Open questions and closed nuclear facilities?

Despite all the legitimate concerns about the US-Iran nuclear deal, it may be the best that could have been achieved under the circumstances.

Iran’s secretive nuclear policies have caused quite a headache in a number of countries from Israel and the Sunni Arab states in the Middle East through the Europeans to the United States. Though the official Iranian position has always been a flat denial about the intent and extent of the country’s nuclear programs, undeniable facts pointed towards Tehran’s attempts to join the ”elite club” of countries with nuclear capability. Even if we discount some of the extreme rhetoric used by such leaders as former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the balance of power in the region would be dramatically changed if Iran acquired nuclear capability. In a broader context, the impact of an Iran with nuclear tipped short- and medium-range missiles would bound to be felt well beyond the region, and may even have global implications. Besides the likely geopolitical consequences of such a scenario, Iran’s nuclear ”breakout” would also question the basic precepts of such international regimes as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

As US Secretary of State John Kerry summed up the global importance of the question, ”the last thing we need is a new nuclear power.” In fact, one may add that if Iran became a nuclear power, the world would possibly acquire two or three other newcomers in the ”club”, including Saudi-Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. (The U.S. and the Europeans might have an uphill battle to discourage these countries from going nuclear.) A nuclear arms race in the otherwise extremely volatile and combustible region is a recipe for a predictable disaster on a scale one can only guess. That may have been one of the reasons that such great powers as China and Russia, which are doing everything in their capacity to soft-balance the U. S. (the West) have been willing to cooperate, though they have also done their best to water down the agreement on some points.

The deal constraining Iran’s nuclear program is a classic framework agreement; much depends on how the participants will interpret some of its provisions. However, above all, the effectiveness will largely depend on the international inspectors’ ability to detect and uncover cheating by Iran – the sceptics (or realists) predict that the question is not whether Iran will try to cheat, the real question is how and when. Their scepticism is based to a large extent on the omission of an ”anytime, anywhere” provision from the agreement. The deal requires a 24-day notice before inspectors are allowed to visit suspicious facilities – the period may be long enough for the Iranians to remove items which they are unwilling to show visitors.

Second, Iran will for all intents and purposes retain its threshold status. It is true that the agreement imposes significant limitations on the quantity and quality of the centrifuges and enriched uraniam alike; the number of the former has to be cut from 21,000 to 5,000; while the latter must be reduced from 20% to 3.7%. At the same time, the heavy-water plant at Arak has to be restructured so that it will not be able to produce plutonium. Moreover, Iran is not supposed to build any additional heavy-water reactors for 15 years. These limitations clearly extend the ”breakout” time, but they do not prevent Iran from resuming efforts after the expiration of a few years: in the case of the centrifuges, it is 10 years, while uranium enrichment is 15 years. In other words, the deal in effect ”kicks the can down the road,” and in a decade or so there is a good chance that the whole story will start all over again. Iran has undermined the universality of the NPT too, insofar as the Non-Proliferation Treaty is open-ended, while Iran is constrained only for a limited period of time.

Third, the promised lifting of economic and financial sanctions imposed on Iran over the years in recognition of Tehran’s compliance is bound to have some unintended consequences beyond the economic and financial areas. Estimates put the sum Iran receives after the ”Implementation Day” around $150 billion. Is is true that the economic sanctions have seriously hurt the country, and experts calculate that at least $600-700 billion is needed for insfrastructural investment alone. However, Iran will be able to realize substantial profits on the sale of oil and gas alone, while international investors are lining up to take advantage of the opportunities which open in Iran.

Having said that, it is fairly safe to predict that Tehran will be able to spend (much) more money on financing its clients in the region from President Assad of Syria to the Hezbollah. As the arms embargo will be lifted in 5 years, the capabilities of Iran’s military will be enhanced, and so will those of its allies to make mischief. The consequences will be an arms race of sorts in the greater Middle East.

Another potential weakness in the treaty is the so-called snapback provision, which is to reinstate the sanctions in the case of Tehran’s non-compliance within 65 days. The hitch is that the sanctions can only be reimposed by the UN Security Council, where Russia’s and China’s willingness to do that is more than unlikely. A ”West” versus the ”Rest” scenario cannot be excluded under the circumstances with a number of potentially dangerous consequences, among others enhanced religiously motivated terrorist activities with even more capable sponsors than they have right now.

Finally, the deal may cause serious domestic political splits in the two most important actors in this story. Throughout the negotiations conflicting signals came from the secular and religious leaderships in Iran, with the latter being the hardliners. Ajatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the supreme religious leader is seriously ill. The potential successors may want to establish and prove their credentials by taking a hard line in the nuclear issue, which is seen as one of the most important manifestations of national pride and sovereignty – besides lending Iran a regional great power status.

While President Barack Obama declared that the deal ”cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons,” others – including the majority of the Republicans and the national security hawk Democrats are not so sure about it. The issue may become a toxic one for Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign, as the Cold War stereotype about the Democrats being ”soft” on national security matters may be revived. Israel and the Jewish voters may come into the picture: Prime Minister Netanyahu and the majority of the Israelis believe that the deal is a mistake of historic proportions. If most of the Jewish voters in key battleground states such as Florida subscribe to this idea, Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the first woman president of the U.S. will diminish.

Despite all the legitimate concerns about the deal, it must also be acknowledged that the current deal may be the best that could have been achieved under the circumstances. The world has bought time, about a decade or so, and as former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once observed, ”A week in politics is a long time.” Let us hope that in the forthcoming decade the international situation will change for the better and, next time, a truly consequential deal can be struck between the parties involved.