In an article published in Townhall, Ken Blackwell quotes the Russian proverb, “doveryain no proveryai,” which means “trust but verify”. It was a phrase Reagan would use many times in his dealings with Mikhail Gorbachev. The P5+1 countries that are negotiating with Iran, need to take heed of this proverb.
Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and the American Civil Rights Union and is on the board of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He is the co-author of the bestseller The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.
Blackwell writes that in the nuclear talks the June 30 deadline will be missed. The mullahs secretly began a nuclear program, ostensibly to provide power to heat and light homes, business, and industries. The only thing that stood in their way was the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the coalition of Iranian opposition movement and its key component, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (Mek) which has kept a wary on the parts of the program that Tehran didn’t want the world to know about. It became known that the nuclear program had a more perverse goal – the development of a nuclear weapon with which it could threaten the region, including Israel.
The West has not been forceful in its condemnation of Iran’s secret weaponisation. The West did impose economic sanctions in an effort to bring Khomenei’s successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, to the bargaining table. However progress has been slow.
The mullahs still want to keep their nuclear development hidden but want the sanctions to be lifted before they have complied with the agreement. It is hard to see the Iranians keeping their word.
Ken Blackwell fully endorsed the plan set out by the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi at a massive rally in Paris in June, a rally attended by 100,000 people and dignitaries of all political stripes (including dozens of former senior US civilian and military officials and governors). Specifically highlighted are her three demands:
1. International inspectors must have unhindered and immediate access to al sites, including military sites.
2. The inspectors must have access to Iran’s nuclear scientists.
3. Nuclear research and development must be stopped.
Tehran has to agree to these conditions if it wants to be taken seriously in the comity of states. Given more than two decades of cheating by Tehran, unhindered inspection of all suspect sites, military or otherwise is essential. A regime with nothing to hide should have no problem with these demands, especially if it means that crippling sanctions will be lifted.
All shall become clear very shortly.
In the Middle East Iran has helped destabilize Syria and Iraq. It has alt of power in Iraq, which continues to imprison almost 3,000 members of the Iranian Resistance outside Baghdad at Camp Liberty.
In the long term, the only answer is regime change in Tehran.
