How the nuclear deal aims to keep Iran from cheating
WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations, world powers on Tuesday announced an accord with Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program that, according to the deal’s most ardent supporters and detractors, may either pave the way for a historic rapprochement between the Islamic Republic and the West or enable the Iranian leadership to pursue its destabilizing agendas in the Middle East unchecked.
The more likely prospect, as most of the deal’s proponents seem to realize, is something in between. The deal, they argue, is the most practical solution to a vexing geopolitical challenge.
It places the nuclear program of a regime few trust under strict, verifiable controls, and averts the likelihood of yet another military escalation in an already-fractious region.
The focus now shifts to implementation of the agreement, which faces political obstacles in Washington and, to a lesser extent, Tehran.
Questions remain about how ironclad the provisions of the agreement will be in ensuring that Iran does not cheat, or breach any of the terms of the deal. There will be a lot of political debate about this in weeks ahead, but on Tuesday, it seemed a good number of Western nonproliferation advocates and arms control experts were satisfied with the Vienna agreement.
That included Thomas Shea, a veteran former inspector with the IAEA, the U.N.‘s atomic agency, who oversaw the design and implementation of safeguards for the world’s evolving nuclear facilities.
“This is a stunning accomplishment,” Mr. Shea, now a Vienna-based consultant, said in an interview. “I’ve been a part of this business for 40 years at this point, and I’ve never seen anything that begins to approach the comprehensiveness of this agreement.”
The terms of the deal force Iran to dramatically reduce its number of centrifuges — devices used to enrich uranium gas into more fissile material — as well as its stockpile of enriched uranium, and commit to long-term restrictions on the nature of the work that can be carried out in its nuclear facilities. But what if Iran doesn’t abide by the terms of the agreement?
The IAEA, Mr. Shea said, has since its inception been “preparing for the role” of monitoring this sort of deal, and will be routinely flying in teams of inspectors to verify Iran’s continued adherence to the provisions of a final agreement. The deal clinched in Vienna ensures that the IAEA has round-the-clock access to Iran’s nuclear facilities and is allowed to maintain state-of-the-art sensors, cameras and other surveillance equipment on site.
The expectation of some for “anywhere, anytime inspections” on Iran’s facilities, Mr. Shea said, is something of a misnomer, given that it has hardly been common verification practice in the past. It also appears that the Iranians have backed down from an earlier position of refusing inspections of their sensitive military sites.
Once the IEAA submits a request to Iran to visit an “undeclared” facility, the IAEA and Iran will have 14 days to agree on access terms. If the agency’s concerns are not met within that period, a joint commission made up of the seven negotiating countries — Iran and the United States and its partners — plus the European Union, will have up to seven days to review the dispute and decide what Iran needs to do.
Only five of the eight members need to agree, effectively ensuring that Iran, Russia and China cannot prevail if they vote together. Iran then has three days to implement the decision. If it does not, “then we can begin snapback” of sanctions, a U.S. administration official said.
The process may seem cumbersome, and another former IAEA official has expressed concerns over the days it may take to wrangle permission for access. But the IAEA, Mr. Shea argued, with logistical help from other member states, is well positioned to detect whether Iran is in breach of its commitments or conducting clandestine work on a nuclear weapon.
It has learned from its shortcomings in the 1990s, when regimes in North Korea and Iraq exposed weaknesses in the U.N. agency’s safeguards and protocols. It commands a wide spectrum of tools — from highly sophisticated commercial satellite technology to infrared and radar imaging to its own laboratories, where tests of environmental samples can be carried out — that can be brought to bear. “There’s no comparison between the technologies available now and those 20 years ago,” Mr. Shea said.
Combined with the likely cooperation of foreign intelligence organizations with the IAEA, the scrutiny on Iran would be difficult for the regime to hide construction of another subterranean nuclear facility such as the Fordow enrichment plant, which is perched beneath a mountain near the holy city of Qom.