Iran’s Nuclear Program Advances Amid Fallout from US Nuclear Deal Withdrawal
An Iranian flag flies in front of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Source.
In late February, the UN nuclear watchdog chief visited Iran to tour the country’s nuclear facilities and discuss the nuclear agreement between Iran and other world powers, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The visit confirmed that Iran has begun to operate on advanced centrifuges at an underground site, violating stipulations within the agreement, which has been unraveling since the Trump Administration’s decision to abandon the deal in 2018.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi announced that Iran has moved forward with the process of fueling an installed “cascade of 174 IR-4 centrifuges.” These centrifuges are used to enrich uranium hexafluoride gas up to 5% Uranium-235. This advancement is well past the agreements made in the nuclear agreement which only allowed Iran to enrich with first-generation IR-1 centrifuges.
This is the second visit in under six-months as relations between Iran and the remaining nations in the nuclear agreement are straining. The JCPOA was a pinnacle agreement between Iran and several other leading nations in July of 2015. The terms listed in the agreement required that Iran dismantle a sizable portion of its nuclear program and allow routine inspections from the UN in exchange for billions of dollars worth of sanctions relief. The deal stood strongly until 2018 when President Trump pulled the United States out of the deal. In response to the United States’ departure from the agreement Iran has resumed its nuclear program and is now insisting on limiting UN inspections of their facilities. Iran still maintains that it has no interest in developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran is also putting pressures on the remaining nations in the nuclear agreement. The original agreement was between Iran and the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and Germany. This group is known as the P5+1 or Permanent 5+1. The Iranian Parliament passed a bill in December saying they would begin suspending UN inspections of their nuclear facilities unless the P5+1 provided relief from oil and banking sanctions enforced by the United States.
The goal of the original deal was to restrict Iran’s nuclear program to the point that it would take a full year before Iran could develop a weapon, so the international community had time to respond. Prior to the debates, the U.S. Intelligence officials estimated that Iran was months away from developing a weapon and argued that Iran entering the international community as a nuclear state would send a ripple of unrest throughout the Middle East. After the deal was implemented all parties adhered to the agreements for 3 years where Iran passed multiple UN inspections. Experts predicted that if all parties adhered to the deal, it would have prevented Iran from developing a nuclear program for at least a decade.
President Joe Biden has come forward saying that he intends to move the United States to reenter the Iran Nuclear Deal as soon as Iran resumes compliance with the stipulations. Biden has also suggested that, upon reentering the deal, he plans to negotiate a successor agreement that will also address Iran’s missile program. In response, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated in September of 2020 that Iran would “absolutely not” renegotiate the deal’s terms from scratch, and expects the United States to compensate Iran for the monetary damages from the oil and banking sanctions under the Trump Administration which amount to USD $1 trillion.
Moving forward, experts are wary of progress in reestablishing the new deal without intense political hurdles. The assumption is that renegotiations will take place in June of 2021 after Iran elects a new president. Analysts are predicting that a conservative, hard-line candidate will replace President Rouhani, since Rouhani’s popularity has decreased dramatically amidst the failings of the nuclear agreement and increased stress of international sanctions.