At a press conference in Vienna on 14 July 2015, European Union (EU) High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif announced that a deal had been reached in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the Permanent Five (P5) members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and Germany (P5 + 1). ‘Today is a historic day,’ they claimed. ‘It is a great honour for us to announce that we have reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue.’1 The news was indeed historic, and for non-proliferation watchers, the agreement had been a long time coming, although far from guaranteed given the many diplomatic bumps encountered along the way. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the result of a series of talks lasting almost two years. It was negotiated in the hope that it would set the path towards resolution of the decade-plus stalemate between Iran and the international community. Simply put, if the P5 + 1 and Iran implement the deal in good faith, it will roll back Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, place strict limits on the speed and scope of the country’s nuclear advancement for the next decade and defuse tensions around a long-standing regional and international security concern.
Even as the deal was announced, critics, notably in the USA and Israel but also in Iran itself, were clamouring to attack the agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described the deal as ‘a historic mistake for the world’, while in Washington, a series of prominent politicians denounced the agreement. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker wrote that ‘rather than end Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, over time this deal industrializes the programme of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism’.2 Republican Senator Tom Cotton was clear on his belief that the deal was a ‘terrible, dangerous mistake’, and long-standing Democrat member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez argued that the agreement simply did not go far enough: ‘At the end of the day, what we appear to have is a roll-back of sanctions and Iran only limiting its capability, but not dismantling it or rolling it back.’3 In Iran, hardliners also took to the media to voice their disapproval of the agreement. In hard-line newspaper Kayhan, an editorial penned by Hossein Shariatmadari noted, ‘A quick review of the text of the Vienna agreement shows clearly that some red lines have been ignored.’4 The Basij student organisation also released a statement a few days after the announcement of the Iran deal criticising certain key points, including the time frame for sanctions relief. The statement encouraged delayed adoption of the text, provided the group’s concerns were addressed.5
In the USA, these criticisms of the JCPOA signalled the start of two months of intense lobbying and political jockeying in Congress as Senators opposed to the agreement—primarily on the Republican side of the chamber—sought to gain support for a resolution of disapproval against the deal. Congressional wrangling over the deal followed a Senate resolution in May 2015 stating that any agreement with Iran would be subject to a 60-day review period in advance of a vote that would register approval or disapproval.6 Despite three separate Congressional votes, the deal’s opponents failed to gain the necessary support to advance the resolution of disapproval. The Democratic administration of President Barack Obama secured an important political and symbolic boost for the deal.
The media spectacle surrounding efforts to derail the JCPOA gripped international attention and offered yet another insight into the highly combative nature of domestic politics in the USA, particularly when it comes to debates over striking deals with long-term American adversaries like Iran. Indeed, as lobbying efforts to influence key legislators reached fever pitch on Iran just over a year out from the 2016 Presidential and Congressional elections, partisan politics seemed to overtake the nuclear issues at the heart of the debate. Yet this should not detract from the significance of the deal as concerns over Iran’s nuclear activities ranked high on the international agenda for nearly 15 years.
Ever since the 2002 public revelations regarding Iran’s undeclared nuclear facilities thrust the country’s nuclear programme under the spotlight, international diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear challenge have been driven by fears that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran’s insistence on pursuing an expansive enrichment programme that surpassed any credible justification for current civil requirements, the inability of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to confirm the peaceful nature of the programme and evidence strongly hinting at ‘possible military dimensions’ (PMD) to Iran’s past nuclear activities, all fuelled these fears.
For its part, of course, Iran vigorously protested claims that its nuclear programme seeks to surreptitiously advance weapons aspirations and rejected the legitimacy of UNSC resolutions demanding a halt to its most sensitive activities. Tehran maintained its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes and depicted Western attempts to hinder its progress as a form of ‘nuclear imperialism’ that impinged upon Iran’s sovereign rights, something that could not and would not be tolerated. Indeed, this is the nature of the stalemate that underpinned the Iranian nuclear challenge for nearly 13 years prior to the conclusion of the JCPOA. Throughout this period, the international community pressed Iran to roll back its nuclear programme. The UNSC, the EU and individual states such as the USA imposed an increasingly stringent sanctions architecture on Iran in an effort to influence Tehran’s decision-making on this front. But the Iranian government steadfastly refused to give way. In fact, it continued to advance its nuclear programme in spite of growing international pressure and the ever-looming threat of military intervention, particularly the sabre rattling from an Israeli Prime Minister vehemently opposed to the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Looking Beyond the Atom
There have of course been broader issues at stake too. The nuclear file cannot be viewed in isolation from the wider political strategic context that frames the Islamic Republic of Iran’s place and identity, both in the region and beyond. Forged in the crisis of the Iran–Iraq war during the 1980s, the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic ‘has long had concerns about survival in the face of external interference and intervention’.7 Certainly, no single event has had a greater shaping effect on the Islamic Republic than this war, a bitterly fought conflict that lasted almost a decade. Ray Takeyh notes that ‘the peculiar nature of that conflict, the lessons that it offered and the legacy that it left behind continue to condition the Islamic Republic’s policy towards its neighbour’, but in truth, this comment may be extended to Iran’s foreign policy more generally.8
Iranian political consciousness has also been conditioned by fears that date back over three decades regarding an American desire for regime change in Tehran. Before the 1979 Revolution, Washington enjoyed good relations with Tehran during the Shah’s reign. While this relationship was tested at times, both countries counted each other as allies. Following the fall of the Shah, however, ‘the two countries became bitter enemies and, in the course of 30 years, have suffered from each other’s actions and accumulated a long list of grievances’.9 From the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, to the proxy war with the USA in Lebanon in 1982, to US military support for Iraq during the war in the 1980s, to the shooting down of an Iranian passenger airplane in 1988, the Islamic Republic’s relationship with Washington has been fraught with difficulty from the outset. Little surprise, then, that from the late 1970s onwards, the Iranian government perceived the USA as a threat to the survival of the revolutionary regime.
The situation has been compounded by Iran’s relative isolation in a hostile regional neighbourhood. The Islamic Republic’s leaders are opposed to the Zionist regime perceived to be at the heart of power in Israel and regard the country as a subversive force, a ‘source of corruption which has settled in the hearts of the Islamic countries under the protection of foreign powers’.10 With its close links to the USA and its undeclared nuclear arsenal, Israel has long been portrayed as a threat—both to Iran and to the region more broadly—in official Iranian discourse. Anti-Israel rhetoric has been a powerful political tool deployed by the government to gain legitimacy and support among the Arab states of the region.
Elsewhere, Iran’s relations with Arab states have been marked by mutual suspicion, distrust and limited cooperation. Disputes revolve around issues of nationalism, resources and ideology. Iran’s relationship with key regional player Saudi Arabia, for example, is based on a deeply rooted rivalry stemming from aspirations to regional leadership on both sides of the Gulf, and the Sunni/Shia sectarian divide that separates the regimes. Beyond the Iran–Saudi Arabia dynamic, Iran has few friends among the smaller Gulf monarchies. An ongoing territorial dispute over the islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb along the Strait of Hormuz has poisoned Tehran’s relationship with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), while the establishment of US bases in Kuwait and Qatar, as well as a long-standing naval presence in Bahrain, has distanced these states from Iran.
Certainly, the situation is more complex than this brief explanation suggests; Iran has always maintained a working relationship with Qatar, for example, not least because of the shared North Field/South Pars gas field. Tehran has also enjoyed a good relationship with Muscat. Oman was, in fact, the country that facilitated the start of the last round of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme. Elsewhere, while the UAE has traditionally been a political ally of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s economic ties with the country, and the emirate of Dubai in particular, are not negligible. The UAE accounts for 80 % of Iran’s trade with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In 2011, trade between the two totalled USD 23 billion. On the whole, however, the Gulf neighbourhood is not a great source of amity for Iran.
For their part, Western powers—and particularly the USA—have viewed the theocratic government in Tehran with suspicion since its establishment in 1979. From the ardent desire to export the Islamic Revolution that characterised the early years of the Iranian Republic’s existence to its efforts to influence regional affairs through the sponsorship of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and its expanding influence in Iraq since the 2003 war that toppled the Saddam Hussein regime, post-revolutionary Iran has aspired to a regional and global role that has been perceived in the West as a threat to stability in an already volatile region. In this context, the 2002 revelations of undeclared nuclear facilities added fuel to fears that Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons. These developments seemed to confirm the threat posed by Iran, not just to the security of the region, but to international security more broadly.
Against this background, it is easy to see why the JCPOA provoked anticipation, excitement and controversy in equal measure. This landmark agreement seeks to put an end to years of political and diplomatic wrangling on the nuclear issue by setting out a detailed roadmap that clearly charts the path to a lasting solution. If successful, it should allay fears in many quarters, but clearly not all, regarding Tehran’s nuclear intentions and ease significantly the tension that has long surrounded Iran’s nuclear activities. More than this, the deal should rehabilitate Iran’s international reputation and facilitate the country’s re-engagement with the international political economy. The stakes for Iran and the region could not be higher.
Agreed in two stages, the JCPOA contains a number of notable provisions. Under the terms of the agreement, for example, Iran will dramatically limit the scope of its uranium enrichment programme based primarily on the gas centrifuge process. The number of installed centrifuges will be reduced by approximately two thirds, Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium will be reduced by over 90 % and enrichment will be capped at 3.67 % for some 15 years. Iran will also fundamentally redesign the Arak heavy water reactor in order to significantly reduce the risk it can pose as a source of plutonium. In his statement on the deal, President Obama was keen to emphasise the import of these measures: along with a rigorous inspection and verification regime, the limits imposed by the deal mean that, at declared nuclear facilities, ‘Iran will not produce the highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that form the raw materials necessary for a nuclear bomb’ for at least the next decade.11
In return, Iran will see all nuclear-related sanctions lifted in line with a mutually agreed schedule. This will free up billions of dollars in Iranian assets and facilitate Iran’s reintegration into the international political economy. The unprecedented international coalition around sanctions on Iran has had a crippling effect on the country’s economy. Sanctions relief will reverse this process and prise open what has been described as ‘one of the world’s last closed markets’—foreign ownership is currently less than 1 %.12
Understanding Iran’s Nuclear Behaviour
Clearly, implementation of and adherence to the JCPOA in the coming years will be the only real yardstick to measure the success of the deal. But there can be no doubt that the agreement signals the beginning of a new phase in the Iranian nuclear challenge. The agreement of the JCPOA constitutes a significant crossroads and provides a timely and valuable opportunity to reflect on the series of events that has brought us to this point, for Iran’s nuclear behaviour raises a host of questions that have not yet been satisfactorily addressed in the literature on this subject.
From the internationalisation of the Iranian nuclear challenge—at the point when details of Tehran’s questionable nuclear activity began to emerge publically in 2002—there has been no evidence that a specific Iranian political decision to acquire nuclear weapons has been taken in Iran. This said, plenty of evidence has come to light demonstrating that Tehran has gone beyond what it would strictly require for a civil nuclear programme based on energy production and scientific research. What, then, is the nature and significance of Iran’s nuclear behaviour? Does it form part of a coherent strategy and, if so, how might that strategy be characterised? Looking from the outside in, what can Iran’s actions in the nuclear field tell us about Tehran’s intentions? And what does the Iranian case teach us about proliferation beh...