The most important foreign policy decision facing incoming U.S. President Joe Biden will be his position on Iran, in particular its ongoing nuclear program.
Biden has pledged to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal with Iran negotiated by Barack Obama in 2015.
Under the accord, signed that July with a group of countries known as the P5+1 – China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and the United States -- Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and allow visits by international inspectors in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.
Obama’s administration expressed confidence that the JCPOA would prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapons program in secret.
Iran had insisted that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful, but many in the international community remained doubtful about Tehran’s intentions.
Iran had two facilities, Natanz and Fordo, where uranium hexafluoride gas was fed into centrifuges to separate out the most fissile isotope, U-235.
Low-enriched uranium, which has a 3-4 per cent concentration of U-235, can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants. Weapons-grade uranium is 90 per cent enriched and it can be used to make reactor fuel, but also nuclear weapons.
Before July 2015, Iran had a large stockpile of enriched uranium and almost 20,000 centrifuges, enough to create eight to 10 bombs. Under the JCPOA, it was limited to installing no more than 5,060 of the oldest and least efficient centrifuges at Natanz until January 2026.
Under the deal, Iran gained access to more than $100 billion in assets frozen overseas and was able to resume selling oil on international markets and using the global financial system for trade.
Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, claiming the agreement was doing nothing to stop Tehran from moving forward with plans to gain nuclear military capability, withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018. Six months later, he reinstated all previous sanctions.
Biden has signalled his willingness for America to rejoin the nuclear deal and has offered Iran a “credible path back to diplomacy.” In an article entitled “Why America Must Lead Again,” published in the March/April 2020 issue of Foreign Affairs, he asserted that “the United States cannot be a credible voice while it is abandoning the deals it negotiated.”
Biden argued that Trump’s termination had prompted Tehran to jettison the nuclear limits established under the nuclear deal. “Tehran must return to strict compliance with the deal. If it does so, I would rejoin the agreement and use our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and extend it.”
But despite more than two years of Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure,” the Islamic Republic is closer to acquiring the technology needed for a nuclear weapon than ever. Iran has resumed some of its previously suspended nuclear-related activities and has continued, if not expanded, its missile program.
In its latest report issued mid-November, the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated that Iran was enriching uranium to a purity of up to 4.5 per cent, in violation of the threshold agreed to in 2015, at advanced centrifuges that it had installed underground at its Natanz site.
It also said Iran’s explanation for the presence of this nuclear material was “not credible.” Tehran’s explanation as to how and why these particles were found by agency inspectors at the site was unsatisfactory.
The report came out two weeks after Iran revealed an elaborate tunnel network for missiles that are probably capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran already has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East and such missiles are not covered by the JCPOA.
Is the Islamic Republic challenging the incoming Biden administration? Iran’s leaders have indicated that their own policies would not change based on the result of the American presidential election. On the contrary, they have demanded compensation for economic damages incurred because of the sanctions.
Tehran keeps moving forward with its nuclear program and blatantly violates all its commitments in the JCPOA, despite the growing economic hardships and other setbacks it has suffered. Even if the next administration does manage to reinstitute the JCPOA in some form, it will likely be a rather different accord.
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