The Quran chapter 2, verse 191 reads, "And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from wherever they drove you out, and the oppression is worse than the killing. And do not fight them near Al-Masjid Al-Haraam until they fight you in it. Then if they fight you, then you kill them. Such is the reward of the disbelievers." This passage, translated from the holy book celebrated within the Islamic faith, invites indisputable trepidation for the forthcoming safety of the western world. The Ayatollah of the Islamic Republic of Iran governs a highly concentrated population of radicalized Muslim people who have been imparted with the knowledge that the westernized world as a whole deserves such a "reward" as the "disbelievers" of Islam. While I partially digress from my intended argument, it is necessary that the preceding depiction of Iran's violence mongering brashness is implicit, for the following information is indirectly responsive with Iran's volatility. 

Beginning in 1970, supported by the United Sates, the Islamic State signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and agreed to never become a nuclear armed state. Although the Shah of Iran was cooperation with the United States at this time for the posterity of the middle east, many Muslims grew disgusted by the attempts to westernize the highly religious state. In 1979, the inevitable occurred when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his radicalized Islamic followers overthrew the U.S. supported Shah and sent him into exile. Following this overturn of power in Iran, the world began to hear relatively little from this newly formed theocratic, radical state. The United States levied multiple crippling sanctions upon the Iranian economy within the coming years although Iran continued production on weapons of mass destruction. Through the decades there were several findings by various countries which concluded that Iran was operating beyond it's agreed upon terms and without publication to the IAEA. Push forward to the interactions of recent months, the United States, under the Obama Administration, negotiated the first nuclear agreement with Iran since the 1970's. While it is necessary to keep the Ayatollah's nuclear program in a controlled environment, the agreed upon deal with the United States is rife with inevitable feebleness. The agreement ideally impedes many of the key pathways to the creation of an atomic bomb for over a decade; However, it tragically fails to satisfy all loopholes and is knowingly not built on trust. Precedent clearly shows that Iran is not trustworthy and unfortunately the deal that is agreed upon between the U.S. and Iran is far too lenient to prove its feasibility. As it stands today, the Iran Deal is exceedingly to ineffectual to safe keep our allies and the free world and it will not completely stop the ayatollah's nuclear program from their covert nuclear research and production. This is visibly due to the leniency behind the protocol of undisclosed inspections of their military facilities, the trusting relief of economic sanctions, the allowance of continued research in, until recently, secretive facilities, and the general uncertainty of many future aspects and results of the agreements. These weaknesses call for immediate repeal and renegotiation of this agreement. 

As I mentioned in the above text, Iran's nuclear program, under the rule of the Ayatollah, has labored further on the project of nuclear weaponry without disclosing their work to the IAEA. In fact, in 2009, a clandestine research and production facility was discovered built into a mountain in Fordow, just beyond the holy Shiite city of Qom, having been in operation for multiple years. This undisclosed production alone defines Iran as a whole and gives more than enough reason for the U.S. to not grant them leniency in reference to security inspections. In order to cooperate, full disclosure is a required step and the United States hardly tightened their leash whatsoever. As a point of concession, "drop in" security inspections are a particularly necessary and proper addition to the deal as a whole; However, within the deal they aren't even considered "drop in" inspections because they grant these various facilities excessive leeway. Steve Coll so precisely brought a crucial point to light in his article in the New Yorker when he stated that the restrictions regarding these searches allow for Iran to "delay the arrival of investigators for more than three weeks, ample time to hide contraband equipment" (Coll). This segment of clemency calls to question the efficacy of the entire deal, for the U.S. and the IAEA are in dealings with a difficult entity and the power of postponement that is given to the Iranians calls for sizeable reciprocated trust that even the Obama Administration admitted is not present. As the United States and the IAEA understand, this Joint Comprehensive plan to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran is not an agreement formed out of trust, therefore, why would the U.S allow Iranian facilities that much freedom? How can the U.S. or the IAEA be that naive? Nonetheless, the agreement absolutely needs to be renegotiated to read that each "drop in" security inspection is exactly that and there is no need for a prior warning. To push a little bit harder, these inspections should not be the only "angel on the shoulder" of the Iranian's nuclear program. According to Daniel Bassali in his recap of the former CIA director's, General David Petraeus, address to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, The General was said to have "Called for increasing the current sanctions on the Iranian regime for their human rights abuses and fully arming partners in the Middle East to help take out the Ayatollah's nuclear program should he be caught cheating" (Bassali). Petraeus, a former successful American general, holds tough reservations towards the state of Iran and he has a strongly vested interest in keeping our allies in the middle east safe. It is a widely accepted belief, based on precedent, that Iran wont comply to the agreements of the deal as it is written. Therefore, It's entirely viable that heavy pressure can be applied, in the form of sanctions and armed militants, to begin and supplemented out as Iranian compliance is proven. The use of tapered pressure to ensure cooperation in this circumstance would produce more secure and guaranteed results than through the leniency currently applied. 

In 1979, the wake of Iran Hostage Crisis was upon the world and under the presidency of Jimmy Carter little was done to gain ground and return the hostages besides his use of economic sanctions. He simply froze all Iranian assets "which are or become subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." Following this, in the year 1984, more sanctions were levied on Iran when they were discovered to be funding and arming the terrorist organization Hezbollah when they bombed the U.S. Marine base in Beirut. In the following years Iran became a national sponsor for terrorism and even more sanctions and embargos were placed on the republic crippling their once sustainable economy. The troubling fact is that the United States and the IAEA have collectively conceded to the release of these sanctions and embargos all within the first five years of the deal or whenever the IAEA sees fit. In a very similar fashion as I mentioned above about the pressing militant involvement, the release of these economic sanctions and embargos needs to be done in a tapering, trust proving fashion. Freeing Iran from the bounding shackles of our economic sanctions that target specific sectors of the Iranian economy relevant to its proliferation would only give Iran access to over 100 billion dollars of previously frozen assets without any requirement that they discontinue sponsoring terrorism. In Steve Coll's same article within the New Yorker mentions that, "Iran arms Hezbollah and Hamas in their dead-end mini-wars of rocket terror against Israel. An expansionist Iran with new resources and legitimacy might make the Middle East's present deterioration even worse" (Coll). With this knowledge, how can the U.S. deliberately and prematurely remove the economic blockade that has proved so effective in the preceding few years without so much as an insurance guarantee? Unfortunately, the world does not fit the utopian ideal that many people dream it to be. When Thomas Friedman of the New York Times questioned president Obama about this particular issue he simply stated that, "People's concerns here are legitimate. Hezbollah has tens of thousands of missiles that are pointed toward Israel, As well as smaller Sunni states too" (Friedman). Obama later said that necessary precautionary measures to the impending threat of the desolation of the region would be to further strengthen the defenses of Israel and support Sunni allies. Despite his contradiction of his own values, Obama suggests an imperative stride for the successful release of sanctions. In order to maintain and guide Iran through a transition into the westernized cooperative society, the concession needs to be renegotiated within the agreement to include a systematic, tapering release of economic sanctions and embargos. 

Aforementioned,  Satellite imagery dates the construction of the facility to a period between June 2006 and July 2007, while Iran has maintained that the IAEA that it began to build the facility during the second half of 2007. However, it was in September of 2009 that U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown all became aware of this clandestine nuclear progression and revealed it to the IAEA. Following the disclosure of the plant's existence, Iran attempted to downplay the supposed role this underground facility had within their nuclear program. This discovery was made six long years after the International Atomic Energy Association confronted Iran with evidence that it maintained a clandestine nuclear program and Tehran denied all allegations well knowing that these claims were true. Despite the consistent veiled production and deceitful research, the Fordow enrichment facility remains open and running. The negotiations allow for this under the conditions that Iran assures the U.S. and the P5+1 powers that it will be used for research and never production. In Yaakov Lappin's article in the Jerusalem Post, He states that "Iran is to keep 5,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at Natanz, and another 1,000 centrifuges at its underground enrichment facility in Fordow" (Lappin). A troubling fact to hear, nonetheless this allowance is far to great. A total of 6,000 active centrifuges are allowed to remain in service in Iran and a large fraction of those happen to be located in a facility built and operated in secret for multiple years before it was disclosed to the public. Iran is to export all but 300 kg of their current stockpile of 8 tons of highly enriched uranium and they are allowed to continue to produce lowly enriched uranium and plutonium at facilities across Iran, including Natanz and the heavy water plant at Arak indefinitely. While this step is in the right direction, this allotment is daunting especially when the Obama Administration has specifically stated that no trust is shared between the Islamic Republic and the U.S. or the P5+ powers. In order to safely allot this much material and freedom to a shrewd country with a vengeance, total assurance of safety and order is necessary. Presently, there is no section within the deal strong enough that can guarantee that this volatile country will not react malevolently in the coming years or decades. In risk of sounding like a broken record, reinforcing military stature in the middle east and withholding the release of sanctions until an undisclosed time is the only way to channel Iran through a peaceful transition. 

In the past year, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, has actively endorsed the Iran deal as the deal, and even signed it into agreement, to prohibit Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. At this point, it is naive to believe that the joint agreement will last as long as 5 or 8 years with certain aspects breaking off consequently. As former mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, stated, the agreement "whose restrictions end suddenly after 15 years, with some of the constraints on uranium enrichment melting away after just 10." These parameters of time show that this current deal is not the "end all, be all" delegation. Due to the short time span of only 10 years of constraints on the possession of highly enriched uranium new delegations with Iran will have to begin shortly in order to keep these standards up. After the 15 years are up, the United States and the free world face major implications for the future of security and stability. This is one of the many uncertainties that is embedded within the current standing of this agreement. Another fear conducting uncertainty that has not been addressed is the unknown destination of the remaining highly enriched uranium after the restrictions leave the ayatollah with the stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium. As Lappin addressed in his extensive article in the Jerusalem Post, "According to the deal, Iran will keep 300 kilograms of 3.5-percent low-enriched uranium, but the destination of the remaining LEU is shrouded in uncertainty" (Lappin). With these uncertainties, although they seem small, they incite a great deal of trepidation in the masses, which is a feeling that should not occur when signing an agreement this large. One last unknown is the unwritten and unspoken idea of showing our full support, whether it be through arming, caring for, or even fighting with our Sunni and Arabian allies, Israel, and the Curds. In order to maintain security and peace in the middle east, Obama needs to make perfectly clear what side we are working for and that we are fully enveloped with the idea of keeping peace between all middle eastern states even terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, etc. This portion that has gone unmentioned throughout negotiations is crucial; Not only does the United States want to prove full support to our previous partner and allied states, but the U.S. needs to gain full cooperation from Iran in the war against ISIS. While this last point is irrelevant to the issue of Iran's nuclear program it is essential to the ultimate goal of restoring the middle east and the rest of the world.

Iran has been developing their own nuclear program behind the scenes in the last few decades with assistance from certain countries around the world such as Pakistan and China and others. Production and outreach for more support rose and eventually, about 10 years ago, The International Atomic Energy Association confronted Iran about noted underground nuclear activity and Tehran denied all accusations. Six years later the U.S., Britain, and France were all made aware of one specific facility built and made to keep secret from the public. Subsequently, the P5 powers began to take part in negotiations in order to keep peace and humanity in the middle east. Today, the United States has reached a groundbreaking agreement that is said to cut off any and all pathways for Iran to get to an atomic bomb. Although the majority of people have long awaited to support a deal with Iran of some sort, this current agreement has most people hesitantly viewing it. While it covers most of the major concerns of the general public it comes with equal or greater shortcomings and weaknesses that make it detrimental in the long term and institute implications on the future safety ad security of the world that are far greater than the benefits could ever be. A few of these major weaknesses that need to be minimized or abated are the visible leniencies behind the protocol of undisclosed inspections of their existing military facilities, the trusting relief of economic sanctions, the allowance of continued research in, until recently, secretive facilities, and the general uncertainty of many future aspects and results of the agreements. With all of these shortcomings present and unspoken for there is a necessity to restructure the agreement in order to prevent more unsettlement and menace in the middle east. Fortuitously, we are knee deep in a very interesting election season with the general election bearing down on us. I implore you to research the candidates' platforms and plans for action because each candidate in the race has a slightly nuanced plan for how to handle the Obama administration's agreement. After you've thoroughly researched this aspect, I urge you to carefully select the candidate who has placed heavy thought and emphasis on this deal because our future safety may depend on it.

