Iran Nuclear Agreement

The greatest imminent danger in last year’s nuclear deal, the JCPOA, was always that Iran would cheat--taking all the advantages of the deal, but then seeking to move forward more quickly toward a nuclear weapon--and that the Obama administration would be silent in the face of that cheating. This was always a reasonable prospect, given the history of arms control agreements. Those who negotiate such agreements wish to defend them. They do not wish to say, six or twelve months and even years later, that they were duped and that the deals must be considered null and void. Last week, Germany’s intelligence agency produced a report detailing Iranian cheating. Here is an excerpt from the news story:   Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said in its annual report that Iran has a “clandestine” effort to seek illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies “at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.” The findings by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s equivalent of the FBI, were issued in a 317-page report last week.   German Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored the findings in a statement to parliament, saying Iran violated the United Nations Security Council’s anti-missile development regulations. “Iran continued unabated to develop its rocket program in conflict with the relevant provisions of the UN Security Council,” Merkel told the Bundestag....The German report also stated “it is safe to expect that Iran will continue its intensive procurement activities in Germany using clandestine methods to achieve its objectives.” According to an Institute for Science and International Security July 7 report by David Albright and Andrea Stricker, Iran is required to get permission from a UN Security Council panel for "purchases of nuclear direct-use goods.” While the German intelligence report did not say what specifically Iran had obtained or attempted to obtain, the more recent report said dual use goods such as carbon fiber must be reported. Iran did not seek permission from the UN-affiliated panel for its proliferation attempts and purchases in Germany, officials said.   Here is a summary of that report by Institute for Science and International Security:   The Institute for Science and International Security has learned that Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) recently made an attempt to purchase tons of controlled carbon fiber from a country. This attempt occurred after Implementation Day of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The attempt to acquire carbon fiber was denied by the supplier and its government. Nonetheless, the AEOI had enough carbon fiber to replace existing advanced centrifuge rotors and had no need for additional quantities over the next several years, let alone for tons of carbon fiber. This attempt thus raises concerns over whether Iran intends to abide by its JCPOA commitments. In particular, Iran may seek to stockpile the carbon fiber so as to be able to build advanced centrifuge rotors far beyond its current needs under the JCPOA, providing an advantage that would allow it to quickly build an advanced centrifuge enrichment plant if it chose to leave or disregard the JCPOA during the next few years. The carbon fiber procurement attempt is also another example of efforts by the P5+1 to keep secret problematic Iranian actions.   So Iran isn’t only being more aggressive since the signing of the JCPOA--in Iraq and Syria, for example, or in cyber attacks on the United States--but is also cheating on the deal. And what is the reaction from the Obama administration, and other cheerleaders for the JCPOA? Nothing. John Kerry famously said “Iran deserves the benefits of the agreement they struck.” They do not deserve to be allowed to cheat. Kerry said in April when asked if Iran would "stick to the key terms of this deal for the next 20 years" that “I have faith and confidence that we will know exactly what they’re doing during that period of time. And if they decide to try to cheat, we will know it, and there are plenty of options available to us. That I have complete faith and confidence in.” That’s nice. But now we know they are cheating, and the option the administration appears to have chosen is silence: just ignore the problem. When asked about the German intel report and the Institute for Science and International Security report, the State Department spokesman replied "we have absolutely no indication that Iran has procured any materials in violation of the JCPOA." Needless to say this kind of response will only encourage Iran to cheat more, secure in the knowledge that Obama administration officials will not call them out on it, nor choose any serious one of the "plenty of options" it says it has. This means that Iran’s breakout time will diminish, and the danger to its neighbors and to the United States will grow and grow.  

Last year’s Iran nuclear agreement was sold with several powerful arguments, and among the most important were these: that the agreement would strengthen Iranian "moderates" and thus Iran’s external conduct, and that it would allow us unparalleled insight into Iran’s nuclear program. Both are now proving to be untrue, but the handling of the two differs. The "moderation" argument is being proved wrong but the evidence is simply being denied. The "knowledge" argument is being proved wrong but the fact is being met with silence. Let’s review the bidding. The idea that the nuclear agreement was a reward for Iran’s "moderates" and would strengthen them is a key tenet of the defense of the agreement. If Iran remains the bellicose and repressive theocracy of today when the agreement ends and Iran is free to build nukes without limits, we have entered a dangerous bargain. It is critical that Iran change, so defenders of the agreement adduce evidence that it has. And the new evidence is Iran’s recent elections. Those elections were a great victory for "moderates" and hard-liners, it is said, and they help to prove that the nuclear deal was wise. The problem here is that those elections were anything but a victory for Iran’s reformers. As Mehdi Khalaji wrote about the Assembly of Experts election, "if one understands ’reformist’ as a political figure who emerged during the reform movement of the late 1990s and is associated with the parties and groups created at that time, then neither the candidates on the ’reformist’ list nor the winners of Tehran’s sixteen assembly seats can credibly be called by that name." To take one of the examples Khalaji cites, Mahmoud Alavi ran on what has been called a reformist ticket but he "is the current intelligence minister, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed him as head of the military’s Ideological-Political Organization from 2000 to 2009." Khalaji concludes that "no new prominent reformists won seats, and the proportion of hardliners remained the same." Ray Takeyh and Reuel Gerecht draw a stark conclusion: this year’s elections "spelled the end of Iran’s once-vivacious reform movement...." which has simply been crushed by the regime. "The electoral cycle began with the usual mass disqualification of reformers and independent-minded politicians," they remind us. I’d cite another fact: that reformers of past election years,  presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, have remained under house arrest for five years now, during the entire Rouhani presidency, demonstrating the true fate of reformers of even a mild variety. What’s the point of the "reformist" charade? As Takeyh and Gerecht note, "Foreigners don’t have to confess that they are investing in an increasingly conservative and increasingly strong theocracy; rather, they are aiding ’moderates’ at the expense of hardliners." But this charade has in fact worked well, producing headline after headline in the Western media about "reformist" victories. You can fool most of the people some of the time, or at least most of the people who have a strong desire to be fooled--because they wish to protect the nuclear deal and its authors. Iran’s conduct certainly suggests radicalization rather than moderation, and the past weeks have seen repeated ballistic missile tests. Ballistic missiles are not built and perfected in order to carry 500 pound "dumb" bombs; they are used to carry nuclear weapons. So Iran’s continued work on them suggests that it has never given up its nuclear ambitions, not even briefly for the sake of appearances. The American response has been anemic, even pathetic; we threaten to raise the issue at the United Nations. Two missiles were test-fired today, with the phrase "Israel must be wiped out" written on them. These tests violate UN Security Council resolutions, but the American reaction is cautious: a speech, a debate in New York, perhaps some sanctions, but nothing that could possibly lead Iran to undo the nuclear deal. Because Iran knows that this will be the Obama administration’s reaction, expect more and more ballistic missile tests. Expect more conduct like the interception, capture, and humiliation of American sailors in the Gulf. Expect more Iranian military action throughout the region. Some moderation. The head of CENTCOM, Gen. Lloyd Austin, put it this way: "we see malign activity, not only throughout the region, but around the globe as well.....We’ve not yet seen any indication that they intend to pursue a different path. The fact remains that Iran today is a significant destabilizing force in the region....Some of the behavior that we’ve seen from Iran of late is certainly not the behavior that you would expect to see from a nation that wants to be taken seriously as a respected member of the international community." Are we now, to turn to the second matter, gaining unparalleled insight into the Iranian nuclear program? Is this one of the achievements of the agreement? On the contrary, it seems. As the AP put it, "the four Western countries that negotiated with Iran — the U.S., Britain, France and Germany — prefer more details than were evident in last month’s first post-deal [IAEA] report. In contrast, the other two countries — Russia and China — consider the new report balanced, while Iran complains the report is too in-depth. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano feels he has struck the right balance, considering Iran is no longer in violation of U.N. and agency demands to curb its nuclear program. His report was much less detailed than pre-nuclear deal summaries...." Much less detailed? Sure, because the UN Security Council resolutions under which the IAEA provided the detail, are gone, wiped out by the nuclear deal. The IAEA’s February 26 report was its first since the nuclear deal went into effect, and lacked details on matters such as uranium stockpiles, production of certain centrifuge parts, and progress by Iran toward meeting safeguard obligations.  The Obama administration has wavered, sometimes saying there was enough detail, but then demanding more. The deal was sold, in part, as a way of providing transparency, but that does not appear to be accurate: it may in fact legitimize opacity. Earlier this week came a remarkable exchange between a reporter and State Department spokesman John Kirby, who defended the degree of knowledge we have. Kirby said "So we now know more than we’ve ever known, thanks to this deal, about Iran’s program." The reporter, Matt Lee of AP, asked ""How much near-20 highly percent enriched uranium does Iran now have?" Kirby replied "I don’t know." To which Lee noted "You don’t know because it’s not in the IAEA report." So, the bases on which the nuclear agreement with Iran was sold appear to be crumbling. Moderates are not gaining power, Iran is not moderating its behavior, and we know less rather than more about what it is actually doing in its nuclear program. Some of those conclusions are denied by the administration and by credulous portions of the press, and others are ignored. But all those verbal games will not make us any safer.

It was widely assumed that with the end of sanctions, Iran would "join the world" and become a less repressive state. To take just one example, the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo argued in Huffington Post that the nuclear deal created "the opportunity for Iranian civic actors to enable and empower Iran’s civil society space" and "help the country to become more open, transparent and susceptible to international pressure on issues like the death penalty and the imprisonment of civic actors in Iran." Last summer Reuters carried this story: "Iranian pro-democracy activists, lawyers and artists have thrown their weight behind last month’s nuclear deal with world powers, hoping it will lead to a promised political opening that President Hassan Rouhani has so far failed to deliver." Oh well. That was the last thing Iran’s rulers had in mind, and they have acted quickly this week to crush such reformist efforts. Here’s the Wall Street Journal account:   Days after Iran secured relief from economic sanctions under a contentious nuclear deal, the country’s powerful hard-liners are moving to sideline more moderate leaders who stand to gain from a historic opening with the West.   Almost two-thirds of the 12,000 candidates who applied to run in next month’s parliamentary elections were either disqualified by Iran’s Guardian Council or withdrew.   Actually the picture is even worse: 99% of reformist candidates were rejected. So the hopes that the nuclear agreement would lead to reform are vanishing very quickly. As is, and always was, logical: reform was never the intention of the Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC, the Quds Force, the Basij thugs, or any of the groups and individuals that hold a monopoly on force and hold real political power in Iran. As we just saw in the seizure of American sailors in the Gulf, having more money will embolden Iran’s rulers--and do nothing for the vast majority of its citizens who detest the tyranny under which they live. That’s the real problem with the nuclear deal, and with the whole Obama approach to Iran since he became president. He has always sought an improved relationship with the Iranian regime, not with the Iranian people. When the people rose up in 2009, he was silent in the crucial early days--because the uprising was inconvenient, threatening to spoil his diplomacy with the ayatollahs. One cannot condemn Iranian reformers for seeing some hope in the nuclear deal. One can only feel sorry that the United States and others in the P5+1 made an arrangement with their oppressors that will likely lengthen the life of this criminal regime.

U.S. officials will have to consider the consequences of new sanctions as they weigh how to address Iran’s regional policies without derailing implementation of the nuclear accord, says expert Richard Nephew.

The nuclear deal inked by Iran and major powers has implications not just for proliferation, but Middle Eastern security as well. Five experts weigh in on what the deal means for regional powers and conflicts.

Sustained diplomacy led to the Iran nuclear deal, but it’s too soon to expect broader discussions between Tehran and Washington, says expert James Dobbins.

The UN’s nuclear agency has the tools to provide robust monitoring and verification to ensure Iran is moving to restrict its nuclear program but still faces stiff challenges, says expert Thomas Shea.

The Iran nuclear deal and subsequent UN Security Council resolution do little to bind the United States legally, though policymakers would face political pressure against reinstating sanctions, says CFR’s John Bellinger.