Iran has been allowed to self-inspect its suspected nuclear site at Parchin, as the current fad of the “selfie” photograph has a new category with the news. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Monday that Iran had turned over samples that the Iranians had themselves collected from the military site that IAEA inspectors haven’t been allowed to visit in a decade, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Iranians did take IAEA director Yukiya Amano on a supervised tour of Parchin on Sunday,
But their authenticity and integrity are not the decisive issues. What matters is whether they provide a complete picture of Iran’s previous nuclear work. On that score Mr. Amano has to settle for whatever Iran provides him. He also isn’t about to say that the self-inspection process he recently endorsed has produced inadequate results—at least not if he wants to keep his job.
We are a long way from the go-anywhere, look-at-anything inspections that President Obama promised during negotiations. The Parchin selfies are especially dangerous because they are likely to set a new arms-control precedent for inspecting contested military sites in the future.
Gone are the kind of intrusive inspections that even Saddam Hussein had to tolerate until he kicked out inspectors. This is now the era of the selfie inspection, when rogue regimes provide their own samples, and inspectors-at-a-distance announce their gratitude for the cooperation.