Understanding P5+1 Negotiations with Iran on its Nuclear Program And the Role Congress Plays

As the United States, Iran and the P5+1 reach a critical inflection point in the negotiations over Irans nuclear program, we have prepared the following brief to help answer some basic questions that we have encountered over the past week, particularly from members of Congress and their staffs. For more information, detail or follow-up questions, please contact us at: Iranproject@fcsny.org, or visit us online at www.theiranproject.org. 1) How much time do we have for a negotiated agreement? Is Iran using negotiations as a delaying tactic so that it can get closer to a nuclear weapon? Are they on the edge of breakout? Expectations for a quick agreement were unrealistic. Diplomacy is only beginning. More progress was made in 30 hours in Geneva of reaching a deal on limiting Irans nuclear program than in the past 30 years. According to US intelligence, Iran has not made any decision to build a nuclear weapon. The current Iranian leadership clearly has concluded that a more normal relationship with the West and the rest of the world, rather than being an economically isolated pariah, is more in Irans interests than having a nuclear weapon. The best way to ensure that this stays Iranian policy is to keep the current negotiating process on track. Even if Iran were to change its policy and try to build a bomb, it would be nowhere close to breakout. It has less that one bombs worth on 20% enriched uranium, and has been holding that number steady as it converts this material to reactor fuel. Any attempt to enrich this material further to bomb grade could take 1-3 months, and before that, international inspectors would quickly detect the effort. It would take at least 1-2 years beyond that to create and test a deliverable weapon. 2) If sanctions have been successful in getting Iran to the negotiating table thus far, why would we stop this successful strategy now? Wouldnt more sanctions now enable us to get a better deal? Added sanctions at this point will hurt, not help, the negotiations, and question the US seriousness to reach an agreement. Regardless of how much the economic pressure of sanctions may have contributed to Iranian leaders thinking in seeking an agreement, it does not follow that still more sanctions would somehow work even better. It is not sanctions that have brought Iran to the table, but rather the prospect of getting sanctions relief as part of a negotiated agreement. Adding more sanctions at this point, after the significant progress in Geneva, would be to take a diplomatic process that is moving forward and suddenly to throw it into reverse gear. International support for more sanctions at this time is lacking. If the U.S. Congress imposed more sanctions now, we should expect India, China, and others to ease their application of sanctions on Iranwithout trading such easing for any Iranian concessions. More sanctions now, when diplomacy is just beginning, would convince the Supreme Leader and other Iranian policy-makers that the United States is not interested in reaching an agreement, that its true objective is regime change, and that it is using negotiations only to stall while sanctions inflict additional economic damage on Iran. If Iranian leaders believe that they face nothing but continuing, or even increasing, sanctions no matter what they do at the negotiating table, then they have no incentive to make any more concessions. To the extent that other countries perceive, and oppose, U.S. interest in regime change, this perception will loosen the isolation of Iran. It is unrealistic to expect that by continually adding sanctions, we will eventually reach a point where the Iranians will cry uncle and give in to our demands. Some demands, such as a total halt to uranium enrichment (zero enrichment), would be politically infeasible for any Iranian leader to accept, no matter how much the Iranian economy might be suffering from sanctions.

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3) Wouldnt additional sanctions serve as an insurance policy to protect against a bad deal or an impasse in the negotiations? Good insurance policies do not undermine what they are supposed to insure, as added sanctions at this point would do with the negotiations. It would be a mistake to write off, in effect, a process that already has come very close to a preliminary agreement. What would this insurance buy? One always has to ask what the alternative to a negotiated agreement is. Endless sanctions and a lack of an agreement buy us nothing in the way of restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program. 4) Wouldnt giving the Iranians some sanctions relief before all necessary restrictions on their nuclear program are in place enable them to harden their position? Even worse, might that cause the whole international sanctions regime to unravel before we have a final deal? The type of relief that reportedly was incorporated in the draft agreement being discussed at Geneva was very modest. The great majority of the sanctions, including the basic ones involving oil and finance, would remain in place. Iran still would be feeling plenty of economic pain. Modest sanctions relief as part of a preliminary agreement would serve the important role of a confidence-building measure. What is needed at least as much as making the Iranians feel pain is to convince the Iranians that the United States is serious about negotiating a mutually acceptable agreement. If the international sanctions regime is so delicate as to be on the verge of unraveling, what we need to worry about most is that unraveling would begin with a perception in other countries that American, not Iranian, obstinacy is blocking an agreement. 5) Arent sanctions an alternative to war? Diplomacy is the alternative to war. If additional U.S. sanctions now would cause the diplomatic process to break down, then waror an Iranian nuclear weaponwould become more, not less, likely. There is neither international support nor a legal basis for going to war over the issue of uranium enrichment. If Israel wanted to end diplomacy and go to war over enrichment, then Iran would call that bluff and take the hit, knowing that an Israeli strike would unravel the sanctions regime. In those circumstances Iran probably also would expel international inspectors. 6) Is Freeze for freeze (Iran freezing its nuclear program, in exchange for a freeze on new sanctions) a reasonable deal? No. To demand that Iran cease an ongoing activity while our side ceases nothing and all existing sanctions remain in placeand continue to cause more damage to the Iranian economy clearly would not be an equitable deal, and there is no way the Iranians would regard it as such. We are going to have to give something to get something. 7) Is Irans agreement with the IAEA significant? Isnt it just a vague set of promises? While the language on timing may have been vague, this agreement demonstrates Irans willingness to accept additional inspection and monitoring arrangements that go beyond what are required under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. It also is significant that Iran went ahead with this agreement with the IAEA despite the failure to strike a deal with the P5+1 at Geneva. 8) Is Iran developing a covert nuclear weapons capacity? How do we know what we do not know? No intelligence, Israeli or American, believes there are still undiscovered sites. We would know about any by now. We became aware of the most important Iranian nuclear facilities, including the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo, well before they were put into operation.

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Again, the most important question is to compare a negotiated agreement with the absence of an agreement. Any risk of covert facilities is no greater with an agreement than without one. An agreement would increase the on-site inspection and monitoring of Iranian nuclear activities.

9) Iran has been lying for years. What should make us believe them now? What has changed? They still support Hezbollah, threaten Israel, are promoting Assad etc. It would be a mistake to believe Iranian policies and behavior are unchanging. The election of President Rouhani, and his connection to the Supreme Leader, represent an unprecedented change. The cabinet that Rouhani has appointed, including many educated in the US, is a clear signal of change. A negotiated agreement will not require a leap of faith in Iranian honesty or good will. Iran will have to deliver on its end of a deal as the P5+1 deliver on their end. Everything to which Iran commits itself regarding its nuclear activities will be subject to enhanced monitoring and inspection. 10) What was being offered required of Iran in the proposed deal on the table at Geneva? Would that be enough to stop the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon? Only a preliminary agreement, not a final deal, was on the table at Geneva. Neither side would be getting all or even most of what it wants in such an agreement. What Iran reportedly was willing to offer in even a preliminary agreement, however, was substantialespecially an end to enrichment of uranium to 20 percent. This is one of the most important steps in keeping Iran away from any production of weapons grade fissile material. Whether or not a two-phase approach was or is wise, it is the framework agreed to by the P5+1 and Iran. It is tempting to try to pull final-phase objectives into the first phase, while telling Iran to wait for the final phase to get major sanctions relief. This is what France tried to do at Geneva. But we should not be surprised when Iran responds by saying no or by insisting that it should get more of what it wants in the first phase, too. 11) What happened at the end of this last round of talks in Geneva? Did Iran walk out, indicating that they are not serious about striking a deal? Contrary to some assertions, Iran did not walk out or "blow up" the talks. The demand from the P-5+1 changed after an agreement had nearly been reached; the Iranian team then needed to go back to Tehran to see if they can have more chips to stay in the poker game. The French, who made the new demands, have long had an issue with the structure of the talks, wanting to make them more robust in the initial phase. More specifically, they wanted the initial deal to include an agreement on limiting development on Irans heavy water reactor near Arak, which could eventually produce plutonium, another fissile material capable of being used in a nuclear weapon. Arak, which Iran claims is to be used for medical isotopes, will need to be fully addressed in the final deal. Construction at Arak has been perpetually delayed, and the Iranians will not be able to use the facility until at least 2014. Most importantly, Iran has no reprocessing facility, which means it has no capacity to extract plutonium for a weapon. One possibility for a final agreement is that Iran gets foreign assistance to convert the reactor from heavy water to light water, which would not pose the same worry regarding plutonium.

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