One year later, disputes over whether Israel is safer
Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani said that Iran could restart parts of its nuclear program that were halted under a landmark deal one year ago if the international community does not keep its end of the bargain.
Speaking on State TV a day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the nuclear deal, Rouhani said the deal promotes peace and stability and that violating it “will harm everyone.” At the same time he said that Iran is “completely ready” and able to restore its nuclear program quickly if promises are not kept.
The deal, which Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sharply opposed, limited Tehran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of some economic sanctions. It was signed by Iran and the P5+1 group of powers (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US).
The international community has been closing watching Iran, which has carried out a series of ballistic missile tests. While they do not explicitly violate the nuclear deal, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said last week that the missile tests were not in the spirit of the deal. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi hit back sharply, saying that “Iran will strongly continue its missile program based on its own defense and national security calculations.”
In Washington, Congressional Republicans passed three bills that would expand existing sanctions, hinder Iran’s international financial transactions, and prevent the US from buying Iran’s heavy water. President Obama said he would veto all three bills because they would undermine the US’ ability to implement the Iran deal.
It is in Israel, where the implementation is being watched the most closely. Israelis are skeptical that Iran is really committed to giving up its nuclear program completely. Israel is concerned that the deal is not permanent – according to details published by the Us government, Iran’s uranium stockpile will be reduced by 98 percent to 660 pounds for the next 15 years. Iran will only be allowed to maintain just over 6100 centrifuges out of 20,000 that it currently possesses.
“There is very little in this agreement that remains in place permanently and that really matters,” Valerie Lincy of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control told The Media Line. “We are in a testing phase. You can see Iran trying to push the envelope, and we need to see what kind of enforcement reaction there will be.”
Lincy was speaking at a seminar organized by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University to mark the one-year anniversary of the deal.
Gideon Frank, the former head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Agency said that even if Iran complies fully with the deal, it could end up in a better position than it was before the agreement.
“The problem could reappear in 15 years with Iran in a much better economic situation,” Frank told The Media Line. “The problem is going to stay with us because Iran’s enrichment plans have no peaceful purpose. They are completely unnecessary.”
Some analysts say that the international community could have gotten a better deal.
“In 2013 the Iranian economy was 4 – 6 months away from economic collapse,” Mark Dubowitz, the Executive Director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an NGO which opposes the Iran deal, told The Media Line. “They worried there could be tens of millions of Iranians on the street across the country yelling, “Where is my paycheck?” The P5 had enormous economic and political leverage, and they squandered that leverage. We were in a strong position to reanimate those fears of a democratic revolution of blue collar workers.”
But others said they believed that the deal had improved the overall security situation, not only for Israel.
“Is it working? Yes,” Kelsey Davenport, of the Arms Control Association in Washington told The Media Line. “The number of centrifuges has been slashed. We have intrusive monitoring and verification mechanisms that provide us with a greater guarantee that if Iran cheats, we’ll detect it immediately.”