A Bad Deal

Anyone who is concerned about Iran's nuclear capabilities will not be reassured by this report in The New York Times.

It sounds like the Obama administration is going to lift sanctions on Iran for six months in an effort to engage in more substantive negotiations during that time:

[A] senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that the United States was prepared to offer Iran limited relief from economic sanctions if Tehran agreed to halt its nuclear program temporarily and reversed part of it.

The official said that the suspension of Iran’s nuclear efforts, perhaps for six months, would give negotiators time to pursue a comprehensive and far more challenging agreement.

“Put simply, what we’re looking for now is a first phase, a first step, an initial understanding that stops Iran’s nuclear program from moving forward for the first time in decades and that potentially rolls part of it back,” the official told reporters.

Seriously?! So they propose to offer a six month "time-out" during which sanctions would be lifted, in exchange for Iran promising to "temporarily" halt its weapons programs -- which by some reports can be operable in a matter of weeks -- and "potentially" rolling some of it back?

Come on. That is the very definition of a bad deal -- at least for America. Iran gets a six-month respite from sanctions in exchange for specious promises, when it just needs a few weeks to go nuclear?

Talk about weak.