The adoption of a landmark nuclear weapons treaty with Iran officially kicked off October 18th, 90 days after the United Nations Security Council officially endorsed the deal.
During this 'adoption' phase of the deal, Iran will need to eliminate the banned portions of its nuclear program before it can be evaluated by the international community and sanctions can be lifted. Charles Sennott, head of The GroundTruth project, joined Boston Public Radio to discuss how that process may play out and how the effects of deal will reverberate internationally.
"Today is an amazing start to one of the largest and probably most complex projects of nuclear dismantlement in history," Sennott said.
"You've got an effort in which they're going to have to mothball 12,000 nuclear centrifuges, they're going to have to ship more than 12 tons of low-enriched fuel—which is about 98% of Iran's stockpile—and destroy the core of a giant plutonium reactor," he continued.
The deal has also created a wedge between some political bedfellows domestically. Sennott pointed out that, while the Obama Administration's official line on enforcement of the deal has been "trust, but verify," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has gone a step further in threatening military action if Iran does not uphold its end of the deal.
"It's clear language, and I think it's smart language," Sennott said.
"I think that is the next phase of this: for Iran to be sobered," he continued. "This is not a game where you can say one thing to a domestic audience on one hand and dance around the international community on the other."
To hear more from Charles Sennott, tune in to Boston Public Radio above.
