IRAN

Intro: Yet whatever comes of these negotiations will make it unlikely they will be seen as historic. If a comprehensive agreement is signed by the end of June it will be regarded as an important milestone passed on the way

The lengthy and protracted talks in Lausanne between Iran and six world powers in forging a deal to constrain its nuclear programme ran straight through the March 31st deadline. The cause of the overrun (and hence the need for more haggling) has been due to the tension between the fuzzy declaration of principles that the Iranians would prefer and the detailed framework agreement that the United States would need to persuade a sceptical Congress to postpone a vote on new sanctions on April 14th.

For Iran, any deal would require the staged lifting of sanctions. The Americans want precise numbers on how many uranium enrichment centrifuges Iran can activate, the exact quantities of uranium held and how much plutonium can be discharged at the reactor at Arak. At this stage, though, the Iranians want to avoid the specifics on its nuclear limits, while eager to secure firm commitments on the lifting of sanctions – particularly those imposed by the United Nations. For its part, the West wants automatic ‘snap-back’ on sanctions if any serious violation by Iran is detected, but Iran has rejected this demand.

Yet whatever comes of these negotiations will make it unlikely they will be seen as historic. If a comprehensive agreement is signed by the end of June it will be regarded as an important milestone passed on the way. But if the process collapses, the accord would amount to no more than a brave effort that met with failure.

The broad aim in Lausanne is to leave Iran free from most of the sanctions and far enough from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But the apparent inability to nail down critical details and the number of issues that remain unresolved means that the next phase of talks are likely to be even tougher. For America and its allies, forestalling Iran on the building of a nuclear weapon is first and foremost, as this would reduce the incentives for other regional powers, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to move towards the nuclear threshold themselves.

The yardstick is Iran’s ‘breakout capability’. This is the time it would take to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one device. Extending it from a couple of months, the situation today, to at least a year is a sensible and quantifiable goal. Iran had previously indicated it would cut its number of operating centrifuges to about 6,500. Not yet agreed is the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran will be allowed to stockpile – a variable which directly links to the number of centrifuges it can keep.

Iran requires low-enriched uranium for its medical and other civilian projects, but such stockpiles can easily be enriched to weapons grade material. However, the biggest problems which still need to be tackled lie elsewhere. There remains ambiguity about what rights the Iranians will have to continue nuclear research and development. Iran is working on centrifuges up to 20 times faster than today’s which they want to start deploying when the agreement’s first ten years are up. Better centrifuges would reduce the size of the covert enrichment facilities that Iran would need to build a weapon if it were so intent on escaping the agreement’s scriptures. That’s a real concern, as detection by the West would be far more difficult.

This leads to the issue on which everything else will eventually hinge. Iran has a long history of deception about its nuclear programme. For instance, it only declared its two enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow following exposure by U.S. intelligence. A highly intrusive inspection and verification regime is thus essential, and would have to continue long after other elements of an agreement expire. Compliance would mean inspectors from the IAEA being able to inspect any facility, declared or otherwise, civil or military, on demand.

IAEA powers are far more sweeping than those which exist under the safeguard agreements that are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the ‘additional protocol’ granted to the IAEA, inspectors are allowed not only to verify that declared nuclear material is not being squirrelled away for military use but also to check for undeclared nuclear material and activities. In Iran’s case, such powers for the IAEA are seen as essential.

For a deal to be concluded in June, Tehran will have to consent to such a rigorous inspection regime. It will also have to address a string of questions posed by the IAEA over the ‘possible military dimensions’ of its nuclear programme. On March 23rd IAEA’s director, Yukiya Amano, said that Iran had only replied to one of those questions. Parchin, a military base which the IAEA believes may have been used for testing the high-explosive fuses that are needed to implode, and thus set off, the uranium or plutonium at the core of a bomb, remains strictly out of bounds. Nor has the agency been given access to some of Iran’s leading scientists such as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the physicist and Revolutionary Guard officer who is alleged to be at the heart of the research on weapons development.

The IAEA’s report on Iran in February stated that it ‘remains concerned about the possible existence – of undisclosed nuclear-related activities – including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.’ Iran insists it will only sign up to strict new inspections when all the main elements of the deal are in place.

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II

IT WOULD APPEAR that the talks in Lausanne concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions are nearing a deal. But there will be questions as to whether the agreement is a good one, or whether indeed it allows Iran to keep a stockpile of centrifuges that can then be used to produce weapons grade enriched uranium. Analysts will be scrutinising the deal for signs of how this agreement will help move towards global security.

Iran continues to insist that it wants the nuclear technology for power plants and peaceful purposes only. It would be fair to say that there is a degree of scepticism around that as, Israel, for instance, remains very concerned and has threatened to attack Iran if it feels that is the only way to protect itself from nuclear attack. Israel’s rhetoric should not just be taken as soundbites. Israel has carried out a number of airstrikes in protection of its sovereignty over the years as far back as 1981. Then it carried out the world’s first airstrike against a nuclear plant when its jets bombed a French-built site in Iraq. Perhaps under US pressure Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not played up past threats to attack Iran.

Whilst the Israelis are not party to the talks that is not to say they are in favour of how the talks are going. The deal being proposed in Switzerland now has taken some 18-months to arrive at. Mr Netanyahu has reiterated his opposition to the draft, saying it ‘bears out all of our fears, and even more than that’. Others, like the British, insist that any deal must put the bomb beyond the reach of Iran. But the problem here is that Israel does not believe that the restrictions being imposed would do that if Iran chose to suddenly abandon the agreement and gear up its nuclear programme through clandestine means.

There are only eight countries that have successfully detonated nuclear weapons – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. It is widely believed that Israel also has nuclear weapons, a point the country is deliberately vague about.

The sceptics will always say that any deal will simply legitimise parts of the process and therefore make it easier for Iran to build a nuclear weapon should it choose to do so. There will also be long-term doubts about keeping all the necessary equipment and expertise for bomb-making out of Iran. How can we ever be sure the sanctions being applied are effective and fully-working for which they were intended?

In a passive sense, and in the long-term, it is surely better to have negotiations that keep Iran talking to the international community, as isolation would probably work against long-term peace and security.

Putting the bomb beyond reach is imperative. And the processes involved to make sure that does indeed happen must be verifiable, with confidence and accountability in that verification process.