A Good Deal Worth Protecting

IN APRIL, eight nations, including Iran, announced an agreement for addressing Iran’s controversial nuclear activities. The Iran Nuclear Framework, supported by many Christian leaders in the U.S., is seen as an opportunity to “dramatically restrain the capacity of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.” It could be one of the most significant nonproliferation achievements in history.

The proposed agreement significantly reduces Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium, closes the plutonium path to weapons capacity, and greatly increases international monitoring and verification of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It allows for lifting sanctions against Iran and opens the door to the possibility of improved bilateral relations.

The multiyear agreement sharply curtails Iran’s enrichment program. Iran has agreed to reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges, from about 19,000 today to 6,104 under the deal. And Iran has agreed not to build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years.

The agreement calls for redesigning Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor (so it does not produce weapons-grade plutonium), removing spent fuel from Iran, and banning reprocessing. Iran will ship all of its spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the reactor’s lifetime. And Iran has committed indefinitely to not conduct reprocessing or reprocessing research and development on spent nuclear fuel.

THE AGREEMENT MANDATES intrusive international inspections, with unique provisions for prolonged transparency and accountancy measures. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities and will install the most up-to-date, modern remote monitoring technologies.

Inspectors will have access to uranium mines and continuous surveillance at uranium mills for 25 years. Iran will be required to grant the IAEA access to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country. The U.S. says that IAEA inspectors will have access “anywhere in the country” to investigate suspicious nuclear activities. Iran says that the agreed provisions for onsite inspection and rigorous monitoring do not apply to active military bases.

The agreement will enable Iran to re-engage with the West economically and diplomatically—and this is the most politically contentious part of the plan. Iran and the U.S. have different interpretations of what re-engagement looks like.

Another point of contention is around sanctions. The White House states that U.S. and European Union nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps—and the U.S. emphasizes that the sanctions can snap back into place if Iran fails to comply. Iran has demanded the immediate lifting of sanctions when the final agreement is signed. The White House also says that U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles are not part of the deal and will remain in place.

The timing and substance of sanctions relief has been and will continue to be hotly debated. A compromise will be needed that allows for substantive sanctions relief early in the process, as an inducement for Iranian cooperation, while the U.S. and its partners retain a capacity to reimpose sanctions if Iran violates the agreement. In successful nuclear nonproliferation agreements achieved in other cases—Libya, North Korea, Ukraine, and South Africa—incentives have been essential to achieving nonproliferation compliance. Sanctions can be effective in bringing parties to the bargaining table, but sanctions relief is necessary as an incentive to gain compliance with the resulting terms.

An overly aggressive policy of delaying sanctions relief and maintaining or increasing sanctions pressure could undermine the agreement and strengthen the hand of hardline anti-Western political and military elements in Iran. If the international coalition collapses, the U.S. will be blamed and diplomatic options for preventing proliferation in Iran could collapse.

The framework does not resolve all the uncertainties of the Iranian nuclear program, but it goes further and imposes more far-reaching nuclear reductions than many experts anticipated or even thought possible. It enhances international security and reduces the nuclear threat to Israel. This deal is a big win for the United States and also will benefit Iran as it complies with the terms and re-engages with the international community. As Christian leaders said in their statement of support for the agreement: Hope, but verify.