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Experts: Iran Deal Will Be “Recipe for Disaster” Unless West Sticks to Principles

In the wake of the agreement to extend the P5+1’s nuclear talks with Iran for four months, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) published a paper (.pdf) Tuesday outlining five principles for ensuring a successful deal:

1. Sufficient response time in case of violations.
2. A nuclear program meeting Iran’s practical needs.
3. Adequate irreversibility of constraints.
4. Stable provisions.
5. Adequate verification.

These principles are designed to make certain that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon undetected, and that imposed limitations to Iran’s nuclear program can be verified. To guarantee the former, a deal must limit Iran’s enrichment activity to extend the country’s “breakout time” to a year or more; to guarantee the latter, the full scope of Iran’s nuclear research needs to be revealed.

“Breakout time” is the time it would take Iran to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Producing the fissile material would be detectable if done in declared enrichment facilities, but weaponizing that material could very well be accomplished undetected.

Once Iran has enough weapon-grade uranium for a weapon, the material would ostensibly vanish to covert sites for further weaponization efforts. The ability of the international community to stop it from building a weapon once the material has vanished, short of launching a full-scale war, would become severely limited—and full-scale war is certainly not an option to count on in constructing a long term agreement. In case Iran did not test or overtly deploy nuclear weapons, the situation would be inherently unstable and dangerous, as the region and the world worried that Iran possessed nuclear weapons or was just literally a screw-driver’s turn from having them.

The paper observes that Iran “has emphasized the principles of cooperation and transparency. These principles are predicated on its assertion that its word should be trusted, namely its pronouncement that it will not build nuclear weapons.”

Taking Iran at its word could be risky. Unless the International Atomic Energy Agency has full knowledge of Iran’s past nuclear research, it won’t be able to verify that Iran’s nuclear program has not become militarized.

When did Iran seek nuclear weapons, how far did it get, what types did it pursue, and how and where did it do this work? How long would it take Iran to weaponize fissile material? Was this weapons capability just put on the shelf, waiting to be quickly restarted? Who worked on these projects? The IAEA needs a good baseline of Iran’s military nuclear activities in order to design a verification regime. Moreover, to develop confidence in the absence of weaponization activities, the IAEA will need to periodically inspect past weaponization sites and interview key individuals for years to come. Without more information, it does not know where to go and who to speak to, let alone whether such activity is continuing in a covert manner. Fundamental questions at the core of this decade long controversy would remain unanswered.
Moreover, if Iran can prevent the IAEA from inspecting military sites where work is alleged to have taken place on developing nuclear weapons, it could also use that precedent to deny the IAEA access to other military sites, some of which Iran could use later to hide a covert centrifuge or nuclear weaponization plant. Limiting nuclear capabilities at known sites does not make sense if at the same time the deal makes it easier for Iran to make weapon-grade uranium at secret sites. The deal must focus on both potential pathways. Calls to ignore past military nuclear related efforts by Iran are therefore at best naïve and reflecting of a poor understanding of adequate verification and arms control policy, and at worst, highly destabilizing.

The paper argues that “Iran must provide a concrete demonstration that it has given up its nuclear weapons program.” Without that, “Iran should not receive major sanctions relief.”

The authors conclude, “Without following these principles, the negotiations cannot deliver an agreement which can ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is indeed peaceful and that a deal will be long lasting. … However, if Iran demands that the Six violate their core principles and they give in, the resulting agreement could be a recipe for disaster.”

[Photo: Journeyman Pictures / YouTube ]