http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/us-iran-nuclear-deal-progress-214882 U.S officials fear Iran moving too fast on nuke deal
Iran's president may be setting an unrealistic goal of lifting sanctions before February elections.
By Michael Crowley
10/17/15 07:59 AM EDT
With the next phase of the Iran nuclear deal beginning Sunday, some U.S. officials worry that Tehran has set unrealistic expectations for how quickly it can comply with the deal and end economic sanctions.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is impatient to downsize Iran’s nuclear hardware and thereby halt the sanctions on his country. Iran holds parliamentary elections on February 26, and Rouhani's moderate faction might gain if the sanctions are history by then.
Rouhani is competing with hardliners who are casting doubt on when—and even whether—the promised sanctions relief will materialize, and who have recently raised tensions with the U.S. by convicting an American journalist of espionage and testing a ballistic missile in defiance of the United Nations.
In an interview on Iranian TV last week, the Iranian president said the sanctions could come off “one to two months” after Iran begins the process of implementing the nuclear deal. Sunday marks the official start to that process, on what the nuclear deal calls "adoption day," leading to an unspecified "implementation day" when Iran's actions have been verified and sanctions are halted as a reward.
Rouhani's timeline may be wildly optimistic. Many nuclear experts—including Energy Department technical experts involved in the Iran talks—believe it could take Iran six months or more to complete the work required by the agreement. That work includes uninstalling and storing thousands of centrifuges, whose operation was capped under the deal; refashioning the core of a reactor at Arak to prevent it from producing plutonium; and reducing Iran's stockpile of nuclear material by diluting it or shipping it out of the country.
"There’s a lot that Iran needs to do before it can actually get the sanctions relief that we’re offering in the deal," said a senior administration official, who said the time frame is "at least months."
Outside experts versed in the details of the nuclear deal were blunter.
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