Amid wars in Gaza and Ukraine, attacks on Red Sea shipping, tit-for-tat killings between Americans and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria and skirmishes across the Israel-Lebanon border, an issue that once galvanized the international community has receded into the background.
Yet Iran’s nuclear program is advancing largely unchecked, posing an additional potential flashpoint for a world already overloaded with crises.
According to the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world’s nuclear watchdog, Iran had amassed more than 5,000 kilograms of enriched uranium by the end of February 2024, of which more than 120 kilograms were enriched to 60 percent purity, perilously close to weapons’ grade. That is enough, if further enriched, to make several bombs. Under a 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran was allowed only 200 kilograms of uranium enriched below 5 percent until 2031 and its entire program was subject to unprecedented scrutiny by the IAEA. That deal fell apart after the Trump administration quit in 2018, while Iran was in full compliance. Iran waited a year before beginning to move beyond the JCPOA’s restrictions and has kept on going as efforts by the Biden administration, the European Union and others to restore the deal have faltered.
In September 2023, the U.S. and Iran did manage to reach an informal understanding on a series of disputes that slowed Iran’s accumulation of 60 percent uranium and also freed five U.S.-Iran dual nationals who were held in Iranian jails. In return, the U.S. eased enforcement of efforts to block Iranian oil exports and gave South Korea a green light to release $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues that had been frozen in South Korean banks because of U.S. sanctions. The money was transferred to banks in Qatar but has essentially been refrozen in the aftermath of the deadly attack by Hamas on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, and rising tension between the U.S. and other Iran-backed militant groups after Israel invaded Gaza.
The Gaza war pre-empted what was supposed to be a follow-on meeting in Oman in late October between Iranian officials and Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. McGurk did participate in indirect talks with Iran in Oman in January 2024, according to published accounts, but the main topic was to urge Iran to exert pressure on the Yemeni Houthis to halt their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. A second meeting in February was postponed as the Biden administration focused on getting an Israel-Hamas cease-fire and freeing Israeli hostages.
Non-proliferation experts are trying not to be distracted by the war and are scrambling for new ideas to avoid what some have called a binary choice between bombing Iran and Iran with a bomb.
Iranian officials insist that they are not seeking weapons and that the only thing that could provoke them to develop a bomb would be a U.S. or Israeli attack on the Iranian homeland. The latter appears unlikely now, but President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and has not excluded military action. Recent comments by a veteran Iranian nuclear expert, Ali Salehi, that Iran possesses “all the pieces” necessary for a bomb have heightened concerns.
With the window for progress under Biden’s first term closing, Iranian officials appear to be trying to increase their leverage in case Donald Trump returns to the White House. They also understand that Biden is reluctant to make significant concessions during an election year, having already been accused of “appeasement” over last year’s informal understanding.
Whoever wins, however, will have to confront the issue soon. The U.N. Security Council Resolution that enshrined the JCPOA expires in October 2025. After that, the only international constraint on Iran will be its promise, as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to continue to foreswear nuclear weapons, as well as a religious ruling or fatwa against developing weapons of mass destruction issued some time ago by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and widely discounted by Iran’s adversaries.
Given their bitter experience with the Trump withdrawal, Iranians have sought guarantees that any additional constraints they accept will have concrete benefits for Tehran that cannot be removed with the stroke of a pen. One idea is to allow Iran to hold onto a large quantity of 60 percent enriched uranium under IAEA supervision on Iranian soil, but that appears to be a non-starter unless Iran dramatically increases transparency about its program and restores some of the intrusive monitoring provided for under the JCPOA. This could entail restoring daily IAEA access to Iran’s main enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow as well as allowing inspections of manufacturing sites for centrifuges to guard against undetected diversion.
Iran could also finally resolve a dispute with the IAEA clarifying the source of uranium particles found at two sites undeclared to the agency. It could comply with its legal obligation to implement a modified Code 3.1, under which a country with a safeguards agreement with the IAEA must inform the agency as soon as it has made the decision to build a new nuclear facility, rather than six months before introducing nuclear material. If Iran wants to be able to continue as essentially a nuclear weapons threshold state without generating wider international opposition, greater accountability and transparency are a minimum requirement.
Another idea is to utilize Iran’s year-old restoration of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia to devise a regional deal that would compensate Iran with Arab investment in return for rolling back some of its nuclear advances. This could also include regional cooperation on civilian nuclear energy, especially the safety of nuclear facilities. With the Saudis eager to develop their own nuclear power and the United Arab Emirates about to bring a fourth power reactor online, such regional cooperation under the auspices of the IAEA might be a useful confidence-building step.
Like the rest of the world, Iran is trying to prepare itself for the possibility of a second Trump administration. Trump’s advisors have generally been very tough on Iran and vowed to ramp up their policy of so-called “maximum pressure.” However, the Saudis and Emiratis – who bore the brunt of Iran’s retaliation for Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA – may advise Trump to go in a different direction.
In campaigning for his first term, Trump vowed to ditch the JCPOA, which he called the “worst” deal ever negotiated. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try for an alternative so long as it isn’t called JCPOA 2.0 and offers the prospect of besting Biden and equaling Barack Obama by winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
Iranians might be reluctant to reward a man who ordered the assassination in 2020 of their most famous general, Qasem Soleimani. But if Trump fancies himself a master of the “art of the deal,” Iranians are practiced at handling friends and foes through the excessive flattery known as “taroof.” Their economy faltering and their government’s legitimacy in question, the Islamic Republic could use a diplomatic win.
Ultimately, there is no other way to contain Iran’s nuclear program except through diplomacy. No other path has succeeded, and a new military confrontation is the last thing a Middle East already in flames can afford.
Barbara Slavin is a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, where she directs the Middle East Perspectives project. She tweets @BarbaraSlavin1.
How to Prevent a Nuclear Crisis with Iran
By Barbara Slavin
Middle East & North Africa
Amid wars in Gaza and Ukraine, attacks on Red Sea shipping, tit-for-tat killings between Americans and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria and skirmishes across the Israel-Lebanon border, an issue that once galvanized the international community has receded into the background.
Yet Iran’s nuclear program is advancing largely unchecked, posing an additional potential flashpoint for a world already overloaded with crises.
According to the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world’s nuclear watchdog, Iran had amassed more than 5,000 kilograms of enriched uranium by the end of February 2024, of which more than 120 kilograms were enriched to 60 percent purity, perilously close to weapons’ grade. That is enough, if further enriched, to make several bombs. Under a 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran was allowed only 200 kilograms of uranium enriched below 5 percent until 2031 and its entire program was subject to unprecedented scrutiny by the IAEA. That deal fell apart after the Trump administration quit in 2018, while Iran was in full compliance. Iran waited a year before beginning to move beyond the JCPOA’s restrictions and has kept on going as efforts by the Biden administration, the European Union and others to restore the deal have faltered.
In September 2023, the U.S. and Iran did manage to reach an informal understanding on a series of disputes that slowed Iran’s accumulation of 60 percent uranium and also freed five U.S.-Iran dual nationals who were held in Iranian jails. In return, the U.S. eased enforcement of efforts to block Iranian oil exports and gave South Korea a green light to release $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues that had been frozen in South Korean banks because of U.S. sanctions. The money was transferred to banks in Qatar but has essentially been refrozen in the aftermath of the deadly attack by Hamas on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, and rising tension between the U.S. and other Iran-backed militant groups after Israel invaded Gaza.
The Gaza war pre-empted what was supposed to be a follow-on meeting in Oman in late October between Iranian officials and Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. McGurk did participate in indirect talks with Iran in Oman in January 2024, according to published accounts, but the main topic was to urge Iran to exert pressure on the Yemeni Houthis to halt their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. A second meeting in February was postponed as the Biden administration focused on getting an Israel-Hamas cease-fire and freeing Israeli hostages.
Non-proliferation experts are trying not to be distracted by the war and are scrambling for new ideas to avoid what some have called a binary choice between bombing Iran and Iran with a bomb.
Iranian officials insist that they are not seeking weapons and that the only thing that could provoke them to develop a bomb would be a U.S. or Israeli attack on the Iranian homeland. The latter appears unlikely now, but President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and has not excluded military action. Recent comments by a veteran Iranian nuclear expert, Ali Salehi, that Iran possesses “all the pieces” necessary for a bomb have heightened concerns.
With the window for progress under Biden’s first term closing, Iranian officials appear to be trying to increase their leverage in case Donald Trump returns to the White House. They also understand that Biden is reluctant to make significant concessions during an election year, having already been accused of “appeasement” over last year’s informal understanding.
Whoever wins, however, will have to confront the issue soon. The U.N. Security Council Resolution that enshrined the JCPOA expires in October 2025. After that, the only international constraint on Iran will be its promise, as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to continue to foreswear nuclear weapons, as well as a religious ruling or fatwa against developing weapons of mass destruction issued some time ago by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and widely discounted by Iran’s adversaries.
Given their bitter experience with the Trump withdrawal, Iranians have sought guarantees that any additional constraints they accept will have concrete benefits for Tehran that cannot be removed with the stroke of a pen. One idea is to allow Iran to hold onto a large quantity of 60 percent enriched uranium under IAEA supervision on Iranian soil, but that appears to be a non-starter unless Iran dramatically increases transparency about its program and restores some of the intrusive monitoring provided for under the JCPOA. This could entail restoring daily IAEA access to Iran’s main enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow as well as allowing inspections of manufacturing sites for centrifuges to guard against undetected diversion.
Iran could also finally resolve a dispute with the IAEA clarifying the source of uranium particles found at two sites undeclared to the agency. It could comply with its legal obligation to implement a modified Code 3.1, under which a country with a safeguards agreement with the IAEA must inform the agency as soon as it has made the decision to build a new nuclear facility, rather than six months before introducing nuclear material. If Iran wants to be able to continue as essentially a nuclear weapons threshold state without generating wider international opposition, greater accountability and transparency are a minimum requirement.
Another idea is to utilize Iran’s year-old restoration of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia to devise a regional deal that would compensate Iran with Arab investment in return for rolling back some of its nuclear advances. This could also include regional cooperation on civilian nuclear energy, especially the safety of nuclear facilities. With the Saudis eager to develop their own nuclear power and the United Arab Emirates about to bring a fourth power reactor online, such regional cooperation under the auspices of the IAEA might be a useful confidence-building step.
Like the rest of the world, Iran is trying to prepare itself for the possibility of a second Trump administration. Trump’s advisors have generally been very tough on Iran and vowed to ramp up their policy of so-called “maximum pressure.” However, the Saudis and Emiratis – who bore the brunt of Iran’s retaliation for Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA – may advise Trump to go in a different direction.
In campaigning for his first term, Trump vowed to ditch the JCPOA, which he called the “worst” deal ever negotiated. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try for an alternative so long as it isn’t called JCPOA 2.0 and offers the prospect of besting Biden and equaling Barack Obama by winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
Iranians might be reluctant to reward a man who ordered the assassination in 2020 of their most famous general, Qasem Soleimani. But if Trump fancies himself a master of the “art of the deal,” Iranians are practiced at handling friends and foes through the excessive flattery known as “taroof.” Their economy faltering and their government’s legitimacy in question, the Islamic Republic could use a diplomatic win.
Ultimately, there is no other way to contain Iran’s nuclear program except through diplomacy. No other path has succeeded, and a new military confrontation is the last thing a Middle East already in flames can afford.
Barbara Slavin is a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, where she directs the Middle East Perspectives project. She tweets @BarbaraSlavin1.
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