‘We Have A Deal’: The Case For The Iran Nuclear Deal

Vineeth Jarabana, Staff Writer

October 1, 2021

“Do we have a deal,” then United States (U.S.) Secretary of State John Kerry asked. Iran’s then foreign minister Javad Zarif replied, “we have a deal.” With that exchange of words, the U.S. and Iran opened a new chapter in their historically strained bilateral relations by agreeing to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement that is often informally referred to as the Iran nuclear deal. Over six years after the deal was made, the JCPOA remains a significant diplomatic breakthrough of the 21st century as it strengthened American national security and supported long-term geopolitical stability across the globe.

During the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s, a revolutionary group of Iranian students held American diplomats hostage for well over a year resulting in the deterioration of bilateral relations. In the early 2000s, it would be revealed that Iran had various nuclear facilities working on activities like uranium enrichment, indicating that Iran was pursuing the development of its own nuclear weapons. After the international community pressured Iran to cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Iran would enter nuclear negotiations with countries like the U.S., Russia, France, Germany, China, and the United Kingdom. In 2015, in a culmination of years of negotiations, the U.S., Iran, and several other global powers agreed to the JCPOA, a multilateral agreement that involved Iran receiving limited sanctions relief in exchange for Iran placing verifiable restrictions on its nuclear program. In 2018, the Trump administration would unilaterally leave the JCPOA, resulting in Iran eventually violating the terms of the deal. 

Critics of the JCPOA contended that the agreement would have disastrous consequences like endangering the national security interests of the U.S. For example, some critics argued that the JCPOA did little to curb Iran’s nuclear program while also failing to address Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism and its ballistic missiles program. However, the JCPOA actually strengthened national security and was certainly more effective than the status quo of endlessly applying sanctions. Without the implementation of JCPOA, nuclear experts suggested that Iran would be a few months away from having enough materials to develop a nuclear bomb, a development that would have hampered the ability of the U.S. to address Iran’s other maligned behaviours such as its financial support for terrorism. The JCPOA significantly restricted Iran’s ability to carry out high levels of uranium enrichment, the development of weapons-grade plutonium, and the production of fissile material. To those who expressed concerns about Iran covertly violating the terms of the agreement, the JCPOA included provisions that allowed for robust monitoring and inspection of any post-JCPOA Iranian nuclear program. Through the JCPOA, the IAEA has the ability to inspect any sites that it deems to be suspicious. For example, if a new intelligence report came out indicating that Iran is violating the JCPOA, IAEA inspectors would be able to make a surprise inspection. Should Iran have been found in violation of the deal, the JCPOA also contained a “snapback” mechanism that allowed the U.S. to immediately re-impose sanctions on Iran, establishing a deterrent against Iranian non-compliance.

The JCPOA also promoted geopolitical stability by averting a potential armed conflict and leaving an opening for further diplomatic engagement between the U.S. and Iran. Preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has long been a shared goal of all of the different factions in American domestic politics. However, the main divisions emerged over how to achieve this goal: using military force, imposing sanctions, and pursuing a diplomatic agreement. Sanctions have proven to be ineffective, especially in the case of the Trump administration’s use of sanctions which ended up not having a tangible impact on Iran’s nuclear program. The JCPOA eliminated the need for a military-to-military conflict between the U.S. and Iran, a scenario in which the U.S. would have had to commit significant financial and military resources to yet another Middle East war. Another protracted conflict would also have resulted in mass civilian casualties. The JCPOA, representing a test of diplomacy, also opened the door for more direct diplomatic engagement between the U.S. and Iran. Despite their differences on certain issues, both countries could use the JCPOA as a launching pad to cooperate on shared priorities like defeating the Islamic State and curbing the regional heroin trade. 

As of September 2021, the Biden administration has entered indirect negotiations with Iran in hopes of convincing the Iranian government to begin complying with the JCPOA again in exchange for economic sanctions relief. While there have been some positive signs, the election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s president and a stalemate over specific sanctions has resulted in a lack of significant progress in either a return to the JCPOA or a new nuclear deal. Regardless of these numerous obstacles, it is essential that President Biden exhaust all the avenues of diplomacy in order to restore the JCPOA. Doing so would be in American national security interests and would also serve to safeguard the cause of peace.