| Over the past two weeks, several news reports have been published detailing clauses of the new nuclear agreement being discussed by Iran and the West. If the publications are correct, it would mean that Iran is turning into a nuclear threshold state with Western consent.
According to leaks of the agreement’s clauses, Iran will reportedly agree not to enrich uranium beyond the 60 percent level, but contrary to the previous 2015 agreement, it will be able to hold on to the uranium that has already been enriched.
This means that the transition to the military-grade enrichment level of over 90 percent becomes a simple process for Iran, lasting several weeks. It also becomes a matter that depends on an Iranian decision rather than on Iran needing to gain the ability to implement the decision.
It is important to emphasize that Iran’s current level of enrichment of 60 percent has no civilian usage.
In exchange for an Iranian enrichment freeze, Tehran will reportedly pledge to stop attacks on US positions in Syria and Iraq via its proxies in these countries.
In addition, Iran will commit to expanding its cooperation with international nuclear inspectors and to not selling ballistic missiles to Russia.
The US, for its part, will not remove its sanctions on Iran but will avoid making them more severe.
However, a big question mark hovers over the issue of sanctions enforcement.
For example, according to some reports, the agreement would lead to the US allowing foreign tankers carrying Iranian oil to sail through.
Subsequently, the US will thaw billions of dollars in Iranian assets in exchange for the release of American prisoners by Iran.
In the July 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, Iran was granted access to $150 billion dollars of its frozen assets.
Following the JCPOA, Iran’s military deployment in the Middle East changed dramatically. The starting point of Iranian involvement in the Middle East as we know it today, involving tens of Iranian proxy militias in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, and influence in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and more – is the previous nuclear agreement.
Today we see Iranian involvement everywhere in the world. It is occurring through the dissemination of Islamic revolutionary concepts (see, for example, our report on Iran in Europe), in the campaign to turn former Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani into a mythical figure from Kashmir to the Middle East, and in the supplies of weapons, especially UAVs, to Russia in its war in Ukraine. Iranian activities have also stretched out to Venezuela and to countries in Africa.
Nevertheless, it must also be noted that despite it enrichment capabilities, Iran still has a significant gap separating it from an ability to assemble a bomb, known as the weaponization stage.
The Iranian weapons group, as it is dubbed, is responsible for taking over the nuclear program after the uranium enrichment phase is complete. That group was formerly headed by Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in Iran in November 2020.
There does not appear to be any progress in this area of weaponization involving a nuclear warhead creation and placing it on a missile.
This boils down to an Iranian decision, and if Iran wants to advance down this route, it would take it between one to two years to do so.
The question, therefore, arises: What will prevent Iran from moving forward on these issues? A few months ago, an American senior official issued a statement that could be understood to mean that Washington was giving the green light for an Israeli attack.
US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, appeared to signal a new threat by Washington when he stated on May 4th, “But what I will simply say is that on the deterrence side, working with our partners—including working very closely with Israel, including through that military exercise that I described before, but also through intensive sessions that I have personally participated in with everyone from the prime minister to the national security advisor to the minister of defense—we will continue to send a clear message about the costs and consequences of going too far, while at the same time continuing to seek the possibility of a diplomatically brokered outcome that puts Iran’s nuclear program back in the box.”
If the agreement emerges in line with the leaked clauses, this would mean that Sullivan’s statement was designed to put the Israelis to sleep and to nudge the Iranians to move forward, reviving dormant negotiations.
Unfortunately, the statement did not improve the emerging agreement, and the entire world remains dependent on Tehran’s decision on whether to reach the bomb or not.
In my meetings with groups, I express my displeasure at the world’s expectations of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites if negotiations fail.
Everyone treats the issue as if it were an Israeli problem.
A nuclear Iran with launch capabilities already developed is a global problem. The Saudi and Egyptian ambitions to develop their own nuclear program as a counterweight to the Iranian program is another factor that can eventually undermine global security.
An attack on Iranian nuclear sites should be a joint operation by anyone who cares about world peace. It would form a very strong message, not only to Iran but also to Russia, which has threatened the use of nuclear weapons against the West several times over the past two years.
It’s time to change the framing of this discourse. The goal should be an agreement that excludes Iran any ability to develop nuclear weapons and not one that will be for a regime whose ideology is based on hatred of Western values. |