A historic deal with Iran?
VIENNA, Austria – Weary diplomats finally delivered an agreement on curbing Iran’s nuclear programs July 14 after 20 months of talks in this graceful European city, surrounded by blissfully oblivious tourists on their summer holidays.
Although the talks seemed on the verge of collapse two days earlier, the negotiators produced a 128-page agreement that supporters said will deny Iran a nuclear arsenal and critics said will at best defer the day the country will have one.
The United States, five other countries, and the European Union struck the bargain with the Islamic Republic after years of tension and rancor over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But it is not clear that it will mark the end of those tensions, as the agreement – which calls for the cessation in coming months of some punishing economic sanctions — sparked criticism from some of Iran’s neighbors, including Israel.
The painstakingly negotiated deal is the product of the efforts of both diplomats and engineers, combining the genteel language of treaties – it says for example that the purpose was to “ensure that Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful” – with the specifications of a technical paper.
It states, for example, the exact number of machines that Iran will be allowed to use to turn natural uranium into civilian nuclear reactor fuel at a key site — 5,060. It also lists in a voluminous index hundreds of Iranian companies scheduled to be exempted from sanctions under the deal.
The text warns that the provisions of the agreement are a unique, one-time-only deal with Iran, and “should not be considered as setting precedents for any other state.” But it nonetheless will amount to an international recognition – in an expected vote by the United Nations Security Council – that Iran has the right to produce nuclear materials that have aroused security concerns.
The White House website on Tuesday boasted that the pact was “a historic deal that will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” blocking all of Iran’s potential pathways to the bomb. But the deal was always intended to buy time rather than prevent any possibility of Iran ever achieving a capability to make a nuclear weapon, because the latter goal was seen as unrealistic.
The unspoken hope is that during the 10 to 15 year life of the agreement, the United States and other nations can settle at least some of their differences with Tehran. U.S. officials have said they don’t expect the current Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 75 years old and medically infirm, to be in power when the deal’s terms end. They also have said that Iran will lose some of its technical skills during the period of the agreement, while U.S. military capabilities and its knowledge of the Iranian program will both increase.
The Obama administration strenuously sought the pact, promising it would increase the amount of time Iran would need to make enough nuclear explosive material to build a single bomb from three months to one year. But some critics say that the deal would still give Iran a window to repudiate the agreement and race to the bomb, possibly before the rest of the world could react effectively.
At a press conference yesterday at the United Nations’ compound in eastern Vienna, Yukiya Amano, who is charged with implementing the deal as director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was peppered with questions from journalists asking if Iran could be trusted. While not directly answering these questions, he said he was “very pleased” with the deal.
Amano said Iran had agreed to help settle a major source of tension between Iran and the IAEA, by promising to answer outstanding questions about its past suspected nuclear weapons-related research. A report based on those answers is expected December 15.
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Copyright 2015 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
