ASPEN – Bush administration deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams told a pro-Israel gathering here Wednesday the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal will likely result in the exact thing it’s intended to prevent: a nuclear-armed Iran with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Speaking at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee event at the Chabad Jewish Community Center in Aspen, Abrams said he’s read the entire 150-page Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and finds it badly flawed on many levels. Both houses of Congress have two months to either approve or reject the plan, but President Obama has promised to veto any attempts to scrap the deal.

Abrams, now a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the agreement, if approved, would allow the Iranians 6,000 centrifuges with which to enrich uranium and then totally free them up from all restrictions after a 10- to 15-year window. Any deal, which he insisted should be in the form of a formal treaty, should not be time-bound.

He also argued the JCPOA does not allow for “anywhere, anytime” inspections, but instead sets up an elaborate, negotiated process that will take at least 24 days and could take up to two months before inspectors are able to examine facilities. That would be plenty of time to clean up most operations geared toward producing nuclear weapons, Abrams added.

The former assistant Secretary of State during the Reagan administration also questioned the deal’s five-year sunset on an embargo against conventional weapon sales to Iran and the eight-year sunset on the current prohibition against selling ballistic missiles to Iran.

“We used to say no deal is better than a bad deal. This is a bad deal,” Abrams said, adding he also disputes the notion that the alternative to ratifying the deal is another war in the already roiling Middle East. He stressed that he doesn’t believe that failure to reach a deal means war.

Instead, he said the Iranians aren’t likely to immediately fast-track their nuclear weapons program if the Americans reject the deal, because they’ll still want the Europeans, Russians and Chinese to remove economic sanctions, which ultimately Abrams said the United States will be able to put back in place. Also, he added, Iran will still fear U.S. and Israeli military intervention.

If the deal is approved and goes into effect, however, Abrams contended the Iranians will enjoy a huge infusion of cash and be freed up to bolster its already powerful military – making armed intervention several years down the road all the more difficult.

An avowed enemy of Israel, predominantly Shia Muslim Iran has stirred much anxiety in Sunni Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia. Abrams said radical Jihadists in groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS and the rise in power of Iran have forged a new alignment between Israel and some Arab states in the Gulf region.

Israel’s security concerns are far more closely aligned with those of Jordan and Egypt, traditional enemies of the Jewish state that not so long ago attacked and even invaded Israel. Abrams pointed to his organization’s recent event at which Dore Gold, the next director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, and Anwar Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and ex-adviser to former Saudi ambassador and Aspen resident Prince Bandar bin Sultan, revealed secret talks.

Abrams noted that when the Muslim Brotherhood won elections in Egypt in 2012 the party did not seek to immediately undo the nation’s longstanding peace treaty with Israel. He added that Jordan likely does not want to see Israel troops pull out of the Jordan Valley on the West Bank because radical Islamists could fill the void.

“The Arabs are afraid of two things: Jihadists and Iran,” Abrams said. The Arabs, he added, see Israel as a bulwark for their own security.

Three times Israel has pulled out of territory it captured in various wars against Arab states and Jihadist groups, Abrams points out, and each time – in Lebanon, Gaza and the Sanai -extremist groups, often backed by Iran, have filled the void. Next month marks the 10th anniversary of Israel’s pullout from Gaza, and Abrams said the lesson learned a decade later is there should be no such move in the West Bank until permanent security can be guaranteed.

Asked about the peace process between Palestinians and Israel, Abrams painted a bleak picture of dysfunction in the Palestinian government that makes it almost impossible for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to negotiate any sort of lasting peace.

Abrams said he fears U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will try to springboard off the Iran deal and negotiate peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, because the two sides are so far apart and the enmity between Obama and Netanyahu is so palpable. Such efforts would only increase tensions in the next 18 months of Obama’s presidency.

– davido@realvail.com