Michael Rubin, , wrote an op-ed for Commentary Magazine detailing that Germany is tolerating Iran’s blatant violations of the 2015 nuclear deal because they are more concerned with keeping business deals between Germany and Iran in place than the safety of the Middle East and the world at large.

He wrote: “German leaders might preach human rights and the virtues of multilateralism, but when it comes to the Islamic Republic, the German government’s desire to promote business always trumps holding Iran to account. Yes, Iran likely seeking to renew and advance its nuclear weapons program. Iranian leaders correctly calculate that even if they paraded a nuclear missile through the streets of Tehran or tested a warhead in their south-eastern desert, German authorities would embrace any excuse however implausible to look the other way, deny reality, and run interference; all in order to keep trade channels open.”

The Reports

The Hamburg report stated: “there is no evidence of a complete about-face in Iran’s atomic policies in 2016.”

They cited the recent prosecution of three German citizens who had been attempting to smuggle specialised valves which could be used in a nuclear reactor to an Iranian company, in violation of German law.

The belief is that had those 51 valves been shipped to Iran, they would have been used in the sanctioned Arak heavy water reactor which was supposed to be dismantled in the aftermath of the nuclear deal but never was.

The Baden-Württemberg report stated: “Regardless of the number of national and international sanctions and embargoes, countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea are making efforts to optimise corresponding technology.”

Rubin wrote: “In short, it looks like Iran may be cheating…whenever reports of cheating threaten to derail non-proliferation agreements, governments invested in those agreements are willing to bury the evidence to make a quick buck. Often, the State Department is willing to look the other way in order to keep the process alive. That was the case with Iraq in the 1980s, North Korea in the 1990s, and Iran in the first half of the last decade.”

Rubin cites numerous other instances in which the German government has looked the other way in favour of trading with Iran, including the derailment of the investigation into the 1992 murder of four Iranian Kurdish dissidents in Berlin and convincing the European Union to give the Iranian Regime another chance after evidence of its nuclear programme was revealed by the Iranian Resistance (MEK).