ARGUMENT: IRAN’S NUKESTo Check Iran’s Missiles, JCPOA Re-Entry is a Must

Iran’s missile program is a cause for international concern. Just last month, Iran launched a missile attack on Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region; in January 2020, Iran launched a similar, devastating strike on U.S. forces at Ayn Al Asad airbase in Iraq (in response to the U.S. killing of IRGC Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani earlier that month); and Iran was almost certainly behind the 2019 missile attack on Saudi Aramco facilities.

John Krzyzaniak, a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Akshai Vikram, the Nuclear Policy Advisor at Foreign Policy for America, write in Just Security that Iran’s increasing willingness and ability to launch missiles at neighboring countries merits a coordinated, international response. Moreover, if Iran were to ever acquire a nuclear weapon, its unchecked missile program could allow it to hold entire cities at risk in the Middle East and potentially beyond. Yet opponents of the Iran nuclear deal go too far when they criticize the deal for not addressing Iran’s missile activities. “If the United States is ever going to restrict Iran’s missile program through diplomacy, re-entering the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is the best – and likely only – way to make it happen,” they write, adding:

Like any international agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, was limited in scope. As the first agreement of its scale between the United States and Iran since the 1979 revolution, it could not solve every problem at once. The Obama administration was right to realize this during the negotiations. As former CIA Director John Brennan revealed in 2021, President Obama assessed early on that addressing Iran’s missile program in the JCPOA would be biting off more than the United States and its partners could chew.

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In bringing Europe, China, and Russia to the table to limit Iran’s nuclear program, the United States scored a major diplomatic victory. The deal completely shut off Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon and fostered an environment to potentially discuss a follow-on agreement on Iranian missiles. But by abandoning the nuclear deal in May 2018 despite Iran’s continuing compliance with its strict nuclear restrictions and robust verification regime, the Trump administration threw all that away. 

Krzyzaniak and Vikramwrite that when President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA – even though his own administration had repeatedly certified that Iran was adhering to the deal – he cited its lack of restraints on Iran’s missile activity as a key reason why. Yet just months after his withdrawal, Iran’s missile program grew even more audacious and menacing. “If Trump’s policy was designed to limit Iran’s missile program, it obviously failed. Even worse, if it weren’t for the Trump administration’s reckless intransigence, the United States could have moved to build on the JCPOA and address Iran’s missile program five years ago,” they write.

The authors conclude:

Before the United States can pick up where the Obama administration left off and pursue negotiations on Iran’s missile activities, it has to re-enter the nuclear deal. It has to prove that it is a serious negotiating partner, one that can keep its own commitments. In short, it has to restore its diplomatic credibility. This is not an easy task, but it is one the United States must pursue.

The only thing worse than an unchecked Iranian missile program is an unchecked Iranian missile program along with an Iranian nuclear weapon. From Capitol Hill to Vienna, the United States should acknowledge that the best path to limiting Iran’s missile activity runs through the JCPOA.