An Unhappy Birthday for the JCPOA, New Hopes for the Future with new President Pezeshkian
The 14th of July was meant to be an important milestone in nuclear history. On this date in 2015 at the Coburg Palace in Vienna, Iran and the superpowers signed the JCPOA. This was a unique agreement to limit nuclear weapons and prevent nuclear proliferation. Until the withdrawal of President Trump from the agreement, with the active encouragement of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in the spring of 2018 and the US steps to destroy the JCPOA, Iran had followed the Agreement to the letter. Proof of this can be found in 14 consecutive IAEA reports. This week marked a sad birthday for the JCPOA. This was the agreement that blocked the two paths to Iranian nuclear weapons, that of high level enriched uranium and that of plutonium. The agreement prevented the emergence of a new nuclear state in the Middle East. Israel, who is not a signatory to the NPT, was one of the main beneficiaries of the Agreement. For a detailed analysis of the advantages for Israel of the JCPOA and of Netanyahu’s strategic mistake that pushed for the dismantling of the Agreement see my article Requiem for the Iran Nuclear Deal.
The negative consequences of the dismantling of the JCPOA can be seen daily in the expansion and the acceleration of the Iranian stockpile of enriched uranium (6,200 kilograms according to the latest IAEA report) and the portion of 60% enriched uranium (142 kilograms). Iran is the only non nuclear weapons state in the world that enriches uranium to such a high level. But surprisingly, this week we also heard new tones on the nuclear issue from the new President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian. These were specific remarks with concrete content that go beyond general comments on wanting a “new page” with the US and the West. Such an accumulation of signs points to a new direction that cannot be ignored as “nothing new” by analysts following the Iranian issue. It is important to highlight the statements on the nuclear issue made by the Iranian president-elect who is the second highest official in the decision-making processes in Iran after the Supreme Leader. We are not talking about just another commentator or former senior official. I will therefore try to interpret the signs that passed under the Israeli radar. I will try to separate the true signals from the background noise to see if there are new directions being taken by the Iranians towards a new politico-diplomatic arrangement for the nuclear crisis.
President-elect Pezeshkian outlined Iran’s foreign policy goals in an article that appears in his name in the English language Teheran Times. Referring to the 2015 JCPOA, the President noted that Iran had entered it in good faith. He also emphasized the importance of the NPT. This comment seems to refer to the IAEA “open files” investigations and Rafael Grossi’s demand to provide satisfactory answers regarding traces of uranium that were found in two undeclared sites from the old nuclear weapons program that was closed in 2003 according to US intelligence (and in fact also by the nuclear archives smuggled out by the Israeli Mossad). According to the DNI Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, which binds the US President, Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and there are no weaponization activities for building a nuclear weapon. It should be emphasized that without reaching a solution to the traces of uranium at the old sites, an issue that touches on the core of the IAEA’s mandate, there cannot be a new nuclear agreement.
President Pezeshkian referred indirectly to public statements by former Iranian officials who recommended reassessing Iran’s nuclear doctrine and considering the possibility of developing nuclear weapons. The discourse on “Iran’s nuclear doctrine” gained wide ranging alarmist media coverage in Israel. The Iranian President chose to express himself succinctly on this issue “I wish to emphasize that Iran’s defense doctrine does not include nuclear weapons”. He preferred to describe the issue in rational-political terms of a security doctrine of conventional deterrence, and not by relying on the religious authority of a fatwa.
The accumulation of signs was also contributed to by the acting Iranian foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani
. In a Reuters interview, Ali Bagheri revealed the indirect secret talks between Iran and the US, via Oman, on the nuclear issue ahead of the new President’s entry into office. The foreign minister added that at this stage it is not possible to provide details on this confidential subject. In an interview to Newsweek, the foreign minister spoke of “restoring mutual participation in a nuclear deal”. The existence of secret back-channels shows us that both sides, Iran and the US, understand that a renewal of the old JCPOA is not feasible and that is a question of trying to find a new nuclear framework. Both sides understand that it is necessary to prevent nuclear escalation. That it is necessary to find a political-diplomatic agreement for the de-escalation of the Iranian nuclear crisis. It is worth noting that in this context, the Iranian foreign minister emphasized the importance of a multilateral approach, that is, the inclusion of additional states from the JCPOA and not to restrict it to the US-Iranian context alone.
In his Newsweek interview, the Iranian foreign minister also referred to his country’s public discourse regarding a change in its nuclear doctrine in the direction of developing nuclear weapons. He chose to emphasize the international instruments for nuclear non-proliferation: “Iran is an accountable and responsible member of the IAEA and signatory to the NPT. Iran will make use of all its potentials and capacities within the framework of the NPT and the Safeguards Agreement”. The Supreme Leader’s senior advisor on foreign affairs and security Kamal Kharrazi (who in the past had made hawkish comments on the nuclear issue) made clear in a Financial Times interview on the subject that his country was not building nuclear weapons, but that if Iran faced an existential threat ““naturally we [would] have to change our doctrine”.
There is an additional aspect to the reduction of tension in the Iranian nuclear doctrine issue. In parallel to his article in English, the Iranian President outlined his goals regarding Iran’s neighboring Arab countries in an Arab language article in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. Pezeshkian surprised by bringing back to the discussion the proposal to establish a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. The question is if this an attempt to breathe new life into the initiative for a Middle East NWFZ that Iran and Egypt tired to promote in international fora in the past? Does it hint at an Iranian demand to tie the renewal of negotiations with the US on a new nuclear agreement to a wide regional framework that would also include Israel? It is worth remembering that in the early days following the signing of the JCPOA in Vienna in the summer of 2015, the then foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote to the US and the western superpowers: we have done our bit, now it is your turn. Today Zarif plays a central role in the formulation of President elect Pezeshkian’s foreign policy.
The signs pointing to the possibility of a new nuclear agreement, as positive as they may be, are only initial indications. The central meaning that arises from them in the short term: signs from Iran at the highest level that are intended to reassure the US that they do not intend to withdraw from the NPT, or to expel the IAEA monitors. Iran does not want to resemble North Korea. But it will still require a huge investment in diplomatic resources on the part of the US and Iran. From the dismantling and limitation of Iran’s broad enrichment program, through the dangers of a military escalation between Israel and Hizballah, to talks in Israel of a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities which could result in direct Iranian involvement in a wider ranging regional war. And there are also internal political obstacles that derive from the weakness of the Biden administration in the months leading up to the Presidential elections.
But first and foremost, there are timetable pressures. There is not enough time to put together a new nuclear deal before the picture in the US becomes clearer. In the attempt to lower the flames and to prevent a deterioration of the nuclear issue, the US and Iran will have to take urgent intermediate steps. For example, stopping 60% uranium enrichment and the freezing of the current stockpile. And to respect the 2023 IAEA agreements between IAEA and Iran on increasing the number of monitors and the return of the cameras to the centrifuge sites.
Shemuel Meir is an independent Israeli strategic analyst. Graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a former IDF and Tel Aviv University researcher.