Now he tells us. Well, actually he didn’t really tell us in the sense of an announcement to the general public or via the media. The declaration came during a question and answer session with troops in Iraq. As Breitbart reports:

[Secretary of Defense Ashton] Carter told a staff sergeant who asked how the deal will affect U.S. troops in Iraq:

I continue to be concerned about Iranian malign activity in the region to include here [in Iraq], and the possibility of Iranian aggression and the possibility that Iran will not obey the agreement, which we’ll find out, because there’s got to be inspections and [verification] and so forth.

He added, “We will keep the military option, which was the alternative to a deal.”

Of course, the cyberwar/sabotage option, which may eb the most effective way of countering the program being carried out in deep bunkers, will be much less of an option now that the US is committed to teaching the Iranians how to counter it.

The SecDef has no choice, no matter what he may think in private, to hew to the Obama administration party line that inspections will be effective:

It solves one very important problem if it is approved and then if it is implemented, which as I said, we'll note, because we inspect it, but it doesn't solve all problems over in this part of the world, and it doesn't solve all problems emanating from -- from Iran.

So, we still have our job to do.  One of the things we're saying is, it's an agreement that places important limitations upon Iran, places no limits on us, and it doesn't place any limits on anything we do with anybody in this region.

I suppose he is speaking of military limits. The agreement certainly limits the use of economic warfare against Iran. It seems pretty clear to me that Carter has worries that he can only hint about in public.