July/August 2019
By Eric Brewer and Richard Nephew
Since Iran’s May 2019 announcement
that it would no longer abide by some nuclear restrictions under the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Trump administration has sought to
push back against these moves by citing the imperative of the JCPOA’s
constraints. The JCPOA created limits on Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle that mean
Tehran would need a year to produce enough nuclear material for a bomb, and the
agreement established enhanced transparency and inspector access throughout the
entire fuel cycle.
U.S. National Security Advisor John
Bolton speaks to reporters at the White House April 30. Bolton has linked any
Iranian expansion of enrichment activities to a deliberate attempt to shorten
the breakout time to produce nuclear weapons. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty
Images)
The U.S. push for Iran to adhere to
the deal’s terms has drawn some international incredulity given how the United
States withdrew from agreement in May 2018 while noisily alleging many JCPOA
flaws. More subtly, the Trump administration has begun to lay the groundwork
for what can be described as its first real redline for the nuclear program:
that any reduction in Iran’s one-year breakout timeline, the amount of time
Iran would need to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb, is unacceptable.
It is unclear how much reduction the
administration would tolerate, what its response would be, and given President
Donald Trump’s avowed preference for a deal and to avoid another conflict in
the Middle East, whether it would be enforced at all. Yet, National Security
Advisor John Bolton in late May linked any Iranian expansion of enrichment
activities to a deliberate attempt to shorten the breakout time to produce
nuclear weapons, which would suggest that a severe response, perhaps even military
force, would be on the table to prevent Iran from a nuclear restart. At the
very least, the United States is shifting the traditional definition of what is
unacceptable from a weapon or having the ability to produce one quickly to any
deviation from JCPOA baseline restrictions.
A renewed nuclear crisis with Iran is
now likely. Not only would Iran’s announced steps from May shorten the breakout
timeline, only modestly at the start, but Iran has set a deadline that expires
in early July for the restart of other nuclear activities that might reduce the
timeline considerably faster.
Nevertheless, Iran’s nuclear actions
so far do not merit this redline or the military response that could follow,
nor do they rise to the level of an unacceptable threat to the United States or
its interests. Rather, they are a signal that, although some in the Trump
administration believe otherwise, Iran will not consent to being pushed via
sanctions without seeking leverage of its own.
To be fair to the Trump
administration, there is some utility in setting out a clear marker for Iran as
to what constitutes unacceptable nuclear behavior. In fact, one of the biggest
concerns over Trump’s Iran policy thus far is that the Iranians have seen
little clarity from the White House as to what the United States wants from
Iran. U.S. objectives have varied over time and, depending on who is
articulating the policy, have involved everything from regime change to a
renegotiated JCPOA. It would be valuable to give Iran and the rest of the world
a clearer sense of U.S. intentions, expectations, and the seriousness with
which the United States would treat certain Iranian nuclear actions. A firm
stance now could also potentially head off a more dangerous situation down the
road, and for the Trump administration, there is a palpable desire to avoid
being identified as the cause of this new nuclear crisis.
Despite these potential benefits, the
particular redline that appears to be in the process of being established is
profoundly unnecessary, unwise, and dangerous for four reasons.
Iran’s Restart Will Be Gradual
First, establishing the one-year
breakout timeline as a redline makes little sense in terms of the nuclear
program itself. The JCPOA was designed to give governments at least a year to
mount a strategy to react if Iran started to exit its obligations and dash to a
weapon. For this reason, the JCPOA built in restrictions on Iran’s centrifuges,
its uranium stockpile, and spare parts and materials for the program, as well
as intrusive transparency steps that ensure the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and the international community would quickly become aware of any
deviation from Iran’s agreed steps.
Iran has said it will expand its
enrichment of low-enriched uranium (LEU) and heavy water and will consider
additional steps as well, perhaps as soon as July 6. Iran’s decision to restart
these nuclear activities will eventually erode the breakout time barrier of a
year, but this will occur, at least at the start, relatively slowly and
incrementally. The reasons are political and technical. Politically, Iran’s
main goal is to regain negotiating leverage and force Europe to provide
economic benefits or risk the deal falling apart, not to race to a bomb. As
Iran has done in the past, it will likely calibrate the pace and scope of its
nuclear activities based in part on how the international community responds.
From a technical standpoint, Iran’s
enriched-uranium stockpile will probably expand gradually. Iran has said it
will exceed the JCPOA’s 300-kilogram limit by June 27, which IAEA reporting
suggests would be a major increase in the pace of enrichment operations but not
impossible. That said, even at the rate of enrichment that this would suggest,
as much as 30 to 50 kilograms per month, it would take many months before Iran
would have enough LEU, which would need further enrichment, for a bomb. Of
course, enriching uranium further from its current level would be noticed by
the IAEA and time consuming.
Iran’s buildup of heavy water is less
concerning from a nuclear weapons perspective. Even if Iran fulfills its threat
to abandon its JCPOA-mandated requirement to redesign the Arak reactor to
produce less plutonium in July, the path to actually completing and starting
its old reactor design would be a long and uncertain one.
In early 2016, the IAEA confirmed
that Iraq had removed the core of its heavy-water reactor at Arak, as required
by the 2015 nuclear deal. Restoring the reactor to maximize its
plutonium-production capability would be a lengthy process. (Photo: President of
the Islamic Republic of Iran)
More worrying would be if Iran acts
on its threat to increase enrichment levels as early as July. Depending on how
high Iran goes, such as resuming enrichment to near 20 percent uranium-235,
this could have a seriously adverse affect on Iran’s breakout timeline as this
material accumulates. A U.S. decision to end sanctions waivers that allow Iran
to import 20 percent-enriched fuel for its research reactor would make
it easy for Tehran publicly to justify higher enrichment.
Some of these steps are more
concerning than others, but none would indicate a breakout, and they do not
suggest that the world is facing an imminent Iranian nuclear weapons threat.
Indeed, unless Iran starts to curb IAEA access, which in and of itself would be
a major concern, all of these measures will be done in full view of inspectors,
which is exactly how Iran wants it. There is time to resolve the crisis
diplomatically before using military force. A year was judged to be a
reasonable but not necessarily minimum amount of time to do so. Indeed, prior
to the JCPOA, Iran only needed a few months to produce a bomb’s worth of
material. Even then, the United States determined that it could stop an Iranian
breakout with the use of force if necessary.
An Ambiguous Redline
Second, for this redline to work,
Iran would have to know when it is nearing that threshold so that if it wants,
it can refrain from doing so. Because Iran possessed a large LEU stockpile, not
to mention its near 20 percent-enriched uranium, for many years prior to the
JCPOA, Iran may not perceive its renewed possession of this material as now
representing a casus belli for Washington. In fact, Israel
even set a redline for Iran’s enrichment program that could be interpreted to
permit up to 200 kilograms of near 20 percent-enriched uranium, suggesting that
what Iran is presently doing is far below the Israeli threshold for action.
Moreover, breakout timelines are
based on a range of assumptions, and even among U.S. allies, there was some
ambiguity about those timelines as the JCPOA was negotiated. It is therefore
unlikely that Iran and the United States would have a common definition of
where that tipping point occurs. This presents a high risk of miscalculation.
Advocates of Trump’s redline approach
may believe that this works to the U.S. advantage: by laying out extreme
positions, Iran can be deterred from undertaking any nuclear expansion. This
view, however, ignores two facts. First, Iran will judge what is tolerable to
the West based on past experience, and higher levels and amounts of uranium may
not be seen as such. Second, Iran’s perspectives on U.S. deterrence are
informed by the full range of U.S. responses to Iranian behavior. With North
Korea and Iran, Trump has a history of issuing grand yet vague threats and then
not following through on them, a practice that is likely to undermine U.S.
credibility on this redline. In addition, Trump’s own attempt to walk back his
administration’s hawkish stance toward Iran in late April and early May with
respect to the deployment of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf has likely
confused the Iranians. Offers to restart negotiations on a more limited slate
of issues than U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “12 demands”—a list he
laid out in May 2018 for Iran to fulfill, including elimination of its nuclear
fuel cycle, severe restrictions on its missile program, and the end of its
relationships with Hezbollah and other proxies—probably have done likewise. It
certainly has led Iran to try to convince Trump that he is being manipulated
into conflict via the “B team,” a term Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has
used to describe those he says are war advocates, including Bolton, Emirati
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayad, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even in the likely event that this
ploy fails, the dynamic means that Iran is unsure as to where the president
stands in all of this. In such an atmosphere of confusion and ambiguity,
dangerous mistakes can be made by both sides.
Fewer Peaceful Options
Of course, Trump administration
officials and their advocates may stress that no one has mentioned the word
“force” in any official capacity and that this is a conclusion being
inappropriately drawn. Yet, the third problem with the redline approach being
articulated is that Trump administration actions have reduced the scope of
nonmilitary responses. Most options short of war have already been expended by
this administration and arguably are why this predicament exists in the first
place. This includes walking out of the JCPOA and reimposing and expanding
sanctions.
Some additional sanctions could be
imposed against Iran. Recent actions, such as designations of Iranian
petrochemical companies and sectoral sanctions targeting other activities, such
as Iran’s metal sector, may help U.S. sanctioners build momentum against Iran.
Their value as a deterrent to Iran increasing its nuclear activities, however,
is limited because the administration is already aggressively seeking to
eliminate Iranian oil exports and has implemented widespread financial
sanctions, which are far more damaging measures. If history is a guide, more
pressure will likely cause Iran to accelerate its program if there is no
realistic diplomatic off-ramp. At this point, Iran’s apparent calculus is that
there is little more that Washington can do to punish Tehran from pushing back
against the United States by rolling back its JCPOA commitments, at least in
part and in stages. Iran sees very little difference between the sanctions
pressure Washington is applying now and what more it could generate if Iran
builds up its nuclear program. Without this perception, Iran would not have
broken a year’s worth of restraint to act now.
The absence of specific and discrete
response options for enforcing the redline runs the risk of creating a hollow
commitment on the part of the United States. As the United States has learned
to its chagrin in recent years, unenforced redlines carry risks and
consequences. In this case, it would make it more difficult for the United
States to deter Iranian nuclear threats that really do matter in the future.
The United States would be ill advised to issue such pronouncements and fail to
make good on the promises inherent within them. This is why setting
appropriate, sober, and well-considered redlines, if redlines are set at all,
is so imperative.
A Bigger Risk Ignored
Finally, although what Iran is doing
to retaliate for the U.S. pressure campaign may ultimately create some breakout
risk, a redline focused on protecting a one-year breakout timeline focuses on
the wrong part of the problem. Iran’s most plausible and likely weapons
development scenario would involve a covert program rather than relying
exclusively on its known facilities and materials. Iran knows that IAEA
oversight, enhanced by the JCPOA, enables rapid detection of any major steps
toward breakout. Even if Iran is able to erode breakout time to the
two-to-three-month range that predates the JCPOA, this is still sufficient time
for the United States to detect and respond militarily, and Iran knows it.
For these reasons, the most important
step the United States can take to prevent moves toward a nuclear weapon using
the very facilities and materials about which Bolton is now concerned would be
to ensure the transparency and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program that the
JCPOA provides. These same transparency and monitoring tools that help detect a
breakout can give confidence that Iran is not presently in possession of covert
facilities and that they would be detected long before they can deliver a
nuclear weapon.
A Better Approach
The United States does need to
demonstrate its readiness to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. For
this reason, showing a willingness to use all the means of U.S. power,
including diplomacy, to prevent such an eventuality is reasonable and prudent.
Indeed, diplomacy is the only means that the United States has employed in the
last two decades that has proven capable of limiting Iran’s nuclear program to
a significant degree and for a sustained period of time.
Trump has repeatedly said that he
wants a better deal than the JCPOA. It is an ambition that people across the
political spectrum can endorse, but it seems unlikely that a significantly
better deal is available in the current climate. A better deal will not come
from issuing ill-founded redlines that increase the risk of miscalculation
while targeting the wrong threats. Rather, the Trump administration should
invest itself in developing a realistic negotiating agenda and getting back to
the table with Iran to avoid this crisis while it still can.
Eric
Brewer is a fellow
and deputy director of the Project on Nuclear Issues with the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He served a decade in the
U.S. intelligence community, including as deputy national intelligence officer
for weapons of mass destruction with the National Intelligence Council. Richard
Nephew is a senior research scholar with the Center on Global Energy
Policy at Columbia University. He has held positions at the Department of
Energy and Department of State and on the National Security Council.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.