Tag: Nuclear weapons
What’s wrong, and not, with the nuclear deal
I don’t know any honest analysts who don’t credit the “framework” agreement outlined in a White House fact sheet with going further than in restraining Iran’s nuclear program than most expected. It is truly unprecedented in several respects: it would reduce the amount of enriched uranium in Iran, limit the production (and prohibit the reprocessing of) plutonium, and put out of commission most of Iran’s enriching centrifuges for 15 years. It would also provide for intrusive inspections beyond those any other state is obligated to.
But there are still aspects to be questioned. It is at best unclear who has signed up to the items in the fact sheet. The Iranians deny they have, and the French have their differences as well. In light of the controversy following its publication, it is best to regard the White House version as an American wish list, based on the current state of the negotiations. I imagine the American negotiators had some basis for believing the Iranians would sign up to these things, because otherwise the White House has made John Kerry’s job extraordinarily difficult. But it is also fair to say that the fact sheet was intended to fend off calls in Congress for tighter sanctions and Congressional approval of any final deal. We’ll just have to wait and see whether the American negotiators can deliver what they have promised.
The single most glaring weakness in the fact sheet is the failure to make any visible progress on “possible military dimensions” (PMDs). The International Atomic Energy Agency has been asking for explanations of these apparently nuclear-weapons-related activities for years, without making significant progress. The Iranians are stonewalling, presumably because the explanations will suggest that Iran really did have a nuclear weapons program at one time. Proving that it no longer does is difficult. The IAEA questions are the nuclear equivalent of “have you stopped beating your wife? Can you prove it?”
It is difficult and embarrassing to reply, but the answers are important, as no nuclear weapons state has achieved that status in an overt, IAEA-safeguarded program, or by diversion of material from such a program. Clandestine is always the preference. Why would Iran be different? Secrecy is far more difficult if you have admitted cheating once before.
A third shortcoming of the framework agreement outlined in the fact sheet is time frame. The unprecedented constraints would expire, even if verification provisions do not. But this critique doesn’t hold up. Surely it is better to face an Iran that is unconstrained in a decade or more rather than one that is unconstrained right now and could produce the material for a single nuclear weapon within two or three months.
But critics of the framework don’t want to compare the agreement with no agreement. They want to compare it with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s imaginary “better agreement,” which would eliminate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure entirely. I admit it is possible John Kerry and his team could have negotiated a better agreement, but there is no reason to believe that anything like Netanyahu’s dream could come true. Iran has only amped up its nuclear program during the many years in which we insisted on its giving up its nuclear program and imposed sanctions. If the framework agreement fails, I expect them to continue in that direction.
Tightened sanctions are Netanyahu’s answer. What he and his supporters fail to explain is how sanctions can be tightened. Will Russia, China and the Europeans go along? Sanctions brought Tehran to the table because they were multilateral. Any unilateral sanctions move by the US at this point would destroy the negotiations and push the other members of the P5+1 in the direction of ending the existing sanctions, or at least failing to enforce them as fully as has been the case in the recent past.
Domestic critics want President Obama to threaten use of force. But overt threats of force don’t always help at the negotiating table, because they elicit responses in kind. Iran is already doing harm to US interests in the Gulf, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Even the threat to do more would cause oil prices to rise (to Tehran’s own benefit and to the detriment of the US economy).
Even if the Iranians don’t believe Obama would ever use force, they can be pretty sure his successor (of either political flavor) will be more likely to do so. The US will be far better off if force is triggered some day by Iranian violations of something like the framework agreement, not by a unilateral decision undertaken in desperation as sanctions fray.
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A better place to start from
More or less half of American voters will cast their ballots for the Republicans in 2016, so it behooves us to examine seriously what they propose to do about Iran’s nuclear program. Jeb Bush has been inaccurate and hazy. Rick Perry is clearer. So let’s consider his proposition, which consists of sanctions, regime change and war.
The problem with ratcheting up sanctions is getting others to follow the US lead. Russia, China and the Europeans have gone along with the Obama Administration’s strengthening of sanctions because they saw it as part of a broader diplomatic effort intended to reach an agreement with Iran. The Obama Administration made it clear war was an option only if negotiations failed. No one would be under that impression if Rick Perry becomes president. He aims to compel Iran to give up its nuclear program, which would lead quickly to the other members of the P5+1 (that’s UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) deciding to abandon the effort. Unilateral US sanctions, as we’ve seen with Cuba, are destined to fail.
If sanctions fail, Perry suggests a push for regime change. That would revive a longstanding American ambition, one that failed for 35 years until President Obama put it on ice. Of course Perry might be better at it than Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush (41), Clinton, Bush (43) and Obama, but the odds on that proposition are not good. The Islamic Republic will fall some day, because it is incapable of meeting the aspirations of the Iranian people. But when that might happen is anyone’s guess. In the meanwhile, supporting the aspirations of Iran’s Kurdish or Baloch separatists, as has been done at times in the past, is frighteningly risky in today’s Middle East, where state structures are already at risk in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya.
Then there is war, aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. But in order to do that, the US will need also to destroy its air defenses and somehow prevent Iranian attacks on shipping in the strait of Hormuz. With no prospect of a negotiated solution, Russia is bound to export modern air defenses to Iran. Weeks if not months of bombing would be required. The only really reliable way to protect shipping is to seize the Iranian side of the strait, an option no doubt included in US planning. In the meanwhile, oil prices would spike back to $100 and more per barrel. Any multilateral effort to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear program would die an ignominous death.
The net result of the military effort by most estimates would be no more than a two or three year setback for Iran’s nuclear program, which would be redoubled in the aftermath. While some may hope for regime change after a US attack on Iran, experience suggests that the initial reaction will be for Iranians to rally around the flag. The government would squelch any nascent pro-democracy efforts as treacherous and hardliners would be buoyed. That might change later, but there are no guarantees.
Let’s ignore for the moment the possibility–a real one–that Iran will cheat on its obligations under an agreement along the lines of the one already outlined. Can anyone seriously argue that setting the Iranian nuclear program back 10 or 15 years, as provided for in the “framework” agreement, is not better than the Perry formula of sanctions, regime change and war?
I think not, but that still leaves the verification issue. The agreement is strong on verification, but not fool proof. Iran could conceivably establish an entirely separate nuclear program, starting from uranium ore, that would escape the scrutiny of international inspectors and the import controls provided for in the framework agreement. It could also renounce the agreement and expel the inspectors, or even withdraw from the Non Proliferation Treaty, as North Korea did.
But if it did so, we would be much more likely to get cooperation from others on sanctions, regime change and war. The framework agreement looks like a far better place to start from than no agreement at all.
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Tighten your seat belts
Yesterday’s unprecedented framework for a nuclear accord with Iran sets back the clock in two different ways: it would put Iran a year away from accumulating the fissionable material needed for a nuclear weapon (as opposed to the current two-three months) and it would maintain tight constraints for at least 10 years (and in some areas 15), in addition to permanent verification procedures. In return, Iran would get still unspecified sanctions relief, presumably timed to implementation of the nuclear parts of the agreement.
What does this mean for US/Iran relations, the region and the rest of the world?
It puts the US and Iran on course for intense interactions for a decade or more to come. This is a sharp break with the sporadic and often hostile relations they have endured for more than 30 years. Negotiation of the final details and implementation of the nuclear agreement will not necessarily be a friendly affair. There is lots of room for frictions and misunderstandings to develop over one or another aspect of Iran’s far-flung nuclear program. But we are going to need a dedicated group of nuclear and Iran savvy diplomats to ensure that all the t’s are crossed and the i’s dotted. It would clearly be best if these people were located in Iran or nearby, which raises the question of reopening an American diplomatic facility in Tehran. A bridge too far for the moment, but something to keep in mind.
Iran’s regional behavior will ensure that future relations with Washington are not entirely friendly. Tehran vaunt strong influence over four Arab capitals today: Damascus, Sanaa, Baghdad and Beirut, in addition to Gaza. This influence has been acquired by force of arms, mainly through aggressive action by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies.
The IRGC and other Iranian security agencies do what they think they can get away with to subvert the Sunni Arab monarchies in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Iranian threats against Israel continue unabated. While claiming to be non-sectarian in outlook and providing support to Hamas (a Sunni Arab organization), Tehran has done a good deal to polarize the Middle East between Sunni and Shia, in particular by supporting Shia militias in Iraq, Hizbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the nominally Shia Alawite leadership in Syria.
At the same time, Iran is a serial human rights violator at home, where it keeps a tight lid on dissent. It is an autocracy, not a dictatorship, one that relies on elections in which candidates are screened and debate is circumscribed even if vigorous. The country’s biggest internal threat is ethnic strife, since barely more than 50% of the population identifies as Persian. Just yesterday there was trouble from Arab separatists in Khuzestan, a particularly sensitive area on the Gulf adjacent to Iraq. But Iran has also seen a broad-based, non-ethnic, pro-democracy movement that it crushed violently in 2010.
The US and Europe cannot ignore the misbehavior of Iran both at home and abroad. As sanctions are lifted, Tehran’s capacity for trouble making will increase with its oil exports, though perhaps not as much as expected because Iran’s renewed production may drive prices down further. Iran would be wise to spend any increased revenue on improving the lot of its own population, which has suffered big declines in standard of living.
But if Tehran chooses instead to unleash the IRGC even further to help Bashar al Asad, to counter the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen or to make trouble for Israel, the West needs to be prepared to respond. It may have been wise to isolate these issues from the nuclear talks until now, but it would be a mistake to allow Iran to use the resources it gets from the nuclear deal to further roil the region.
America’s friends and allies in the region, both Sunni Arab and Israeli, will rightly not let us forget that Iran continues to try to export its Islamic revolution. They regard the end of sanctions on Iran and its return to a more normal international status as strengthening the Islamic Republic. They at times seem more concerned with this return to normality than with the far greater strengthening that would result from Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. But there are real issues: Russia, for example, may transfer advanced air defenses to Tehran once sanctions are lifted. The conventional military balance in the Gulf favors the Sunni Arabs and Israel, but the end of sanctions may enable Iran to improve its standing.
No good deed goes unpunished. Iran and the US are at best at the beginning of a long road. It is not clear where the road leads. There will be many bumps along the way. Tighten your seat belts.
PS: Here is President Obama’s defense of the pending agreement.
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Unprecedented
Caveats and qualifications. This is only a “framework” agreement. A lot of details are still missing, and that’s where the devil lies. But I claim some qualifications for expressing an opinion on it: bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical chemistry, plus seven years as a science counselor in American embassies abroad, where one of my primary responsibilities was preventing the transfer of technology that might enable one country or another to develop nuclear weapons. I’ve done my share of climbing around reactors, fuel fabrication facilities, enrichment laboratories, and reprocessing plants, not to mention talking with would-be bomb builders as well as their enablers.
The Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program is remarkably detailed and exhaustive in specifying restraints on Tehran and their duration. I counted 32 specific Iranian commitments, including no enrichment above the level needed for power production for 15 years, a limited stockpile of that low enriched uranium for 15 years, a dramatic reduction in the number of centrifuges available for enrichment, verifiable conversion of Iran’s underground enrichment plant to other purposes for 15 years, permanent and intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, restrictions on nuclear imports, and reconfiguration of Iran’s heavy water reactor to limit severely its production of plutonium as well as a ban on reprocessing.
Nothing like these restrictions has ever before been agreed to by a potential nuclear weapons state. They are truly unprecedented.
The one all-too-obvious gap is this sentence:
Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program.
Iran has stiffed the IAEA on accounting for its suspected secret nuclear activities many times. This sentence offers nothing more than has been pledged many times in the past. That is too bad, as no state has ever developed nuclear weapons in an IAEA-monitored program. Accounting for past clandestine activities is important. But there are three months now to make good on the pledge–I trust Washington will insist.
On sanctions, the promise to Iran is vague: “relief, if it abides by its commitments.” Presumably Iran can expect China and Russia to press in particular for removal of UN Security Council sanctions at an early date, but that will require US, British and French concurrence. In addition:
U.S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place.
The US at least maintains human rights and other non-nuclear sanctions, so at least some will not be suspended. But this sentence appears to promise an “early harvest” of unspecified sanctions relief if everything is going smoothly.
As I read it, this is about as good an agreement as anyone had any hope of achieving. The question is whether it is better than no agreement, which would have left Iran free to generate enough highly enriched uranium to build at least one nuclear weapon within a few months. A 15-year delay in getting to that point seems a significant achievement to me. I see no sense in which this deal “paves the way” to the bomb, as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed in his speech to the Congress.
Without this deal, we would have faced an Iran forging ahead unconstrained to make weapons grade uranium and possibly plutonium. Sanctions would be fraying. The only option left would be war, which might set Iran back a few years but cause Tehran to redouble its nuclear weapons efforts, as Saddam Hussein did after the Israelis* bombed the Osiraq reaction in 1981. That sounds much more like paving the way to nuclear weapons than this deal, even without the precious details on Iran’s past clandestine activities.
This is an unprecedented achievement, but I don’t expect the Congress, Israel or the Gulf Arab states to readily agree. President Obama has got his work cut out for him, both to fill in missing details and sell the package to domestic political adversaries and Middle Eastern friends.
*I originally wrote “French” here. Hazards of hasty drafting. The reactor was French. The bombs were Israeli. Apologies.
PPS: Jeb Bush’s statement on the Iran deal, with {my comments}:
Today, the Obama administration has agreed to remove U.S. and international sanctions {it agreed to still unspecified sanctions relief and suspension, not removal}, while permitting Iran to enrich uranium using most {less than one-third} of the centrifuges in use today, conduct research into faster, next generation centrifuges {but not deploy them for 10 years}, maintain an underground, hardened facility at Fordow {but not use it for enrichment}, and expand its ballistic missile capabilities {which are not included in the agenda of the talks}. It fails to obtain a guarantee of sufficient inspections {apparently Mr. Bush thinks insufficient the most intrusive inspection regime available to the IAEA, in addition to access to “suspicious sites” and uranium production facilities, monitoring of nuclear imports and early notification of newly constructed facilities}. Iran isn’t required to disclose its past weaponization activities and many of the deal’s provisions will expire in the near future {the failure to answer IAEA questions about weaponization is a serious issue that should be solved before the final agreement is concluded in June, but I can’t find any of the deal’s provisions that expire in anything I would call the near future, unless a decade is your idea of the near future}.
This statement is a sad commentary on Bush’s ability to respond quickly and accurately to an admittedly technical subject.
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What stalled Lausanne
I did gigs for both CCTV and CNBC Asia yesterday on the Iran nuclear deal. I’m pleased with how this one for CNBC came out (maybe the CCTV one was okay too, but I haven’t got a link yet):
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Deal or no deal
Everyone is anticipating a nuclear deal with Iran today, or not. Either way it is the big news.
I’d bet 60/40 on a “framework” political commitment that lays out some basic and well-known parameters: limits on enriching and stockpiling uranium, slowing of plutonium production, lifting of sanctions and limits over a decade or more, and International Atomic Energy Agency verification.
I don’t expect much on what I regard as the most critical question: answers to the IAEA questions about “possible military dimensions.” No IAEA-safeguarded nuclear program has ever generated the material used in a nuclear weapons program. All proliferation has been accomplished in secret. Iran has still not clarified some of its past activities, but that issue is treated separately between Tehran and the IAEA, not in the P5+1 talks.
Any agreement is going to be difficult for both the US and Iran. Hardliners abound in both countries. Distrust is the rule, not the exception. President Obama needs to be able to argue credibly that framework agreement will in fact prevent Iran from gaining the material needed to make a nuclear weapon in less than a year, as well as ensure that we will know if a decision to produce nuclear weapons is made. President Rouhani will have to be able to argue credibly that Iran’s basic rights have been respected and sanctions significantly alleviated.
Both Tehran and Washington will need to be able to argue that a deal is better than no deal. Washington’s argument will include the inevitable fraying of the sanctions regime if there is no deal. Tehran’s argument will include the inevitable additional damage to Iran’s economy and the (unmentioned but still important) possibility of domestic instability. Both will want to avoid war, which would be devastating for Iran but also embroil the US in still another Middle Eastern conflict, without setting the Iranian nuclear program back more than a few years.
Within the P5+1 team, China and Russia will weigh heavily towards a deal that is generous to Iran. The UK, France and Germany will be closer to the US position, with France apparently arguing for a tougher stand on sanctions than the US. These other participants will be able to influence the shape of what is proposed, but it will ultimately be up to Iran and the US to accept or reject it.
I won’t be surprised if there are last-minute hitches that extend the negotiations, at least for a few hours. That is common in all international negotiations, not least because officials in capitals–in this case Presidents Obama and Rouhani as well as Supreme Leader Khamenei–will need to give a final green or red light. But it is also true that the temptation to throw in a last demand at midnight is great, since the other side by that time is anticipating a result.
Whatever is decided, or not, today or early tomorrow in Lausanne will need further technical elaboration in the months to come before the end-June deadline for a full agreement. Technical details are important. We can expect further drama in the weeks and months to come.
Iran and the US remain at odds on other Middle East issues, including most notably at the moment Syria and Yemen. Even in Iraq, where both are fighting against the Islamic State, their fundamental interests diverge. Even with a deal, peace is unlikely to break out. But a deal might well prevent things from getting much worse.
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