CAN BIDEN SIMPLY REJOIN THE DEAL WITH IRAN?

BY ABRAHAM WAGNER

One of the most pressing problems facing the Biden administration will be dealing with Iran, where progress toward nuclear weapons, development of advanced ballistic missiles, and Iranian support to terrorists are issues that cannot be avoided.

As presumed President-elect Joe Biden has insisted, his goal is to prevent Iran from getting the nuclear weapons, and he admits that some changes would be needed. Things have changed greatly since 2015.

Yet simply returning to the 2015 agreement guarantees that Iran will develop a nuclear arsenal and the missiles to deliver them. Iran would be free to build nuclear weapons in 2025, according to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which lacked an effective enforcement mechanism. U.N. inspectors sent to ensure Iranian compliance were only permitted to enter civilian sites, and Iran has refused access to military sites—a situation that rendered the inspection regime a joke.

Recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium is now 12 times the level permitted under the JCPOA, while more centrifuges are being added to speed enrichment. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif said that Iran would revert to the 2015 limits if the new Biden administration returned to the deal, with “no negotiations and needs no conditions.”

Given Iran’s history, such pronouncements are not credible. A trove of Iranian documents taken by the Israeli Mossad from Tehran detail Iran’s nuclear weapons program from the outset. Other intelligence shows the continued production of fissile material, assembly of a nuclear weapon, weapons testing areas, as well as ballistic missiles for a nuclear attack.

In any new negotiation, the United states must avoid alienating Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States in the process.

Proponents of the JCPOA argue that it was the best agreement that could be achieved at the time and believe that this flawed agreement was better than no agreement at all. Others believe that the Obama team was “taken” by the Iranians. At best, the JCPOA pushed the Iranian program down the road several years and required the lifting of sanctions as well as a massive planeload of cash sent to Iran—kept secret from the U.S. people.

Evidence now shows the JCPOA was violated by Iran, as inspections of military facilities were off limits, and the billions in U.S. cash was given by the Iranians to terrorists who then killed Americans and other allies.

For its part Iran has been hoping to wait out Mr. Trump’s presidency. Foreign Minister Zarif has been signaling firmness along with a willingness to revive diplomacy with the new Biden administration. Iranian President Rouhani has been urging the incoming Biden administration to return to the 2015 agreement if the United States “pays” for its mistakes since withdrawing.

Doubtless there is some confusion in Iran, still reeling from the recent prospect of a U.S. strike in the final days of the Trump administration and the assassination of a key figure in the nuclear weapons program, but it is clear that they seek a return to an accord which paved the way for Iran becoming a legitimized nuclear state.

Certainly, the Biden team will initiate negotiations with Iran, hopefully encompassing nuclear weapons as well as Iranian support for terrorist operations threatening Israel and regional Arab states. The Biden team named so far are experienced people and will be operating with far more information and intelligence than the earlier negotiations.

At the same time, they cannot discount the facts that Iran has lied about the program from the outset, broken the earlier agreement on the production of enriched uranium, avoided inspection of nuclear facilities on military bases, and used U.S. supplied cash to support terrorists.

Any new negotiations must accomplish the following:

• Any new agreement must be transparent—no more secret side agreements or planeloads of cash. If it’s OK for the “death to America” mullahs to know about it, then the American people should know as well.

• A new agreement should have Senate approval. If Mr. Biden cannot convince a Senate majority that the deal is good for the United States, it probably isn’t.

• Uranium enrichment to a level needed for nuclear weapons should be prohibited—not deferred. Kicking this can down the road is not acceptable. Existing stockpiles of enriched uranium should be destroyed or moved under inspection. Plutonium production, for another type of nuclear weapon, and not often discussed, should also be prohibited.

• The IAEA inspection regime must be capable of enforcement and must cover all suspected facilities. The charade of Iranian military bases being “off limits” is not acceptable.

• Development and production of advanced ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons must stop.

• Iran needs to cease the wholesale support of terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and others that threaten U.S. allies and personnel in Middle Eastern states.

Iran’s negotiators will likely balk at most of these conditions at first. Facing crippling sanctions, a tanking economy, and a growing mass of information about their program, however, they may come around in good time. They are also reportedly facing ongoing covert operations by Israel, which continue to target the program in terms of the technology, key personnel, and facilities.

The Iranian leadership appears excited about the prospect of resurrecting the nuclear deal and hopeful that current sanctions against Iran will be lifted so that they can join the global financial system. They cannot, however, buy a blank check to advance aggressive and fundamentalist policies across the Middle East as they did after the earlier agreement.

The Biden team is aware of how Israel and pro-U.S. Arab states feel about any new agreement and the Iranian threat to the region. In any new negotiation, the United States must avoid alienating Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States in the process. While Israel opposed the 2015 agreement, it has been consistent in its view that a nuclear-armed Iran—at any time in the future—is not acceptable and that it will act to prevent this.

The Biden team will be looking closely at Iran and hopefully formulating a policy consistent with current technical and geopolitical realities. A new agreement as outlined above should be strongly supported across the political spectrum, as a nuclear-armed Iran is in nobody’s interest. This time, U.S. negotiators need to press for an accord that assures the right outcome. Here, they will be in a far better position and do not need to settle for anything less.

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Abraham Wagner is a Pacific Council member who has served in several national security positions, including the NSC Staff under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

This article was originally published by the Washington Times.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.