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Iran nuclear deal hangs in balance as Islamic Republic votes

Muzna Mishal Waseem
June 17 2021, 2:32 pm
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Iran nuclear deal hangs in balance as Islamic Republic votes #Baaghi

June 17, 2021: Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers hangs in the balance as the country prepares to vote on Friday for a new president and diplomats press on with efforts to get both the U.S. and Tehran to reenter the accord.

The deal represents the signature accomplishment of the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s eight years in office: suspending crushing sanctions in exchange for the strict monitoring and limiting of Iran’s uranium stockpile.

The termination of the agreement by President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement in 2018 has led to a wide range of attacks and confrontations in the Middle East. It also enabled Tehran to enrich Uranium to the highest level of purity ever.

Analysts and opinion polls suggest that a hard-line candidate already targeted by US sanctions will win a vote on Friday, a return to the deal could be possible but could lead to further tensions between Iran and the West. Henry Rome, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group focusing on Iran, said: “It’s certainly not complicated enough to draft an agreement from scratch, which is why the parties agreed to a 2015 agreement.”

“But there are still a lot of details that need to be worked out.” He added: “I think there is a lot of domestic politics involved and there is a strong interest in the leader, including the Supreme Leader, to ensure that his favorite candidate does not interfere in the process.”

The 2015 deal, which saw Iranians flooding the streets during the celebrations, marked a turning point in Iran’s nuclear program after years of tensions between Iran and the West. Tehran has long insisted that its program is for peaceful purposes. However, US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say Iran had a well-organized nuclear weapons program up till 2003.

To reduce the threat to the West, Iran has agreed to limit its uranium enrichment to just 3.67 percent, which could be used in nuclear power plants but far less than what is required for weapons. It put a heavy cap on Iran’s uranium stockpile of only 300 kilograms (661 pounds).

Tehran also vowed to use only 5,060 of its first-generation centrifuges, a device that rotates to enrich uranium gas. Prior to the deal, Iran had amassed up to 20,000 kilograms and had reserves of 10,000 kilograms (22,046 pounds). At that level of enrichment, that amount narrowed Iran’s so-called “breakout” time – how long it would take Tehran to make so many weapons-grade uranium for an atomic bomb.

Prior to the deal, experts estimated that it would take Iran two to three months to reach the point. Under the agreement, officials cut that period to about a year. The agreement also obliges Iran to monitor its program and ensure its compliance with some of the strictest monitoring so far by the IAEA.

However, what the agreement did not do was include Tehran’s support for militant groups such as Iran’s ballistic missile program or the surrounding Lebanese Hezbollah or Palestinian Hamas – that the West and its allies have declared terrorist organizations.

Donald Trump entered the White House on a promise to “tear” the deal, which he finally did in 2018. Since then, Iran has broken all bounds to the extent it agreed to under the agreement. It now enriches small amounts of uranium up to 63% purity.

It rotates a lot of advanced centrifuges. The IAEA has not had access to its surveillance cameras at Iranian nuclear sites since the end of February, nor has it obtained data from its online enrichment monitors and electronic seals – which hampers US nuclear surveillance capabilities. Following suspicions of two Israeli strikes, Iran has also resumed underground enrichment and is building more underground centrifuge halls.

If Iran’s nuclear program is not maintained, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that it could reduce Tehran’s “breakout” time to “a matter of weeks.” Security experts are worried. “I think it’s very important for the international community, and especially the United States, to put the nuclear program back in the box,” said Sanam Wakil, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, which studies Iran.

Because after overcoming the nuclear deal, negotiators are finally hoping to prolong and strengthen the deal. And so you can’t get here until the current agreement is established. “Ever since President Joe Biden took office, his diplomats have been working with other world powers to bring back both the United States and Iran in the Vienna negotiations agreement. The United States has not visited Iran, although separate talks are under way on a possible prisoner exchange.”

In Friday’s presidential election in Iran, the head of the hardline judiciary, Ibrahim Raisi, appears to be leading the way. It has already said it wants Iran to return to the nuclear deal to reap its economic benefits. But given his previously controversial statements about the United States, further cooperation with the West is unlikely at this time.

Meanwhile, it is not yet clear when the agreement will be signed in Vienna. And while Iran has broken all the terms of the agreement, there is much more to be done to increase pressure on the West. These measures include the use of more centrifuges, increased enrichment, and the resumption of a facility that makes plutonium as a product or abandons the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

“It’s a very fine tool,” Rome said. “The Iranian political leadership can decide quite specifically what type of signal it wants to send, whether that’s the type of machines it uses, the speed of the production, the quantity of the production in order to send a message to the West about the degree of pressure it wants to put on.”

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