Iran Extracts Last-Minute US Concessions on Nuclear Accord Deadline Day

Iran’s last-minute haggling with the US to sweeten the nuclear accord with the six world powers almost scuttled the entire deal in Saturday Jan 16 in Vienna, but for the Obama administration’s readiness to pay up once again.
Nobody in Washington, Tehran, or Vienna bothered to explain the long delay before the International Atomic Agency in Vienna certified that Iran had earned sanctions relief by fully complying with its commitments under the nuclear accord. The announcement, scheduled for that morning was only forthcoming after dark. A bevy of foreign ministers were kept hanging around in Vienna hour after hour.
DEBKA Weekly’s intelligence sources reveal what happened.
That morning, Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Jawad Zarif whipped out a fresh demand for the US to loosen up on a key provision of the signed nuclear accord and on IAEA oversight. US Secretary of State John Kerry was told he must now consent to Iran developing and constructing the prohibited IR2 to IR8 high-speed centrifuges, which enrich weapons grade uranium three times faster than the machines in current use.
Tehran was ready to hold up implementation of the nuclear accord indefinitely – even at the cost of temporarily foregoing sanctions relief – if these demands were not met.
Those advanced centrifuges would enable Iran to build a minimum of 15-20 nuclear bombs or warheads by 2025 (when the nuclear accord expires)) at the rate of one per month.
Zarif also demanded the easing of IAEA oversight over Iran’s compliance with its commitments to roll back its weapons program.
When Wendy Sherman, the senior US nuclear negotiator, tried touting the nuclear deal on a visit to Israel this week, she insisted that President Barack Obama was determined never to allow Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons.
However, by 2025, Obama will have been out of the White House for almost ten years, and able to dodge his responsibility for the deal, which he vowed would “make the world safer,” while Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates will be left face to face with an active Iranian nuclear arsenal.