss," http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.666240, Haaretz is a newspaper based out of Israel. WGR 7-16-15

Amos Harel writes that other than depriving Iran of a military nuclear capability for the next decade, the deal doesn't give the West or Israel much to rejoice over: the Iranians probably only signed the deal, despite their reservations, because it was an offer too good to refuse; and some of the money that will soon start flowing in may go toward propping up Iran's proxies. Israel, however, can expect Obama to offer it a generous package of military aid as compensation.

Iran deal may be bad for US oil, but is good for the worldForbes, 11-30-2013, "Iran Deal Could Lead To Scuttling Of The Great U.S. Oil Boom," Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/11/30/the-iranian-nuclear-deal-is-a-good-one/, WGR 7-16-14

In the short term, the Iran deal will ease the political risk premium baked into oil prices. In the medium term a comprehensive deal could add 1 million or more barrels per day to the market. In the long-term a gush of Iranian oil could soften oil prices enough to kill the economics of America’s tight oil boom. In Monday trades, after the weekend signing of an interim resolution

between the U.S. and Iran, the price of benchmark Brent crude slid about 1.5% to $109 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude was down about 1% to $94 per barrel in mid-morning trades. These modest declines are a reasonable reaction to the deal signed over the weekend. No one is expecting any flood of Iranian crude back to the market. The White House insists that sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors remain in place and that the international community will “continue to enforce these sanctions vigorously.” But successful diplomacy reduces geopolitical risk. Although any military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was exceedingly remote before the deal (President Obama was not about to start another war in the Middle East), it is now virtually inconceivable for at least the six months during which the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 group of nations will negotiate what the White House refers to as a “long-term, comprehensive solution that addresses all of the international community’s concerns.” Israel, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s condemnation of the deal as “an historic mistake,” is unlikely to attack Iran unilaterally during this time. How much geopolitical risk is baked into the price of a barrel of oil? At the height of former President Ahmadinajad’s bellicose anti-Israel rhetoric and threats to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, it was understood that as much as $20 per barrel represented a risk premium. About that much could quickly melt off of benchmark prices in the days and weeks to come, bring crude oil down from about $100 a barrel in the U.S. into the $80 range. But what about the price impact of an uptick in longer-term supplies? This interim deal naturally makes the chances of a long-term deal more likely, so traders will naturally price in marginally higher exports from Iran starting in six months or so. That could soften prices even more. Since the toughest sanctions were imposed in 2012, Iran’s oil production has declined 900,000 barrels per day, according to analysts at Tudor, Pickering & Holt. Much of that production is heavy oil. Saudi Arabia has adeptly replaced those Iranian barrels in the market by boosting their own production by roughly 1 million bpd. But when it comes time for Iranian oil to come back onto the market, the Saudis (though no friends of Iran), would likely dial back their exports to make room. But how much room will the Saudis be willing to make in the years ahead? Iran has the reserves to add millions more in supplies. It would take awhile. As Bill Herbert, analyst at Simmons & Company, points out in his morning note, “sustainably increasing production levels well above 3 million bpd for a consistent period of time will most likely require substantial foreign investment from global IOCs and western service companies.” Some of those IOCs — like Exxon Mobil XOM -0.42%, Chevron CVX -1.37% and Total TOT -1.5% — have jumped at the opportunity to invest in untapped oil fields just over the border from Iran in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The fields there have proven to be enormous, the flow rates prodigous, the ease of recovery unmatched anywhere else in the world. Iran’s potential is even greater. Given sufficient investment in drilling and infrastructure, there are ample oil reserves in Iraq and Iran to add another 5 million bpd to global oil supplies within 10 years. In addition to those two, there remains roughly 1 million bpd of Libyan production offline due to continued unrest there. Nigeria too has at least 250,000 bpd shut in. Solve political and security problems in those countries and the world could suddenly be awash in excess oil supply. Over the long run the easing of sanctions against Iran spells trouble for the economics of the tight oil plays that have sprung up across the United States in recent years. The Eagle Ford and Permian Basin and Bakken need sustained high oil prices to make the economics of expensive drilling and steep decline rates pay off. It’s no coincidence that America’s great oil and gas renaissance has coincided with sanctions on Iran and unrest in Libya. The concern for U.S. drillers is that successful Middle Eastern diplomacy could end up being the worst thing for their business. If crude oil benchmarks were to fall to $75 a barrel and stay there for a couple months you’d see drilling rigs across Texas and North Dakota fall silent. The U.S. onshore oil industry has been perhaps the brightest spot in what passes for

America’s economic recovery. How ironic that it could end up being a casualty of the Middle Eastern peace process. I’m not sure what the naysayers of this deal think the sanctions were suppose to do. The purpose of sanctions is to get a specific party to the negotiating table. Sanctions are not meant to destroy a nation, cause widespread poverty of its people and destruction of their economy, or topple governments. The fear of these happening, not the reality of them, is what gets a government to the table. As much as some leaders in Israel and Saudi Arabia want to use the U.S. to decapitate their nemesis, this is not the point of these talks. And what happens here goes far beyond just Iran. We need nuclear energy to spread around the world without proliferating weapons. How we handle Iran will determine the future of nuclear energy in many countries outside of the developed world, and we better get it right. There will always be pressures to develop weapons and we need strategies and experience in diverting these programs away from weapons. Besides, the art of diplomacy is the art of finding a win-win for all parties. It’s significant that the Obama Administration knows how to use diplomacy the way only the U.S. can. It is in both our and the world’s best interest, to find a solution that allows Iran nuclear energy without weapons. All other rhetoric is posturing. Isolation is the worst strategy for bringing a country into the civil world’s fold. Just look at North Korea. Rouhani has to move forward in a way that does not shame Iran. The celebration in Iran over this deal is a strong indication of the win-win nature of this deal, not the ridiculous charge of the opposition that the U.S. was taken for a ride. Iran wants to, and according to international law can, have a nuclear energy program, including enrichment and production, as long as it falls under the appropriate international controls and is not producing weapons. It is no wonder that Iran wants this deal as badly as it seems. It is a way out of a very tricky and dangerous situation. Countries having the bomb never seem to get attacked, but those that give up their nuclear programs completely tend to end badly. Just ask Iraq and Libya. To avoid this fate, Iran has to back away from nuclear weapons while retaining a nuclear energy program. The U.S. understands that this deal is a good step toward that end. A final deal will include a structure that precludes the ability to make a weapon, such as abandoning or altering the reactor at Arak, and closing the Fordow enrichment facility because it is basically immune from attack being under a mountain. But the whole deal doesn’t have to be done all at once. All things considered, this deal with Iran is a good one for the world. Technical Endnotes – Just a few technical clarifications since science rarely enters media coverage of nuclear issues, yet is extremely important. The original level of U-235 in the uranium ore, that is mined like any other ore, is 0.7% U-235. 5% U-235 is the level of enrichment for nuclear fuel for power reactors. Although some reactor designs can use anything from natural uranium to highly-enriched material, most power reactor fuel is between 3% and 5% enriched as is used in Iran’s Bushehr reactor, a reactor no one cares much about for this reason. You can’t make a bomb out of these materials. This is the basis for the first key provision of the deal. And while discussions focus on 20% U-235 as sufficiently enriched to make an atomic weapon, that is only theoretically correct. No one has made a weapon from such lowly-enriched materials and no one ever will. Enrichment needs to be >90% to make a reliable weapon. Reliability in this case is not like having a reliable flashlight. Reliable in this case means the atomic weapon will work when you want it to. It’s why there’s so much testing associated with a weapons program. If you’re going to make the fatal decision to field a nuke, it better work, and everyone knows it has to be over 90% U-235 to be really useful. Finally, an atomic weapon is fission-based such as U-235 and Pu-239 whose nuclei split to change a bit of matter into a huge amount of energy. These are what was dropped during WWII, what Iran was working towards with U, and what North Korea has developed with Pu. In contrast, a nuclear weapon is fusion-based such as a hydrogen bomb, whose nuclei fuse to change a bit of matter into even more energy.

Iran deal wrecks US oilGeoffrey Smith, 7-14-2015, "Oil Prices Slide on Iran Nuclear Deal," TIME, http://time.com/3956883/iran-deal-oil/, Geoffry Smith is a writer for time magazine, and Geoffrey Smith is a senior editor at fortune.com. WGR 7-15-15

The end of sanctions means new investments in Iran's oil production Crude oil prices are testing three-month lows after Iran struck a deal that will lead to the lifting of international sanctions on its struggling economy in return for curbs on its nuclear program. The benchmark futures contract for U.S. crude fell by over a dollar a barrel in early trade in Europe Tuesday after negotiators confirmed that they had struck an agreement after years of fraught talks. The gradual end to sanctions foreseen under the deal will allow Iran, which has the world’s third-largest oil and gas reserves, to attract investment into its long-isolated energy sector, adding to world oil supplies at a time when the market is already “massively oversupplied”, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. The Financial Times reported in June that European oil majors such as Royal Dutch/Shell [fortune-stock symbol=”RSDA”] and Italy’s Eni SpA [fortune-stock symbol=”E”] have already visited Tehran, with a view to clearing old debts and paving the way for new deals. That’s bad news for U.S. shale oil producers, which have struggled to adapt to a world of lower prices since Saudi Arabia pushed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries into a fight for market share at the end of last year. However, it’s not the Iran deal per se that’s the bad news, but the fact that it adds to a list of factors that have stopped the rebound in oil prices in its tracks in the last couple of weeks. “Onshore storage space is limited. So is the tanker fleet. New refineries do not get built every day. Something has to give,” the IEA wrote in its latest report on the world oil market. That something, it added, is most likely to be U.S. light, tight oil. Analysts at Wood Mackenzie estimate as a base case that Iran will only add 120,000 barrels a day by the end of the year to the 2.7 million it currently produces. That’s little more than a drop in the bucket next to the surge in output that’s already happened this year as Saudi Arabia, smaller Gulf producers, Russia and Brazil have pumped furiously to ensure they keep their share of the pie. WoodMac reckons that it could add a total of 600,000 b/d by the end of 2017, with 260,000 b/d coming next year and another 220,000 b/d the year after. That’s based on the assumption that sanctions are fully lifted by the middle of 2016. Iran itself wants to increase its oil output to 5 million barrels a day by the end of the decade. That may seem ambitious, but Iraq has managed a similar increase since the toppling of Saddam Hussein despite having to cope with the constant chaos of civil war and, more recently, the rise of Islamic State. If the deal holds, and Iran can overcome its diplomatic isolation for good, then it seems destined to have a major impact on global supplies in the long term. Over three-quarters of its recoverable reserves are still to be developed–and most can be developed without the state-of-the-art technology required in most new oil producing regions, whether in shale formations or offshore. That can’t help but have an impact on the math for the U.S. shale industry. So far, the weaker companies in the sector have relied largely on new stock issuance and drastic cutbacks in investment spending to ride out what

they hoped would be a temporary setback. If Iran ever starts to realize its full potential as a producer, the sector will have to accept that prices are going to stay lower for longer.

Aff: Deal Bad Ext--RussiaRussia-Iran deal causes tensions in the region; allows Russia to exercise power through Iran, and increases proliferationRafizadeh 5/11; MAJID RAFIZADEH is an American scholar and political scientist and is the president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He is originally from Iran and Syria; "Russian-Iranian Arms Sale: Repercussions of the Nuclear Talks”; (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/majid-rafizadeh/russianiranian-arms-sale-_b_7169438.html)

For the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of the most significant and beneficial byproducts of the ongoing nuclear talks with the P5+1 nations -- the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China -- is not solely linked to the prospects of Iran's nuclear program. In fact, the international legitimacy that Iranian leaders are gaining from the negotiations bears much-more-positive consequences for Tehran's strategic geopolitical and military designs in the Middle East. At the beginning of this year, Sergei Shoigu became the first Russian Minister of Defense to visit Tehran in 15 years. Then, in April, Russian President Vladimir Putin paved the way for delivering a missile system to Iran by lifting a ban on the sale of sophisticated Russian air-defense missiles to Tehran. The ban had been imposed in 2010 as a result of UN Security Council resolutions, as well as pressure and lobbying from the United States and Israel. Nevertheless, Iran's military power and the Russian-Iranian partnership have shifted since the P5+1 and Iran reached a framework for a final nuclear deal. For Iranian leaders the progress in the nuclear talks can significantly increase their geopolitical and economic influence in the region through global trade that could bolster Tehran's military power. For example, the S-300 surface-to-air missile system can provide the Islamic Republic with a powerful deterrence against any air strikes (including from ballistic missiles or cruise missiles) against their nuclear sites. In addition, the arms sale could embolden Iran to scuttle the foreign-policy objectives of its rivals -- including regional state actors and the United States -- in the region. For Russian leaders it is crucial to be ahead of the game when a final nuclear deal is reached between the P5+1 nations and Iran. Taking action will ensure that Moscow can reap a significant amount of trade profits (whether militarily or non-militarily) from Iran. For instance, Russia has long been negotiating to intensify its oil-for-goods barter deal with Tehran. Moscow can place its military deals with Tehran based on the oil-for-goods exchange program. This will provide Russian leaders with a leg up in Iran's energy and financial markets before the final nuclear deal is signed. Since a framework for a final nuclear has been reached, several powers will feel the urge to immediately intensify trade (including arms, goods, and oil) with Iran. Before European countries can tap into Iran's market, Russia is attempting to secure its profits from its arms client (Iran), maintain its strategic alliance with Iran, reassert its military cooperation with Tehran, and enjoy a significant share in Iran's market. Russia's Ministry of Defense has stated that Moscow is ready to strike the arms deal, which is worth approximately $800 million. In other words, the prospect of a final nuclear deal has prompted a race among several countries to benefit from the easing of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran. A competition to secure trade with Iran has already been initiated. And Russia, a long-term strategic ally of the Islamic Republic, would not desire to fall behind. As Andrei A. Klimov, the deputy chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Federation Council (Russia's Senate), told The New York Times, "We need to think about the future of our trade partnership [with Iran]. We don't want to wait for anybody else. It is a kind of competition, if you like." Iran would welcome any military deal that could further advance its regional hegemonic ambitions. As Iran's deputy defense minister, Reza Talaienik, told the semiofficial

Tasnim News Agency in response to Russia's decision to lift the ban on missile sales, "If Russia fulfills its commitment to deliver the S-300 missile system to Iran, it will be a step towards boosting the relations and collaborations between the two countries. It will be a step forward." In addition, as Tehran is considered a strategic ally of Moscow, bolstering Iran's military power will further advance Russia's strategic geopolitical objectives in the region. The heightened tensions between the Obama administration and President Putin pushed Moscow much closer to the Islamic Republic as well. Although some experts, policy analysts, and politicians might argue that Russia's move would complicate the nuclear talks, it is unlikely that the Obama administration or Western allies would scuttle the final nuclear deal because of an Iran-Russia arms deal. The recent developments clearly indicate that Iranian leaders will not moderate their objective of regional preeminence or scale down their military influence over other countries in the region. It appears that the easing of sanctions will be utilized by Iranian leaders to further invest in their country's military and ratchet up Iran's strategic geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Russia and the Iran have leveraged the international legitimacy that the Islamic Republic has gained from the nuclear talks to strengthen their strategic defense ties. This international legitimacy will not only bolster Iran's military power, which would further destabilize the region and pose security concerns for other regional state actors, but will set off a global race to increase trade with Iran, including trade in arms.

Deal causes Russian Iranian ProliferationsHolodny 7/14/15; ELENA HOLODNY has a degree in economics from Columbia University and is a reporter for Business Insider; “Putin Likes the Iran Deal”; 7/14/15; (http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-likes-the-iran-deal-2015-7)

The Kremlin likes the Iran deal. In fact, Putin took some serious credit for it. "The deal on Iran nuclear program is based on the approach articulated by President Vladimir Putin," the Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted on Tuesday. Putin added, in a statement released by the Kremlin, that the deal is means that its "bilateral relations with Iran will receive a new impetus and will no longer be influenced by external factors." The world powers and Iran struck a landmark deal on Tuesday to curb Iran's nuclear program for at least 10 years in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions. It appears Russia is in a position to benefit both strategically and financially. "Russia is ... poised to benefit geopolitically from the nuclear accord, because Iran is likely to emerge from this process as a newly empowered state," Paul N. Schwartz, a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a paper back in June. Iran and Russia are the primary supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which has been fighting largely Sunni uprising for more than 4 years, and both oppose many Saudi initiatives. "In general, such an outcome would accrue to the benefit of Russia, which stands to gain the most from a newly empowered Iran able to more effectively pursue its Middle East agenda," Schwartz wrote. Furthermore, Russia and Iran stand to benefit from some trade opportunities on nuclear fuel, military equipment, and sale of the advanced S-300 anti-missile system. "Russia had long been Iran's primary arms supplier, with total sales of nearly $3.4 billion between 1991 and 2010," Schwartz noted. "Russia hopes that the lifting of US sanctions will lead to a resumption of large-scale arms transfers."Russia S-300 systemReuters Graphics And at this point, "Iran’s military is in dire need of modern weapons, but because of ongoing disputes and residual mistrust, the West is unlikely to sell such weapons to Iran for some time to come, even after a deal is reached on the Iranian nuclear program," he added. Consequently, Moscow welcomes the new era and even appears to be calling for Iran — which the US considers the " the

world's most active state sponsor of terrorism " — to join the international community's fight against terrorism. "In the next five years deliveries of arms to Iran will be possible, under the conditions of the relevant procedures, notification and verification by the U.N. Security Council," Russia foreign minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly said in comments broadcast from Vienna by Russian television, according to the Moscow Times.

Aff: Iran Prolif Impact DIranian Prolif unlikely- political and financial costs too highMiklos 2013

(Timothy Miklos- is a 2nd year M.A. student at the Elliott School of International Affairs in Security Policy Studies with a focus on nuclear weapons. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Michigan. Prior to his undergraduate studies he served honorably in the United States Marine Corps for 8 years. He is fluent in Russian., 3-3-2013, "Iran Proliferation Triggering a Nuclear Domino Effect in the Middle East: An Unrealistic Scenario," No Publication,Accessed July 15th 2015 http://www.iar-gwu.org/node/468)//PEG

President Obama has stated that Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon will spark an arms race in the Middle East. This view is a status quo dogma among policymakers of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and dissenting views are generally ignored. Ari Shavit of Haaretz identifies the most at-risk states as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. However, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East in response to an Iranian weapon is highly unlikely. For those countries most likely to proliferate, the political and financial costs are too high. The nuclear domino scenario has been an accepted doctrine since 1962 when President Kennedy warned that by the 1970s there would be around 25 nuclear weapon states. Yet, today there are only nine. According to a recent Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report, “Cairo does not see Iran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential threat.” Egypt’s true enemy is Israel, which has defeated Egypt in four consecutive wars. If Egypt did not pursue a nuclear option to deter its nuclear-armed enemy Israel, then it will not do so against Iran. Egypt simply does not have the financial resources, nuclear infrastructure, or motive to build a successful clandestine nuclear program, as its facilities are under IAEA safeguards. As a signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Egypt has remained committed to non-proliferation since the Treaty’s inception and would be unlikely to withdraw. Even if Egypt had the capability and intention to pursue nuclear weapons, its security would not be enhanced. An attempted breakout would likely be destroyed in a preemptive strike by Israel, which has proven the credibility of this threat twice by destroying the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981 and the Al Kibar reactor in Syria in 2007. Unlike Iran, Egypt does not have long distances, deep reactors, and strong air defenses to protect itself from Israeli preemption. Iran poses the largest threat to Saudi Arabia and, as such, the Kingdom would have the strongest security motive to pursue a deterrent. Riyadh has called on a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, yet has repeatedly warned that an Iranian nuclear weapon may compel it to follow suit. This is not credible and is likely an attempt to pressure the United States to take greater action against Tehran.

Proliferation is exaggerated- nuclear weapons have decreased and capable nations refuse to obtain wmdsPashakhanlou 2015(Arash Heydarian Pashakhanlou-Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Politics & International Relations at University of Bath., July 14th 2015 "Nuclear Proliferation Is a Myth," New Republic, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122301/nuclear-proliferation-myth) Accessed July 15th 2015//PEG

After nearly two years of incremental and painstaking negotiations, a full deal on Iran’s nuclear program has at last been struck. In a feat of diplomacy and patience, Iran and the P5+1—the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China—have managed to construct a deal that limits Iran’s

nuclear activity and the sanctions imposed on it. Early reactions deemed this a “new chapter of hope” in more ways than one; not just a victory for diplomacy, but a major victory in the efforts against nuclear weapons proliferation. This is somewhat misguided. In reality, however, even a nuclear-armed Iran would not have meant that a nuclear weapons proliferation among states was underway. Proliferation, after all, means rapid spread. And whereas nuclear weapons have proliferated “vertically”, with existing nuclear states adding to their existing nuclear arsenals, there has not been a “horizontal” nuclear weapons proliferation—that is, a fast spread of these weapons to new nations. On the contrary, nuclear weapons have spread slowly across the world, even though academics, politicians, and the media frequently discuss horizontal nuclear weapons proliferation as if it was a matter of fact. Reality check Currently, there are only nine states in the world with nuclear weapons among the UN’s 193 members: the U.S. (since 1945), Russia (since 1949), the UK (since 1952), France (since 1960), China (since 1964), India (since 1974), Israel (since 1979, unofficial), Pakistan (since 1998), and North Korea (since 2006). Other countries have dropped off the list. South Africa joined the nuclear club in the 1980s, but dismantled its weapons in the early 1990s. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union when they became independent states after the Cold War, but they transferred their nuclear arsenal to Russia in the 1990s. In other words, only a handful of countries in Europe, Asia, and North America possess these weapons, while Africa, Australasia, and Latin America are devoid of nuclear weapons states. In fact, the number of nuclear weapons states has actually decreased ever since the 1990s. And even though the Pakistani nuclear weapons scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan confirmed the existence of a global nuclear black market which purportedly provided nuclear technology, expertise, and designs to various countries, including Libya, no horizontal nuclear weapons proliferation has taken place. Libya eventually voluntarily renounced its secret nuclear weapons efforts in December 2003. Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan have also shelved their nuclear weapons programs. As of now, there are 31 countries with nuclear power plant units in operation; countries such as Australia, Canada, and Japan are widely believed to have the technological sophistication to become nuclear weapons states in relatively short amount of time should they want to—but they have not pursued that path. In other words, even though there have been opportunities for nuclear weapons proliferation across a range of new states, such a development has not materialised. All of the available evidence thus unanimously suggests that no horizontal nuclear weapons proliferation has taken place throughout the 70 years that these weapons have existed. Claims to the contrary lack basis, whether they are made for political or economic reasons, sheer ignorance, or for any other purposes. Horizontal nuclear weapons proliferation is a bogeyman that does not exist. If we are to devise sound strategies and policies regarding nuclear weapons we have to ground them in existing reality. Recognizing that there is no horizontal nuclear weapons proliferation is a good place to start.

Aff: Israel Strike Impact Dno Israel strike everDave Seminara 12 is an award-winning freelance photojournalist and former diplomat based in Northern Virginia. Last Edited on February 29, 2012 The Washington Diplomat March 2012 “Iran: Has the Drumbeat of Debate Led to Inevitable March to War?” http://www.washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8242:iran-has-the-drumbeat-of-debate-led-to-inevitable-march-to-war&catid=1484:march-2012&Itemid=497

Still, he believes it is important for Americans to debate the Iran issue honestly and consider the use of force. He also echoed what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reportedly suggested: that the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran continues to increase heading into 2012 as Iran's "capability continues to evolve." But John Ghazvinian, a historian who is working on a book on the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, doubts that Israel or the U nited S tates will conduct a military strike on Iran anytime soon. "The likelihood of military action against Iran is almost zero," claimed Ghazvinian, who was born in Iran and has conducted recent field research there. " It would be such a poor decision that I can't imagine it being taken quite frankly. From the Israeli perspective, there's a strategic advantage to ensuring that the think tank consensus is that an Israeli attack on Iran is imminent and the only way to prevent it is to ratchet up pressure on Iran. But I believe that for Israel, this type of pressure on Iran is itself , in fact, the end game." Walt argues that Israel wants to keep the world's focus on Iran , in part to distract from the stalled peace process with the Palestinians . He believes an attack on Iran would help rally support around the regime and that patient diplomacy and sanctions are the best way to deal with Tehran. Ledeen contends that this approach has failed miserably.

Aff: Prolif Impact D

Prolif is slow and doesn’t cause war - empiricsWalt, 12 (Stephen Walt – Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University, 11/30, Foreign Policy, “The mother of all worst-case assumptions about Iran”, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com /posts/2012/11/30/the_mother_of_all_worst_case_assumptions_about_iran)

Yet this "mother of all assumptions" is simply asserted and rarely examined. The obvious question to ask is this: did prior acts of nuclear prolif eration have the same fearsome consequences that Iran hawks now forecast? The answer is no . In fact, the spread of nuclear weapons has had remarkably little impact on the basic nature of world politics and the ranking of major powers. The main effect of the nuclear revolution has been to induce greater caution in the behavior of both those who possessed the bomb and anyone who had to deal with a nuclear-armed adversary. Prolif eration has not transformed weak states into influential global actors, has not given nuclear- armed states the ability to blackmail their neighbors or force them to kowtow, and it has not triggered far-reaching regional arms races . In short, fears that an Iranian bomb would transform regional or global politics have been greatly exaggerated; one might even say that they are just a lot

of hooey.¶ Consider the historical record.¶ Did the world turn on its axis when the mighty Soviet Union tested its first bomb in 1949?

Although alarmist documents like NSC-68 warned of a vast increase in Soviet influence and aggressiveness, Soviet nuclear development

simply reinforced the caution that both superpowers were already displaying towards each other. The United States already saw the USSR as an enemy, and the basic principles of containment were already in place. NATO was being formed before the Soviet test and Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe was already a fait accompli. Having sole possession of the bomb hadn't enabled Truman to simply dictate to Stalin, and getting the bomb didn't

enable Stalin or his successors to blackmail any of their neighbors or key U.S. allies. It certainly didn't lead any countries to "reorient their political alignment toward Moscow." Nikita Khrushchev's subsequent missile rattling merely strengthened the cohesion

of NATO and other U.S.-led alliances, and we now know that much of his bluster was intended to conceal Soviet strategic inferiority. Having a large nuclear arsenal didn't stop the anti-commnist uprisings in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, or Poland, and didn't allow the Soviet Union to win in Afghanistan. Nor did it prevent the USSR from eventually collapsing entirely.¶ Did British and French acquisition of nuclear weapons slow their decline as great powers? Not in the slightest . Having the force de frappe may have made De Gaulle feel better about French prestige and having their own deterrent made both states less dependent on America's security umbrella, but it didn't give either state a louder voice in world affairs or win them new influence anywhere. And you might recall that Britain couldn't get Argentina to give back the Falklands by issuing nuclear threats -- even though Argentina had no bomb of its own and no nuclear guarantee -- they had to go retake the

islands with conventional forces. ¶ Did China's detonation of a bomb in 1964 suddenly make them a superpower? Hardly . China remained a minor actor on the world stage until it adopted market principles, and its rising global influence is due to

three decades of economic growth, not a pile of nukes. And by the way, did getting a bomb enable Mao Zedong--a cruel

megalomaniac who launched the disastrous Great Leap Forward in 1957 and the destructive Cultural Revolution in the 1960s -- to start threatening and blackmailing his neighbors? Nope. In fact, China's foreign policy behavior after 1964 was generally quite

restrained.¶ What about Israel? Does Israel's nuclear arsenal allow it to coerce its neighbors or impose its will on Hezbollah or the Palestinians? No . Israel uses its conventional military superiority to try to do these things, not its nuclear

arsenal. Indeed, Israel's bomb didn't even prevent Egypt and Syria from attacking it in October 1973, although

it did help convince them to limit their aims to regaining the territory they had lost in 1967. It is also worth noting that Israel's nuclear program did not trigger a rapid arms race either. Although states like Iraq and Libya did establish their own WMD programs

after Israel got the bomb, none of their nuclear efforts moved very rapidly or made it across the finish line.¶ But wait, there's more. The white government in South Africa eventually produced a handful of bombs, but nobody noticed and apartheid ended anyway. Then the new government gave up its nuclear arsenal to much acclaim. If anything, South Africa was more secure without an

arsenal than it was before.¶ What about India and Pakistan? India's "peaceful nuclear explosion" in 1974 didn't turn it into a global

superpower, and its only real effect was to spur Pakistan -- which was already an avowed rival -- to get one too. And it's worth noting that there hasn't been a large-scale war between the two countries since , despite considerable grievances on both sides and

occasional skirmishes and other provocations.¶ Finally, North Korea is as annoying and weird as it has always been, but getting nuclear weapons didn't transform it from an economic basket case into a mighty regional power and didn't make it more inclined to misbehave. In fact, what is most remarkable about North Korea's nuclear program is how little impact it has had on its neighbors. States like Japan and South Korea could go nuclear very quickly if they wanted to, but neither has done so in the six years since North Korea's first nuclear test. ¶ In short, both theory and history teach us that getting a nuclear weapon has less impact on a country's power and influence than many believe, and the slow spread of nuclear weapons has only modest effects on global and regional politics. Nuclear weapons are good for deterring direct attacks on one's homeland, and

they induce greater caution in the minds of national leaders of all kinds . What they don't do is turn weak states into great powers, they are useless as tools of blackmail, and they cost a lot of money. They also lead other states to worry more about one's intentions and to band together for self-protection. For these reasons, most potential nuclear states have concluded that getting the bomb isn't worth it.¶ But a few states-and usually those who are worried about being attacked-decide to go ahead. The good news is that when they do, it has remarkably little impact on world affairs.

Aff: Iran Prolif Good – StabilityNuclear Iran balances out powers in the Middle East creating stability and securityWaltz ’12 (Kenneth N., an American political scientist who was a member of the faculty at both the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of international relations He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. Founder of neorealism, or structural realism, in international relations theory. , “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb.Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability,” July/August, Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2012-06-15/why-iran-should-get-bomb, LS)

The past several months have witnessed a heated debate over the best way for the United States and Israel to respond to Iran's nuclear activities. As the argument has raged, the United States has tightened its already robust sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic, and the European Union announced in January that it will begin an embargo on Iranian oil on July 1. Although the United States, the EU, and Iran have recently returned to the negotiating table, a palpable sense of crisis still looms. It should not. Most U.S., European, and Israeli commentators and policymakers warn that a nuclear-armed Iran would be the worst possible outcome of the current standoff. In fact, it would probably be the best possible result: the one most likely to restore stability to the Middle East. POWER BEGS TO BE BALANCED The crisis over Iran's nuclear program could end in three different ways. First, diplomacy coupled with serious sanctions could convince Iran to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. But this outcome is unlikely: the historical record indicates that a country bent on acquiring nuclear weapons can rarely be dissuaded from doing so. Punishing a state through economic sanctions does not inexorably derail its nuclear program. Take North Korea, which succeeded in building its weapons despite countless rounds of sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions. If Tehran determines that its security depends on possessing nuclear weapons, sanctions are unlikely to change its mind. In fact, adding still more sanctions now could make Iran feel even more vulnerable, giving it still more reason to seek the protection of the ultimate deterrent. The second possible outcome is that Iran stops short of testing a nuclear weapon but develops a breakout capability, the capacity to build and test one quite quickly. Iran would not be the first country to acquire a sophisticated nuclear program without building an actual bomb. Japan, for instance, maintains a vast civilian nuclear infrastructure. Experts believe that it could produce a nuclear weapon on short notice. Such a breakout capability might satisfy the domestic political needs of Iran's rulers by assuring hard-liners that they can enjoy all the benefits of having a bomb (such as greater security) without the downsides (such as international isolation and condemnation). The problem is that a breakout capability might not work as intended. The United States and its European allies are primarily concerned with weaponization, so they might accept a scenario in which Iran stops short of a nuclear weapon. Israel, however, has made it clear that it views a significant Iranian enrichment capacity alone as an unacceptable threat. It is possible, then, that a verifiable commitment from Iran to stop short of a weapon could appease major Western powers but leave the Israelis unsatisfied. Israel would be less intimidated by a virtual nuclear weapon than it would be by an actual one and therefore would likely continue its risky efforts at subverting Iran's nuclear program through sabotage and assassination -- which could lead Iran to conclude that a breakout capability is an insufficient deterrent, after all, and that only weaponization can provide it with the security it seeks. The third possible outcome of the standoff is that Iran continues its current

course and publicly goes nuclear by testing a weapon. U.S. and Israeli officials have declared that outcome unacceptable, arguing that a nuclear Iran is a uniquely terrifying prospect, even an existential threat. Such language is typical of major powers, which have historically gotten riled up whenever another country has begun to develop a nuclear weapon of its own. Yet so far, every time another country has managed to shoulder its way into the nuclear club, the other members have always changed tack and decided to live with it. In fact, by reducing imbalances in military power, new nuclear states generally produce more regional and international stability, not less. Israel's regional nuclear monopoly, which has proved remarkably durable for the past four decades, has long fueled instability in the Middle East. In no other region of the world does a lone, unchecked nuclear state exist. It is Israel's nuclear arsenal, not Iran's desire for one, that has contributed most to the current crisis. Power, after all, begs to be balanced. What is surprising about the Israeli case is that it has taken so long for a potential balancer to emerge. Of course, it is easy to understand why Israel wants to remain the sole nuclear power in the region and why it is willing to use force to secure that status. In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq to prevent a challenge to its nuclear monopoly. It did the same to Syria in 2007 and is now considering similar action against Iran. But the very acts that have allowed Israel to maintain its nuclear edge in the short term have prolonged an imbalance that is unsustainable in the long term. Israel's proven ability to strike potential nuclear rivals with impunity has inevitably made its enemies anxious to develop the means to prevent Israel from doing so again. In this way, the current tensions are best viewed not as the early stages of a relatively recent Iranian nuclear crisis but rather as the final stages of a decades-long Middle East nuclear crisis that will end only when a balance of military power is restored. UNFOUNDED FEARS One reason the danger of a nuclear Iran has been grossly exaggerated is that the debate surrounding it has been distorted by misplaced worries and fundamental misunderstandings of how states generally behave in the international system. The first prominent concern, which undergirds many others, is that the Iranian regime is innately irrational. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, Iranian policy is made not by "mad mullahs" but by perfectly sane ayatollahs who want to survive just like any other leaders. Although Iran's leaders indulge in inflammatory and hateful rhetoric, they show no propensity for self-destruction. It would be a grave error for policymakers in the United States and Israel to assume otherwise. Yet that is precisely what many U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts have done. Portraying Iran as irrational has allowed them to argue that the logic of nuclear deterrence does not apply to the Islamic Republic. If Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, they warn, it would not hesitate to use it in a first strike against Israel, even though doing so would invite massive retaliation and risk destroying everything the Iranian regime holds dear. Although it is impossible to be certain of Iranian intentions, it is far more likely that if Iran desires nuclear weapons, it is for the purpose of providing for its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities (or destroy itself). Iran may be intransigent at the negotiating table and defiant in the face of sanctions, but it still acts to secure its own preservation. Iran's leaders did not, for example, attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz despite issuing blustery warnings that they might do so after the EU announced its planned oil embargo in January. The Iranian regime clearly concluded that it did not want to provoke what would surely have been a swift and devastating American response to such a move. Nevertheless, even some observers and policymakers who accept that the Iranian regime is rational still worry that a nuclear weapon would embolden it, providing Tehran with a shield that would allow it to act more aggressively and increase its support for terrorism. Some analysts even fear that Iran would directly provide terrorists with nuclear arms. The problem with these concerns is that they contradict the record of every other nuclear weapons state going back to 1945. History shows that when countries acquire the bomb, they feel

increasingly vulnerable and become acutely aware that their nuclear weapons make them a potential target in the eyes of major powers. This awareness discourages nuclear states from bold and aggressive action. Maoist China, for example, became much less bellicose after acquiring nuclear weapons in 1964, and India and Pakistan have both become more cautious since going nuclear. There is little reason to believe Iran would break this mold. As for the risk of a handoff to terrorists, no country could transfer nuclear weapons without running a high risk of being found out. U.S. surveillance capabilities would pose a serious obstacle, as would the United States' impressive and growing ability to identify the source of fissile material. Moreover, countries can never entirely control or even predict the behavior of the terrorist groups they sponsor. Once a country such as Iran acquires a nuclear capability, it will have every reason to maintain full control over its arsenal. After all, building a bomb is costly and dangerous. It would make little sense to transfer the product of that investment to parties that cannot be trusted or managed. Another oft-touted worry is that if Iran obtains the bomb, other states in the region will follow suit, leading to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. But the nuclear age is now almost 70 years old, and so far, fears of proliferation have proved to be unfounded. Properly defined, the term "proliferation" means a rapid and uncontrolled spread . Nothing like that has occurred; in fact, since 1970, there has been a marked slowdown in the emergence of nuclear states. There is no reason to expect that this pattern will change now. Should Iran become the second Middle Eastern nuclear power since 1945, it would hardly signal the start of a landslide. When Israel acquired the bomb in the 1960s, it was at war with many of its neighbors. Its nuclear arms were a much bigger threat to the Arab world than Iran's program is today. If an atomic Israel did not trigger an arms race then, there is no reason a nuclear Iran should now. REST ASSURED In 1991, the historical rivals India and Pakistan signed a treaty agreeing not to target each other's nuclear facilities. They realized that far more worrisome than their adversary's nuclear deterrent was the instability produced by challenges to it. Since then, even in the face of high tensions and risky provocations, the two countries have kept the peace. Israel and Iran would do well to consider this precedent. If Iran goes nuclear, Israel and Iran will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have. There has never been a full-scale war between two nuclear-armed states. Once Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, deterrence will apply, even if the Iranian arsenal is relatively small. No other country in the region will have an incentive to acquire its own nuclear capability, and the current crisis will finally dissipate, leading to a Middle East that is more stable than it is today. For that reason, the United States and its allies need not take such pains to prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon. Diplomacy between Iran and the major powers should continue, because open lines of communication will make the Western countries feel better able to live with a nuclear Iran. But the current sanctions on Iran can be dropped: they primarily harm ordinary Iranians, with little purpose. Most important, policymakers and citizens in the Arab world, Europe, Israel, and the United States should take comfort from the fact that history has shown that where nuclear capabilities emerge, so, too, does stability. When it comes to nuclear weapons, now as ever, more may be better.

Kahl is wrong. Nuclear Iran is actually goodWaltz ’12 (Kenneth N., an American political scientist who was a member of the faculty at both the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of international relations He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. Founder of neorealism, or structural realism, in international relations theory. “Iran and the Bomb

Would a Nuclear Iran Make the Middle East More Secure?” ,September/October, Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2012-07-17/iran-and-bomb, LS)

In arguing that a nuclear-armed Iran would represent an unacceptable threat to the United States and its allies, Colin Kahl rejects my contention that states tend to become more cautious once they obtain nuclear weapons and claims that I minimize the potential threat of an emboldened Islamic Republic. He accuses me of misreading history and suggests that I overestimate the stability produced by nuclear deterrence. In fact, it is Kahl who misunderstands the historical record and who fails to grasp the ramifications of nuclear deterrence. In Kahl's view, new nuclear states do not necessarily behave as status quo powers and can instead be highly revisionist. Seeking a precedent, he highlights the fact that the Soviet Union encouraged North Korea to launch a potentially risky invasion of South Korea in 1950, shortly after the Soviets had tested their first nuclear bomb. But Kahl neglects to explain the context of that decision. Some time before, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson had publicly identified the United States' security commitments in Asia; defending South Korea was not among them. The United States had also signaled its lack of interest in protecting the South Koreans by declining to arm them with enough weapons to repel a Soviet-backed invasion by the North. The Soviet Union therefore had good reason to assume that the United States would not respond if the North Koreans attacked. In light of these facts, it is difficult to see Stalin's encouragement of the invasion as an example of bold, revisionist behavior. Contrary to Kahl's claims, the beginning of the Korean War hardly supplies evidence of Soviet nuclear adventurism, and therefore it should not be understood as a cautionary tale when considering the potential impact that possessing a nuclear arsenal would have on Iranian behavior. Kahl seems to accept that nuclear weapons create stability -- or a form of stability, at least. But he notes -- as do most scholars of nuclear matters, myself included -- that nuclear stability permits lower-level violence. Taking advantage of the protection that their atomic arsenals provide, nuclear-armed states can feel freer to make minor incursions, deploy terrorism, and engage in generally annoying behavior. But the question is how significant these disruptive behaviors are compared with the peace and stability that nuclear weapons produce. Kahl points to the example of Pakistan, whose nuclear weapons have probably increased its willingness to wage a low-intensity fight against India, which makes the subcontinent more prone to crises. As Kahl correctly argues, Pakistan's increased appetite for risk probably played a role in precipitating the so-called Kargil War between India and Pakistan in 1999. But the Kargil War was the fourth war fought by the two countries, and it paled in comparison to the three wars they fought before they both developed nuclear weapons. In fact, the Kargil conflict was a war only according to social scientists, who oddly define "war" as any conflict that results in 1,000 or more battlefield deaths. By historical standards, that casualty rate constitutes little more than a skirmish. Far from proving that new nuclear states are not swayed by the logic of deterrence, the Kargil War supports the proposition that nuclear weapons prevent minor conflicts from becoming major wars. Indeed, nuclear weapons are the only peace-promoting weapons that the world has ever known, and there is no reason to believe that things would be different if Iran acquired such arms. Kahl also frets that a nuclear-armed Iran would step up its support for terrorist groups. Terrorism is tragic for those whose lives it destroys and unnerving for countries that suffer from it. But the number of annual fatalities from international terrorism is vanishingly small compared with the casualties wrought by major wars. Of course, like Kahl, I would not welcome increased Iranian support for Hezbollah or an increased supply of more potent Iranian arms to Palestinian militants. And I, too, hope for a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the disputes between Israel and its neighbors. But the last several decades have not offered much

reason to believe those goals can be easily attained, and I would rather see the possibility of major war reduced through nuclear stability, even if the price is an increase in disruptive activities and low-level conflict.