Painful truth:

The really awful thing about speaking for this State Dept is all the spin one must do on behalf of the govt of Iran https://t.co/N5gjzgDC1l

— David Frum (@davidfrum) June 3, 2015

Frum wrote that yesterday. More than 24 hours later, Harf’s still shilling for our partners in peace in Tehran. To understand what this is about, re-read yesterday’s post about the growing alarm among western diplomats that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has been increasing despite their promises to freeze it at a certain level. There may be an innocent-ish explanation for that related to the process of converting uranium into fuel rods; there may also be a not so innocent explanation, namely, that Iran’s building up a stockpile of potential bomb material right under our nose. Either way, Obama’s investment in negotiating with Iran means that the State Department, ostensibly America’s mouthpiece against terrorist states, is now forced to shill for every shady nuclear move the mullahs make in the interest of keeping them at the bargaining table. Harf’s spin today is that while it may be true that Iran’s been cranking out more enriched uranium instead of reducing its supply as required under its preliminary deal with the U.S., it’s also true that they have until June 30th to meet their target.

So lay off of our new Shiite friends, media, why don’t you?

Iran is required under the interim nuclear deal to freeze and dilute its stockpiles of low-level enriched uranium, the key component in a nuclear bomb. Its stockpile has reportedly grown from around 7,650 kilograms at the start of the deal 18-months ago to around 12,000 kilograms currently, according to nuclear analysts and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) most recent reports.

While Iran is required to dilute that excess amount, it has only done so to about 5 percent of the current stockpiles, leading to questions about whether the Islamic Republic will be in violation of previous agreements by the end of June.

Analysts predict that it will be impossible for Iran to hit the mark in the next 28 days, when it is obligated to be back at 7,650 kilograms of low enriched uranium…

“Marie, I’m sorry, I just can’t—I don’t understand why this isn’t more of a concern,” said Associated Press reporter Matt Lee. “If we’re only 28 days or so away from a deal, wouldn’t you be expecting the Iranians to be reducing their—their stockpiles to get in line.”

Their stockpile can go up and down until June 30th, says Harf, so long as it’s down to 7,650 kg by the end of the month. Have a look at the graph in the NYT’s story, though, and you’ll see that Iran’s stockpile has never since dropped as low as it was when nuke negotiations began in earnest in late 2013. The stockpile has decreased at times, but only after even greater increases. It’s remained above 8,000 tons for a year and a half and has been rising steadily since January despite the fact that the mullahs knew they’d have to cut their supply sharply by mid-summer to comply with the terms of a final deal. Listen closely to what Harf says in the clip, though, and you can see why they’re not taking that deadline seriously: She notes that the 7,650 kilogram target isn’t that important in the big picture, only the ultimate goal of eventually reducing the stockpile to 300 kilograms under the terms of a final deal. She’s already moving the goalposts so that the White House can argue at the end of the month, if/when Iran has failed to hit the target they promised, that they’re going to let Iran slide on the deadline in the interest of preserving the agreement. The deal hasn’t even been signed yet and already America’s government is grasping for excuses for violations. As I’ve said before, given the amount of political capital Obama’s invested in this process plus the fact that there’s no earthly way he’ll order a military strike on Iran’s facilities, the west is more desperate to reach a deal than Iran is. And it shows.

And this is how it’ll be for the next 20 months at least. Once Obama bets it all on the mullahs, on the Daily Beast surreally phrased it, by making a deal with them, his diplomats will be coopted by political pressure into protecting that deal even if it means lying and shilling on behalf of the government of Iran. Watch Harf here and ask yourself how confident you are that if the White House received hard intelligence a year from now that Iran’s working on a bomb — or, oh, just hypothetically, nuclear-capable ICBMs — they’d reveal that information to the public and tear up the deal rather than suppress it and try to persuade Iran to suspend its bomb program quietly. If Frum thinks it’s bad now, just wait.