Remember when we compared the Barack Obama/John Kerry nuclear deal with Iran to Neville Chamberlain and Munich? That turned out to be far too harsh … to Neville Chamberlain. At least Chamberlain sincerely thought he’d avoided an armed conflict with Hitler’s Germany. How will Obama and Kerry explain this little side agreement revealed by the AP?

The document is the only secret text linked to last year’s agreement between Iran and six foreign powers. It says that after a period between 11 to 13 years, Iran can replace its 5,060 inefficient centrifuges with up to 3,500 advanced machines.

Since those are five times as efficient, the time Iran would need to make a weapon would drop from a year to six months.

Come on … is anyone surprised by this? Let me put this another way — is anyone other than the fawning multitudes who bought the ridiculous party line from the White House surprised by this? What possible use could there be for allowing this many advanced centrifuges to a government that had hidden this program for years and had it under the control of its military? The White House said at the time that the existing agreement allowed Iran to pursue a peaceful nuclear-energy program which it did. So why does Iran need so many advanced centrifuges? It follows that a peaceful nuclear-energy program wasn’t their motive at all — and that the Obama/Kerry agreement basically concedes the right to build nuclear weapons in eleven years, and that assumes Iran won’t cheat.

It’s not even peace in our time, since 2027 certainly still qualifies as “our time.” It is, however, past the time Obama and Kerry will be around to deal with the ramifications of their compact. And even while the deal was being announced, skeptics accused the administration of holding back parts of the agreement from Congress, even as they avoided having the Senate ratify the agreement as would be customarily required of such a de facto treaty. Now we know why.

Recall too that the deal freed up nearly $150 billion in assets for Iran, as well as allowing them access to oil markets to generate even more revenue. Essentially, the overall deal gives Iran an economic path to afford its nuclear-weapons program while the mullahs strengthen their grip on power.  Before this deal, the clerics had to decide between a nuclear-weapons program and keeping unrest to a minimum by focusing stressed resources on the general economy. Now Iran’s mullahs can eat their cake and have it too.

But hey, Obama and Kerry had a few months of waving that little paper around, anyway. Apparently, that’s all they wanted, and it’s all we got.