IRAN’S NUKESShowdown in the Middle East
In 2018, President Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, claiming that Obama’s deal wasn’t good enough and that he would get a better one by imposing “maximum pressure.” As was predicted in 2018, the Iranian response to the U.S. campaign of maximum pressure was not to offer the Americans more, but instead to press ahead with enriching Uranium to the point where they are now close to having enough to build some nuclear weapons should they choose to do so. Can a new round of negotiations, or military action, stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon?
Editor’s note: The article was originally published on 10 April, two days before the Saturday, 12 April, Oman meeting between representatives of the U.S. and Iran.
This coming Saturday US and Iranian teams will meet in Oman to see if there is a way out of the current impasse on the Iranian nuclear program.
In 2015 a deal was agreed after some prolonged and painstakingly negotiations led by the Obama administration, supported by the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese. This was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran agreed to cut back on its Uranium enrichment program in return for sanctions relief. Trump abandoned the JCPOA in 2018 claiming that Obama’s deal wasn’t good enough and that he would get a better one by imposing ‘maximum pressure.’
As was predicted in 2018, the Iranian response to the US campaign of maximum pressure was not to offer the Americans more but instead to press ahead with enriching Uranium to the point where they are now close to having enough to build some nuclear weapons should they choose to do so. Time is therefore running out if there is going to be a deal.
In February the IAEA reported that Iran had stockpiled almost 275kg of 60 percent enriched uranium, which would not take much extra enrichment to get to 90 percent when it would be weapons-grade. That would be enough for six bombs. Under the JCPOA the objective was to ensure that Iran was always at least a year away from being able to use its HEU to manufacture weapons. Estimates vary for how long this would take, but they are generally less than year.
Talks to revive the JCPOA continued during the Biden administration but the conditions were hardly propitious, as Israel battled Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’. Only desultory progress was made. At the start of his second term Trump offered to talk, while also increasing economic sanctions on Iran and threatening military action. On 30 March Trump said that if Tehran doesn’t agree to a deal ‘there will be bombing and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.’ This led to the Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, ruling that there could not be direct talks with the Americans. Iran, he vowed, would not be cowed by American threats. Nor, on the basis of past experience, could he trust Trump to stick to an agreement.
