The following briefs by nuclear proliferation experts analyze the potential terms of a deal to solve the Iranian nuclear dispute.
SIPRI: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Time for a more comprehensive approach to the Iran nuclear negotiations
Shannon Kile
Will the first step be the last step?
Expectations of an imminent diplomatic breakthrough had been raised when foreign ministers from five of the countries joined in eleventh-hour negotiations on a deal that would have required Iran to suspend parts of its nuclear programme in exchange for partial relief from international economic sanctions.
The failure of the parties to reach an agreement comes as something of an anti-climax in light of the expectations that had built up during the meeting. What should be kept in mind, however, is that the latest talks were about short-term suspension and sanctions-relief measures, envisioned to last for six months, and not a long-term final deal about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
Herein lies a key shortcoming of the Geneva talks: namely, they have been focused on first steps in the absence of a common understanding among the parties about where the subsequent steps should ultimately lead. This raises the risk, or even the likelihood, that a modest interim agreement may turn out to be the only agreement reached if the negotiations later collapse over more permanent arrangements.
Reaching an agreement between the parties will be politically difficult
The prospect of the talks building up to a breakdown suggests that the Geneva negotiators need to give priority to putting in place a more comprehensive framework agreement—one that lays out an explicit diplomatic end-game accepted by all parties. As many observers have noted, this is an exercise that is fraught with political difficulties. Any plausible long-term deal will require Iran to recognize that it will not be able to push ahead with an unconstrained nuclear programme. While the specific limitations would be determined through intensive negotiation, the United States and its allies would almost certainly insist that Iran dismantle a significant number of its current 19 000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, including the new advanced model being installed at Natanz, and to mothball the heavy-water nuclear reactor under construction at Arak.
At the same time, the USA and its allies will have to accept that under any plausible deal Iran will not agree to give up all of its nuclear fuel cycle activities and, in particular, that it will insist on retaining a uranium enrichment programme in some form. This would not imply a recognition by these states of Iran’s claimed legal ‘right’ to enrich uranium. Rather, it would be an acknowledgement of political reality inside Iran, where the nuclear programme enjoys support across the ideological spectrum as a symbol of national pride and Islamic modernity in spite of debilitating international sanctions. As the just-concluded talks in Geneva have illustrated, this will be a difficult pill for the Americans and Europeans to swallow.
The need for a bolder diplomatic vision
The deep mistrust and suspicion between Iran, on the one hand, and the USA and the European Union partners, on the other, makes the task of agreeing on a comprehensive approach for settling the nuclear issue especially challenging. Against this backdrop, perhaps the main positive outcomes of the Geneva meeting were the upbeat assessments offered by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry, who both noted that the talks had contributed to increasing mutual confidence and trust between the parties even if they did not resolve their long-standing differences. This gives a useful boost to the expert-level discussions now underway about possible transparency and confidence-building measures envisioned as the next step towards reaching a final deal. It also helps to set the stage for the upcoming round in the separate but parallel discussions between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Iranian nuclear activities with possible military dimensions.
It remains to be seen whether the generally conciliatory tone and atmosphere at the talks in Geneva will translate into an agreement committing the parties to concrete action. While a deal on even a modest set of interim measures would be a welcome first step, the parties must take care that this does not inadvertently become a last step because of misaligned incentives and incompatible goals for the nuclear end-game. What is needed now is a bolder diplomatic vision that will lead the way out of the current stalemate by charting an agreed comprehensive strategy for a long-term settlement of the nuclear issue.
Click here to read the piece on SIPRI's website.
The Arms Control Association
Closing in on a Deal with Iran: Assessing the Nov. 7-9 Talks
Daryl G. Kimball and Kelsey Davenport
After three days of intense, multidimensional talks in Geneva Nov. 7-9, the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, plus Germany) and Iran are closing in on a breakthrough, “first phase” deal that would verifiably halt the progress of Iran’s nuclear program.
Although the most recent round of talks did not end with an agreement, the talks succeeded in closing many–if not most–of the remaining gaps between the two sides.
They are closer now to resolving the
decade-long standoff over Iran’s nuclear program than they have been since the 2005-2006 period when current Iranian President Hassan Rouhani led Iran’s negotiating team.
According to Secretary of State John Kerry, who made an unscheduled appearance to participate in the meetings on Friday, the negotiators made “significant progress.” Speaking on Saturday after talks ended, Kerry
said that there was “no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than we were when we came.”
A First-Phase Agreement
A meaningful “first phase”
agreement would pause Iran’s nuclear progress and address the most urgent activities of proliferation concern, primarily the production and stockpiling of uranium enriched to 20 percent and the deployment of additional and/or more efficient centrifuges, plus additional transparency measures, in exchange for 20% enriched uranium fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor and/or medical isotopes, plus limited and reversible relief from some the tough sanctions now in place against Iran.
P5+1 Issues?
Reported differences that might exist between France and the other Western powers over how to handle the issue of the
Arak heavy water reactor in a “phase one” and in the “final phase” of the negotiations can and should be resolved in the next few days.
In an amateurish diplomatic blunder, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius made
comments to the press in the middle of the negotiations. His remarks implied that the proposal put forward by the the P5+1 team, which included his own diplomatic representative, would not have done enough to address Arak. In reality, Arak has been a proliferation concern for many years and one of the core concerns of the P5+1 negotiating proposals, including their April 2013 proposal.
However, not all issues can or must be settled at once. Arak represents a long term proliferation risk but is not a near term risk. The “first phase” of the deal does not have include a final resolution on the partially completed reactor.
Iran has reported that the Arak reactor will not become operational until mid-2014. Construction work has lagged behind schedule for years and its start up may not be possible until even later. Furthermore, the reactor would have to be fully operational for at least year to produce spent fuel laden with plutonium and Iran does not have a spent fuel reprocessing facility to separate the plutonium.
With the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspecting the Arak reactor on a regular basis, the international community would also be made aware of Iran’s activities well in advance if it were seeking to separate plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Rights and Responsibilities
Comments from a senior
U.S. official suggest that differences between Iran and the P5+1 over language regarding Iran’s nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Article IV right to pursue peaceful uses of nuclear energy were an eleventh hour stumbling block in Geneva.
To secure a deal, the P5+1 must eventually recognize Iran’s right under the Article IV of the NPT to pursue peaceful nuclear activities under certain conditions. As Obama said in his Sept. 24 address to the United Nations, such recognition requires that Iran adequately and satisfactorily respond to the international community’s concern about the nature of its program.
To address those concerns, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani must follow through on his pledge for “greater transparency” by allowing broader IAEA access and more information about its current and past nuclear activities through steps such as implementation the additional protocol and fuller cooperation with the IAEA to resolve questions about suspected weapons-related experiments that may have been conducted over a decade ago. Iran took a step in this direction by
signing an agreement Nov. 11 allowing the IAEA broader monitoring access to key nuclear sites.
Toward the Next Round of Talks
With talks resuming on November 20 in Geneva, it is vital to maintain the momentum to work toward an agreement that addresses the most urgent proliferation concerns.
As Secretary of State Kerry said in an
interview Nov. 10, freezing Iran’s nuclear progress would “put more time back on the clock” and would open the way for a more comprehensive, more permanent agreement that rolls back Iran’s overall enrichment capacity–ideally to no more than 3,000-4,000 centrifuges–and provides more extensive IAEA inspection authority to guard against a secret weapons program.
Policymakers in Washington and leaders in Israel who genuinely want to guard against a nuclear-armed Iran should be careful not to insist on ideal but unrealistic demands, such as zero enrichment or the complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.
Such a deal may have been possible in 2005 when Iran had fewer than 300 uranium enrichment centrifuges at one site; but it is not realistic now that Iran has 19,000 installed and 10,000 operating centrifuges at two sites.
Pushing for everything and getting nothing is foolhardy and dangerous.
In the absence of a meaningful, realistic deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program, Iran will continue to increase its capacity to enrich uranium and expand its other sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle project. That, in turn, will increase the risk of Israeli military strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites. Such an attack would only delay, not stop, Iran’s nuclear pursuits, lead to a wider Middle East war, and likely push Iran’s leaders to openly seek the bomb.
In the absence of a negotiated “first phase” agreement to pause Iran’s nuclear program, further sanctions against Iran would surely be legislated, but they would not halt or eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons potential.
Now is the time to finally secure a meaningful agreement on the basis of realistic and achievable goals.
Click here for the Arms Control Association's blog.
CNAS: Center for a New American Security
Excerpts from "Inflection Point: Requirements for an Enduring Diplomatic Solution to the Iranian Nuclear Challenge"
Colin Kahl
The Goals of an Enduring Diplomatic Solution
According to U.S. intelligence officials, Iran has already mastered the basic knowledge and technology required to eventually develop nuclear weapons, should the regime decide to do so. Nothing, including the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, will put this technological genie back in the bottle. Instead, negotiations should focus on a more concrete and achievable objective: placing meaningful and verifiable constraints on Iran’s ability to translate its accumulated knowledge and civilian nuclear capabilities into nuclear weapons.
Specifically, diplomacy should aim to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear “breakout capability,” defined as the point at which Iran could produce fissile material for one or more nuclear weapons so quickly or so secretly that the international community could not detect it and respond in time.
A final diplomatic agreement sufficient to prevent breakout should seek to:
• Lengthen breakout timelines. The final agreement should include sufficient technical constraints to ensure the timeframe between the initiation of breakout and the production of fissile material for one or more weapons is sufficient to allow interdiction.
• Shorten detection timelines. Verification mechanisms must be in place to ensure that breakout activities would be detected by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and through other means at the earliest possible stage.
• Provide assurances against a covert nuclear infrastructure. Transparency and verification mechanisms should be sufficient to detect construction of covert fuel-cycle facilities and weaponization activities. In the aftermath of any agreement, the United
States (and the international community) must also maintain the will and capability to take effective action, including the use of military force if necessary, to prevent the acquisition of enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon if breakout is detected.
An agreement that met these conditions would prevent and deter Iran from racing to a nuclear bomb and, should the regime nevertheless decide to do so, provide ample time for the United States and the international community to interdict the process before it was completed.
The Dangers of Pushing for a Maximalist Deal
Attempting to keep Iran as far away from nuclear weapons as possible by demanding that the country completely abandon fuel-cycle activities, particularly the demand for zero enrichment, seems prudent and reasonable. All else being equal, the total absence of enrichment activities puts Iran further away from nuclear weapons than allowing some limited enrichment, and it would be easier to verify. Moreover, most countries with civilian nuclear power plants forgo domestic enrichment. (Although it is also the case that Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands have domestic enrichment capabilities while remaining compliant with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.) But in reality, the quest for an optimal deal that requires a permanent end to Iranian enrichment at any level would likely doom diplomacy, making the far worse outcomes of unconstrained nuclearization or a military showdown over Tehran’s nuclear program much more likely.
Regardless of pressure from the United States, U.S. allies, and the wider international community, the Iranian regime is unlikely to agree to permanently end all enrichment. Khamenei, the ultimate decider on the nuclear file, has invested far too much of the regime’s domestic legitimacy in defending Iran’s “rights” (defined as domestic enrichment) to completely capitulate now, even in the face of withering economic sanctions. The Islamic Republic has spent more than $100 billion over decades and enormous amounts of political capital to master the knowledge and centrifuge technology associated with uranium enrichment. The nuclear program and “resistance to arrogant powers” are firmly imbedded in the regime’s ideological raison d’etre…
Nor are President Rouhani and his negotiating team likely to agree to halt enrichment and advocate for such a policy within the regime, since doing so would be political suicide. In 2003, during Rouhani’s previous role as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, he convinced Khamenei to accept a temporary suspension of enrichment. But further talks with the international community stalled in early 2005 over a failure to agree on Iran’s asserted right to enrichment, and Tehran ended its suspension shortly thereafter. Rouhani believes – as do the supreme leader and Rouhani’s critics in the Revolutionary Guard – that the West pocketed Iranian concessions and Tehran got nothing in return. The failure of Iran’s earlier approach under Rouhani facilitated the rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his hardline policies, including the development of a much more robust uranium enrichment capability. Rouhani is unlikely to make that mistake again. And even if Rouhani and his lead negotiator, foreign minister Javad Zarif, were somehow convinced to do so, the Iranian president would be savaged by his right flank…
Rouhani’s new moderate tone with the international community has also recast the Islamic Republic as the reasonable party, further mitigating the risks of a popular backlash, especially if further negotiations deadlock over “unreasonable” maximalist demands. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 13 percent of the Iranian public holds the regime responsible for the hardships produced by economic sanctions (46 percent blame the United States). The same poll found that 68 percent of Iranians support continuing the country’s nuclear program despite economic sanctions, a finding consistent with other surveys showing widespread support for maintaining Iran’s enrichment program even if it results in additional economic pressure. Consequently, if talks are seen to collapse because of Washington’s insistence on demands for zero enrichment, the Iranian public is likely to direct their ire at United Sates, not the regime, for the diplomatic failure.
Given profound reasons for the regime to reject a maximalist deal, pursuing one would require the United States to go to the brink of the abyss with Iran, escalating economic and military threats to the point that the regime’s survival was acutely and imminently at stake. Yet pursuing such a high-risk strategy is unlikely to succeed, and the consequences of failure would be profound.
First, it is unclear if any escalation of sanctions could bring the regime to its knees in time to prevent Iran from achieving a breakout capability. Although some analysts believe Tehran is on the ropes and that additional sanctions can force Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear program, they rarely explain how more sanctions would produce a sufficient threat to the regime fast enough to prevent Iran from crossing critical nuclear thresholds. Iran’s apparent willingness to negotiate under pressure is not, in and of itself, evidence that more pressure will produce total surrender on the nuclear issue…
Second, and somewhat paradoxically, escalating sanctions at this moment could actually end up weakening international pressure on Iran. For better or worse, Rouhani has already succeeded in shifting international perceptions of Iran. If the United States, rather than Iran, comes across as the intransigent party, it will become much more difficult to maintain the international coalition currently isolating Tehran. In particular, if negotiations on a comprehensive framework collapse because of Washington’s unwillingness to make a deal on limited enrichment – a deal Russia and China and numerous other European and Asian nations support – it will likely become much harder to enforce sanctions…
Third, issuing more explicit military threats (through a possible authorization of the use of military force, for example) is also unlikely to achieve a maximalist diplomatic outcome. There is little doubt that maintaining a credible military option affects the Iranian regime’s calculations, raising the potential costs associated with nuclearization. And, if diplomacy fails, the United States should reserve the option of using force as a last resort to preclude Iran from developing nuclear weapons...
Finally, attempting to generate an existential crisis for the Islamic Republic could backfire by increasing the regime’s incentives to acquire nuclear weapons. This is especially true in the current diplomatic context. If the United States escalates economic or military pressure at the very moment that Iran has begun to finally negotiate in earnest, Khamenei will likely conclude that the real and irrevocable goal of U.S. policy is regime change rather than a nuclear accord…
Good Enough: Pushing for a Sufficient Deal
A complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program – including a permanent end to uranium enrichment – is therefore not in the cards. Instead of pushing for an ideal-but-unachievable agreement, the United States and other world powers should push for a sufficient and achievable one: an accord that significantly limits fuel-cycle activities under stringent conditions and verification procedures designed to preclude Iran’s ability to rapidly produce nuclear weapons.
A “sufficient” deal would have several major components:
• Significant constraints on uranium enrichment, including: a cap on enrichment at the 5 percent level sufficient for civilian nuclear power reactors but far from bomb-grade; neutralizing or otherwise limiting the size of Iran’s domestic stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to below one-bomb’s worth of material; limits on the number, quality and/or output of centrifuges; and setting limits on the size and number of enrichment facilities.
• Significant constraints on the plutonium track, including: dismantling Arak, converting Arak to a proliferation-resistant light water reactor or otherwise neutralizing the facility; and prohibiting the future construction of reprocessing facilities.
• An intrusive inspections regime, including: implementation of the IAEA Additional Protocol, allowing inspections of undeclared facilities; requirements for early notification of new nuclear sites; more frequent inspections and 24/7 remote surveillance of key facilities; monitoring centrifuge research, development and production facilities, and uranium mines; and enhanced monitoring of trade in sensitive goods and technologies.
• Transparency into past military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program, including: cooperating with the IAEA investigation into past weapons-related research and development to confirm that these activities have been terminated; and providing IAEA access to key research facilities and scientists.
Taken together, these measures would substantially lengthen breakout timelines, shorten detection timelines and provide assurances against an Iranian covert infrastructure. For these reasons, leading arms control experts believe that such a comprehensive agreement would be sufficient to prevent Iranian nuclear breakout. Furthermore, nothing about this proposal would take any options “off the table” in the event that Iran violated the agreement, reconstituted elements of its program and attempted to build nuclear weapons.
The Path to a Final Deal
Achieving a comprehensive accord sufficient to prevent Iranian nuclear breakout will be difficult. But given the progress made thus far in Geneva, there is a plausible path forward. Ongoing negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 envision a two-step process toward a comprehensive agreement. During first phase, which is the subject of current negotiations, media reports suggest that Iran would be required to:
• Stop producing enriched uranium at the near-bomb-grade 20 percent level.
• Neutralize most of its existing 20 percent stockpile through some combination of oxidation, downblending and/or conversion to fuel assemblies.
• Agree not to activate advanced IR-2m centrifuges.
• Freeze or reduce the number of operational IR-1 centrifuges enriching to the 3.5 percent level.
• Halt construction of the Arak heavy water reactor or, at the very least, refrain from loading fuel into the reactor.
• Agree to more intrusive inspections.
In exchange for these initial Iranian steps to address the most urgent elements of their nuclear program, the Obama administration appears prepared to offer limited, targeted and reversible sanctions relief. According to media reports, this may include: a temporary suspension of sanctions on trade with Iran in petrochemicals, gold and other precious metals; waiving proliferation designations of Iran’s auto industry; providing access to civilian aircraft parts; and/or a mechanism for releasing some Iranian funds tied up in overseas escrow accounts. Sanctions would only be suspended for the period of the agreement (approximately six months) and could be “turned back on” if Iran fails to honor the deal...
