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"At a hearing July 8, House Foreign Affairs Committee members worried aloud that the UAE deal might not be the 'peaceful' alternative to Iran's exploitation of civilian nuclear energy to make bombs it needs to be. Should the U.S. use it as a template for similar deals with other Arab states that, after Iran's program, have announced plans to build power reactors of their own? Members on both sides of aisle were not entirely convinced.
The deal conditions the transfer of U.S. nuclear goods upon the UAE not making nuclear fuel — a process that could bring any state within weeks of acquiring nuclear weapons. It also requires the UAE to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear program under a new set of less constrained procedures known as the Agreed Protocol."
All of this sounds pretty good, concedes Sokolsky, but at issue is whether the UAE would be willing to sanction Iran for "nuclear misbehavior," and to cooperate with IAEA surveillance.