On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Secretary of State and acting White House National Security Adviser Marco Rubio stated that in order to get a deal to allow nuclear power, Iran would have to allow American inspectors, open all their facilities, “they have to walk away from sponsoring terrorists, they have to walk away from helping the Houthis, they have to walk away from building long-range missiles that have no purpose to exist other than having nuclear weapons, and they have to walk away from enrichment.”
Host Sean Hannity said, “To me, a deal with Iran would have to include the following: Their enrichment would have to be stopped, their facilities shut down by Americans, we would need anywhere, any place, any time American inspectors, not international inspectors. Why, in my heart of hearts, do I not believe that the mullahs of Iran would ever agree to that, and do you agree that those should be the conditions?”
Rubio responded, “If Iran wants a peaceful, civil nuclear program, meaning they want nuclear power plants, like other countries in the world have, there’s a way to do it, and that is, you build the reactors and you import enriched uranium to fuel those reactors. And that’s how dozens of countries around the world do it. The only countries in the world that enrich uranium are the ones that have nuclear weapons. Iran is — they’re claiming they don’t want a weapon…but what they’re basically asking is to be the only non-weapon country in the world that’s enriching uranium. And the level at which they enrich it is really not relevant, per se, because, really, if you have the ability to enrich at 3.67%, it only takes a few weeks to get to 20% and then 60% and then the 80 and 90% that you need for a weapon. And so, that really is the path forward here. Iran simply needs to say, we’ve agreed to no longer enrich, we’re going to have reactors because we want nuclear energy, and we’re going to import enriched uranium. This is an opportunity for them if they take it. And this is the best opportunity they’re going to have.”
Rubio added, “I think you would have to allow Americans, as part of — you can send — maybe there will be French inspectors, there will be Italian inspectors, there will be Saudis, whoever, but I think you cannot basically say, we will not allow any Americans. You also have to make sure — if you really want to prevent a nuclear program and you’re not building a nuclear weapon, then you should open all your facilities. One of the failures of the…Obama nuclear deal with Iran is that you could not inspect military sites. Well, if you’re making nuclear weapons, you would probably make them on a military site. … And look, there’s a win here for Iran, okay. They can actually have real economic development, they could have real investment in their country, but they have to walk away from sponsoring terrorists, they have to walk away from helping the Houthis, they have to walk away from building long-range missiles that have no purpose to exist other than having nuclear weapons, and they have to walk away from enrichment. These are not unreasonable requests. There are countries all over the world that have nuclear energy and don’t enrich and don’t have long-range missiles and don’t sponsor terrorism. That path is there for them, it’s the path of peace.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
