While negotiations are ongoing between Iran and Western powers for a nuclear agreement, Tehran continues to "illicitly and clandestinely" procure nuclear weapons while the Obama administration and other nations look away because they don't want to risk foiling a deal,
according to a Weekly Standard blog post penned by two fellows at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Two recent reports indicate that Iran's procurement is moving at a faster pace than before the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action, according to the article.
Last week, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, confirmed to the article's authors that Iran "continues to seek illicit technology for its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs."
And last month,
Bloomberg reported that U.N. monitors said "governments reported no new incidents of Iran violating Security Council sanctions against its nuclear program, even though some have unfolded in plain sight."
The report speculated about whether some member states had made a "political decision" not to report violations "to avoid a possible negative impact on ongoing negotiations."
In fact, according to Emanuele Ottolenghi, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Benjamin Weinthal, a research fellow there, Tehran has been trying to acquire industry computers, high-speed cameras, cable fiber, and pumps for its nuclear and missile program since the 2013 Joint Plan of Action.
"It appears that Iran's readiness to negotiate does not reflect any substantive policy change," the men write. "Rather, it is a diplomatic tactic retreat forced by economic distress, not a strategic rethinking of its priorities."
The Bloomberg piece reported several violations, including a report by an unnamed country that Iran tried to import a nuclear compressor illegally and a panel alert by two other unnamed governments that Tehran was "carrying out nuclear procurement-related financial transactions through banks outside Iran that aren't under sanctions."
According to the report by a panel of experts for the U.N. committee on Iran sanctions, Iranian businessmen acquired majority shares in one of the banks in 2011, Bloomberg reported.
The silence from the West about Tehran's cheating, despite evidence to the contrary, does not "bode well for the future," write Ottolenghi and Weinthal.
"If Western powers are reluctant to penalize Iran for trying to evade sanctions because they're afraid of spoiling the negotiations, what will happen in the future when Western powers have even more invested in preserving an agreement?"
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