NY Times Once Again Omits Criticism of Iran Deal From One-Sided Reporting

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Ahead of the inauguration this past week of Ebrahim Raisi as the Ayatollah-sanctioned president of Iran, The New York Times published a piece last weekend about the United States and Iran jeopardizing their chances of returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – a reported, not opinion, article that omitted criticism of the agreement from which President Donald Trump was right to withdraw.

The headline read, “Biden Promised to Restore the Iran Nuclear Deal. Now It Risks Derailment.” Let us break it down.

“Both sides have much to lose if the diplomacy fails. For President [Joe] Biden, getting the 2015 nuclear accord back on track is a top goal, in hopes of containing, once more, a nuclear program that has resumed with a vengeance three years after Mr. Trump withdrew from it,” wrote the article’s authors – David Sanger, Lara Jakes and Farnaz Fassihi.

The nuclear deal did not stop Iran’s nuclear program and the notion that it temporarily constrained it is, at best, suspect considering the agreement did not include a serious and stringent inspections regime to allow for “anytime, anywhere” inspections.

Iran’s nuclear program isn’t “back on track” and hasn’t “resumed with a vengeance” as it didn’t go anywhere but continue its mission to produce a bomb to target America and Israel, which the regime calls “The Great Satan” and “The Little Satan,” respectively. Also, the United States has nothing to lose if diplomacy fails. The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran after Trump’s withdrawal from the deal has been working in denying the regime cash to support its nuclear, regional and other malign activities.

“Now the economic burdens, worsened by a fifth wave of the coronavirus and water shortages that are partly the result of government mismanagement, have set off violent protests,” stated the article.

Government mismanagement?!? More like the result of a 42-year oppressive regime that has cared more about being the world’s leading state supporter of terrorism than supporting its own people. Moreover, there were peaceful and violent protests in Iran well before the coronavirus pandemic.

The article later read that “what has happened on the ground in Natanz, and in small research labs around the country, has the United States worried. The most visible problem, though in some ways the easiest to reverse, is that Iran has ratcheted up its production of nuclear fuel over the past two years, and now possesses far more fuel than it did before Mr. Trump pulled out of the agreement. At the time, he declared that Iran would return to the table, begging for a new deal.”

The nuclear deal never took away Iran’s capability to enrich. Iran has always had the capability to enrich anyway. Even as Biden hasn’t enacted meaningful sanctions against Iran and reportedly has not enforced some of the sanctions enacted during the Trump administration, Iran continues to further enrich uranium.

“We’re treating the symptoms. Not the underlying disease,” Richard Goldberg, who dealt with Iranian WMD policy in the Trump National Security Council, told me, referring to the fact that the problem is that Iran’s nuclear program is still in place.

The article also stated, “If the deal is restored, most of that newly enriched uranium could be shipped out of the country, which is what happened when the first accord was put together.”

While the deal did ship some uranium out of Iran, it did not stop research and development in Iran’s nuclear facilities nor did it stop the testing of missiles capable of developing nuclear weapons.

The only voices quoted in the piece are those in favor of the 2015 accord, namely, Robert Malley, the U.S. special representative for Iran, a senior European diplomat, a U.S. official, a senior Iranian official, and Ali Vaez, who leads the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, Malley’s previous employer, which supports the nuclear deal.

Reported articles should strive for objectivity, balance and, last but not least, the truth. The Times failed in each category, falling once again victim to the Iran echo chamber.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.