Biden must bite the bullet on Iran
Biden must bite the bullet on Iran
Acceding to the country’s demands may be risky for the US president – but the looming prospect of a nuclear-armed Tehran is far worse, says Kelsey Davenport
In 2015, a group of countries made up of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States reached a multilateral agreement with Iran that ended a decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme and effectively blocked its pathways to nuclear weapons. Now, nearly seven years after that historic agreement was reached, Iran’s nuclear programme poses a greater proliferation threat than ever before.
Yet President Joe Biden risks further escalating this nuclear crisis by allowing domestic political pressures rather than effective nonproliferation policy to guide America’s approach to Iran.
The current crisis has been building since his predecessor Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, in May 2018, despite Tehran’s compliance with the accord. The Trump administration then embarked on an aggressive campaign designed to deny Iran any benefits of remaining in the accord. As part of this campaign, it designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
Unsurprisingly, Iran responded by seeking to build leverage of its own to push Washington back into the accord. Since May 2019, Tehran has been steadily building up its nuclear programme in violation of the limits imposed by the deal. To return to compliance, Tehran is demanding that the United States lift not only the sanctions specified in the JCPOA, but also measures imposed by Trump, including the Revolutionary Guard’s designation.
A deal to restore the JCPOA is close to being finalized, but Biden is risking this critical opportunity because he does not want to face a chorus of criticism for lifting the Revolutionary Guard’s designation, even though it is largely symbolic and the force will still be subject to numerous other sanctions.
While Biden will certainly pay a political price domestically if he modifies the designation, the cost pales in comparison with the price he will pay for allowing Iran’s nuclear programme to continue unchecked. The fact that Iran is not overtly dashing for a bomb – an assessment the US intelligence community shares – may give the illusion that the status quo is sustainable, and Biden has time on his side to play hardball over the Revolutionary Guard.
But that is a dangerous miscalculation. Iran’s nuclear programme will soon reach the point at which the international community will not have time to detect and deter a dash to the bomb. If diplomacy does not roll back Iran’s nuclear programme before that point, the risk of military action increases significantly.
There are two issues limiting the window for action to restore the JCPOA. First, Iran’s uranium enrichment programme has expanded close to the point where Tehran can produce enough weapons-grade
uranium for a bomb without detection by international inspectors.
When the JCPOA was fully implemented, it would have taken Iran 12 months to produce the necessary uranium for a bomb. That 12-month period, known as the breakout timeline, was achieved by limiting the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium and capping the enrichment level and stockpile at a level far below what is needed for weapons.
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors also had daily access to Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities and could continuously monitor certain sites, ensuring almost immediate detection of any move towards a bomb. Over the past three years, Iran has increased its enrichment levels to 60 per cent, dangerously close to the 90 per cent suitable for weapons. It has also built up its stockpile of enriched uranium and significantly expanded its centrifuge capacity. As a result, the 12-month breakout time had dropped to about two or three weeks by the beginning of May 2022.
Given that Iran has also significantly restricted IAEA access and monitoring, Tehran will soon reach the point where it could produce enough uranium for a bomb between inspections. Even though it would still take Iran another year or two to build a nuclear warhead, those activities are much easier to conceal.
It is highly unlikely that the United States, let alone Israel, would be willing to live with the risk that Iran could breakout undetected and build a bomb covertly.
If Iran’s nuclear programme is not limited soon, the likelihood of military action or sabotage to prevent Tehran from reaching a threshold of undetectable breakout increases significantly. Any such attack would threaten an escalation into a broader conflict or push Iran to openly pursue nuclear weapons to deter future attacks.
Second, it is critical to roll back Iran’s nuclear programme before Tehran masters new capabilities that would diminish the effectiveness of the JCPOA, such as operating advanced centrifuges, enriching to higher levels and researching uranium metal, which is relevant for weapons development. The more experience Iran gains with these activities, the quicker Tehran could develop nuclear weapons in future.
While this knowledge cannot be erased even if the JCPOA is restored, the risk can be managed if Iran’s nuclear programme is limited and subject to the intrusive monitoring and verification required by the deal. With the JCPOA in place, inspectors would quickly detect any deviation from the limits it imposes, and the international community would have time to respond diplomatically to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
If research and development continue unchecked however, the US and its partners may determine that a new deal is necessary to take into account Iran’s expanded nuclear programme. In that scenario, Iran has more leverage given its nuclear advances.
The same cannot be said of the US and its European partners. It is unlikely that these countries could quickly rebuild the international pressure that contributed to negotiations on the JCPOA, given the current tensions with Russia and broader frustration with US sanctions policy. That would leave them at the negotiating table with few cards to play against Iran’s stronger hand.
Lifting sanctions on the Revolutionary Guard will undoubtedly open Biden up to criticism. But the domestic backlash is a small price to pay for reimposing verifiable, effective limits on Iran’s nuclear programme. If Biden fails to restore the guardrails on Iran’s nuclear programme by closing a deal on returning to the JCPOA, the risk of escalating tensions over Tehran’s nuclear programme spilling over into a broader conflict increases significantly.
He would go down in history as the president who allowed Iran to reach the threshold of a nuclear weapon, or risked war trying to stop it.
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