The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement regarding the nuclear program of Iran. After years of delicate diplomacy and a final marathon negotiating session that persisted over the course of three weeks, foreign ministers from the U.S., Iran, Russia, China, U.K., France and Germany reached an agreement on July 14th 2015 in Vienna, Austria. At the time of negotiations Iran’s nuclear program was at a two to three month breakout time for a nuclear bomb, breakout time is the time it takes to enrich uranium to a weaponized state. Those both for and against the deal acknowledge the fact that an agreement with Iran was necessary. However, the outcome of the deal isn’t what anyone expected. It is important to note that the original diplomacy regarding Iran’s nuclear program was suppose to be a straight trade off; America and its allies would end nuclear related sanctions placed on Iran while Iran would end its domestic nuclear program (Satloff, “The Dangerous Iran Deal”). The final result of this agreement is far from the original plan of diplomacy. The current agreement not only lifts many of the international sanctions on Iran but the U.S. also agreed to pay Iran a massive 1.7 billion dollars in reparations due to the effectiveness of U.S. and international sanctions in isolating Iran from the world financial market. Although, the sanctions placed on Iran were in response to several U.N. Security Council violations ranging over a decade. The nuclear deal delivers a period of significant restraint over Iran’s nuclear program along with regular inspections and monitoring, but by 2023 the agreement will gradually allow Iran the capability to build enough nuclear infrastructure to reach an almost zero breakout time. Iran claims they only want to use their nuclear centrifuges for energy, however Iran was diligently working toward enriching weapons grade uranium prior to the signing of the deal. The regulations and restrictions within the deal allow Iran a considerable amount of leeway which presents the nation the opportunity to avoid fully cooperating with all terms of the agreement. One of the many pitfalls of the deal is the fact that the agreement rests on the loyalty of Iran, in that Iran must fully comply to all notions of the deal without any foul play. This is problematic because Iran has been known to go against their word in recent international agreements. Iran violated three international agreements between 2014 and 2015. Also, Iran has been caught violating NATO guidelines numerous times by funding terrorism, violating human rights laws, secretly attempting to build weapons of mass destruction, and many more atrocities. If Iran fails to fulfill their obligations agreed upon within the nuclear deal, the only consequence stated in the deal is a “snap back” provision. Which means that the tariffs placed on Iran prior to the deal would be snapped back on Iran, which brings us back to the same place we were before the negotiations. The snap back provision is the only consequence stated within the deal, therefore no matter the extent of the violation, the only consequence Iran will receive is the reintroduction of prior tariffs. This lone consequence leaves Iran in a position of power with not much to lose. Thus, increasing the appeal of violating the agreement. The current Prime Minister of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly spoken out about his hatred of western culture and more specifically his hatred of the United States and Israel (Rentschler 7).  Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon would pose a great threat to both the U.S. and Israel. President Trump has repeatedly said the he is going to “repeal and replace” the current deal but has yet to release any details of his vision for the new agreement. The current deal does succeed in slowing Iran’s nuclear progression in the short term if all goes right; yet the agreement ultimately fails to eliminate a nuclear threat in the future, therefore contradicting the main goal of the negotiations. The Iran deal is a poorly negotiated agreement that could potentially be dangerous for America and it’s allies. 

 The agreement states that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have regular access to all declared Iranian nuclear facilities. There are nineteen primary nuclear facilities declared within the deal that are entitled to continuous monitoring via surveillance equipment. However, not all Iranian facilities are declared accessible within the deal. The declared nuclear facilities are subject to inspections by the IAEA which vary depending on the individual facility, on average each facility is inspected about once every two months on dates previously agreed upon by Iran and the IAEA. Inspections are conducted by randomly selected citizens recruited by the IAEA who do not have specialized knowledge of nuclear science, and aren't suppose to. The deal states that no citizens from the U.S., UK, Germany, or France can be an inspector, most of the people selected will be from third world or developing countries.  Inspectors go through a six-month training process where they learn inspection techniques, how to use various instruments, and how to properly record the information that they attain. The inspection process includes counting material, weighing material, and measuring radiation levels within facilities. Inspectors observe the facility and see if anything has changed since their last visit and audit the books. In some cases inspectors will take samples of what they measure back to the IAEA base in Vienna for verification. Critics of the deal state that inspections aren’t intrusive or frequent enough. Why not have scientists with knowledge of nuclear power inspecting the facilities? A more knowledgeable inspector may notice something in a facility  that a randomly selected trainee would not. Also, allotting Iran with the power to know when inspectors are coming diminishes the transparency of the inspections by allowing Iran the ability to secretly store illicit nuclear material and move it from a site before the inspection date. 

All nuclear facilities and other Iranian facilities capable of housing nuclear material both declared and undeclared within the deal are subject to inspections given a twenty-four hour notice. This aspect of the deal is meant to give power to the IAEA, allowing quick access to any facility that is deemed suspicious by IAEA standards. However, Iran has the ability to either allow the IAEA access to the suspicious facility or deny access and propose alternatives to inspection that might satisfy the concerns of the IAEA. If the IAEA and Iran cannot reach an agreement within 24 hours, a process which may last a maximum of twenty-four days is triggered. Under this process, the IAEA and Iran have fourteen days to resolve the issue themselves. If an agreement has not been reached after fourteen days then the Joint Commission of the JCPOA (which includes all eight parties involved in the deal) will have one week to consider the evidence and intelligence which raised suspicion surrounding the facility and initiated the inspection request. By the end of the week a majority of the Joint Commission (at least five of the eight members) must inform Iran of the actions that they are required to take within the next three days. If Iran fails to comply with the proposed requirements within three days, the only consequence stated in the deal is the snap back provision which automatically reimposes international sanctions placed on Iran before the signing of the deal. The agreement includes a statement that says Iran considers reimposition of sanctions as an end of the deal, freeing them from all restrictions and commitments agreed upon within the deal. Therefore, the violation would have to be very significant for the Security Council to end the deal and reimpose sanctions. This gives Iran a considerable amount of power and leeway when it comes to small and mid-level violations, thus being a major pitfall of the deal. 

The JCPOA states that Iran must reduce its number of uranium enrichment centrifuges from 20,00 to 6,104. Of the 6,104 centrifuges to be kept, 1000 will be housed at the infamous Fordow facility. The Fordow facility is a nuclear fortress buried in a mountain and designed to withstand an aerial attack. Fordow is a declared nuclear site within the deal and will be open to inspections and surveillance. In December 2013, Obama stated that Iran had no need for the giant nuclear enrichment facility in Fordow (Zuckerman, “Over the Rainbow”). However, the nuclear agreement allows the facility to remain while also housing 1000 centrifuges. Iran states that the 1000 centrifuges housed at the Fordow facility are for “peaceful purposes” but prior to the deal the Fordow facility was one of the most efficient enrichment sites in working towards a bomb. There are numerous other facilities where these centrifuges could be house but Iran insisted that they be kept at Fordow, and we complied. Insisting that these centrifuges be kept in a mountain fortress raises suspicion of possible transgression by Iran. By allowing these centrifuges to be kept at Fordow, we give Iran the opportunity to violate the deal and still be able to securely house and operate 1000 centrifuges. Iran recently required advanced IR-8 centrifuges that enrich uranium twenty times faster than the older IR-1 models that Iran used in the past. If the deal were to be terminated for some reason then Iran would have unrestricted control over 1000 securely hidden centrifuges (most of which are IR-8 models). The possibility of this outcome poses a great concern to the U.N. Security Council because it would have no way to survey the facility and little knowledge of the enrichment level being reached behind the closed doors of Fordow.  

Under the current deal Iran is allowed to enrich uranium to no more than 3.67%, which is enough for civilian purposes such as power plants but much lower than the necessary enrichment level for a nuclear bomb (Peralta, “6 Things You Should Know”). It is important to note that the U.N. Security Council insisted for years that Iran end all uranium enrichment, the fact that this deal allows for enrichment to continue highlights a tremendous compromise made by the U.N. Within the agreement Iran is only allowed to enrich uranium to 3.67%, but if the deal were to be terminated for some reason then Iran would have no restrictions on enrichment and access to thousands of advanced centrifuges. In which the case the United States and the U.N. would have very little time to create and execute a strategy to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear bomb.

One of the major defects of the deal is that the success of the agreement rests solely on the loyalty of Iran. Iran must comply to all obligations stated within the deal in order for the accord to succeed in slowing Iran’s nuclear progression. Throughout the years, Iran has consistently proved themselves undeserving of trust. Iran has repeatedly been caught violating U.N. agreements regarding the funding of terrorism, human rights, detaining hostages, and attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The State Department’s annual report on global terrorist activity stated that Iran has, “remained the foremost sponsor of terrorism in 2015,  providing a range of support, including financial, training, and equipment, to groups around the world." (Browne, “State Department finds”). Iran’s continued sponsorship of terrorism leads me to wonder why we gave in to any of the demands of Iran, considering that the U.S. doesn't negotiate with terrorists or their supporters. The lifting of economic sanctions indirectly enables  Iran to continue and increase its support of terror groups, increased funding for terrorism correlates to a decrease in the safety of American citizens. One of the many human rights violations committed by Iran include the involvement of children in warfare. Iran has a disturbing history of exploiting children in warfare, most notably in their use of children to clear landmines during the Iran-Iraq war. In 2010, Iran signed a commitment to protect children from involvement in hostilities and armed forces. However, according to a Child Soldiers international report in 2012, children continue to be employed in Iran’s army and military forces (Totten, “Iran Recruits Child Soldiers - Again”). These are just a few of the numerous examples of Iran going against their word in international agreements, proving that Iran is not to be trusted.  

Since the signing of the deal, Iran has escalated its military involvement in Syria and continues to stoke the war in Yemen and the Shia-Sunni sectarian divisions in Iraq. Iran does all this contrary to the demands from the U.N. to end its military involvement in the countries stated above. Also since the signing of the deal, Iran has not only blatantly disregarded U.N. Security Council resolutions banning it from conducting ballistic missile tests, but they also captured, disarmed, and humiliated ten American soldiers who had mistakenly drifted into Iranian waters. Not to mention one of the ballistic missiles that were part of the illegal tests had the phrase “Israel should be wiped of the Earth” written on it in Hebrew (Wood, “As the Iran Deal Turns 1”).  Iran’s track record to date is full of unacceptable actions which have faced little to no consequences and Iran has given us no reason to think that their actions are going to change. Still, the U.S. and other members of the JCPOA chose to compromise on a less than satisfactory nuclear deal which rests on the loyalty of a notoriously deceitful nation.  

We are nearing the two year anniversary of the deal and German intelligence has already found evidence that Iran may have attempted to violate the agreement. The report from the German Intelligence Office found that despite the deal Iran has continued to covertly attempt to acquire large quantities of key elements used in centrifuge construction, such as carbon fiber (Browne, “German Intelligence:”). Iran did not inform the international community of its acquisition efforts despite its obligation to do so under the terms of the nuclear agreement. We are not even two years into the deal and Iran has already been caught cheating the agreement. Due to the severe effect of the snap back provision there is no way to punish Iran for its wrongdoings. With no consequences in place, Iran will continue to try and violate the compromise. 

As stated before, the original plan of diplomacy was to form an agreement in which Iran would dismantle its domestic nuclear program and end its enrichment of uranium. While the U.S. and it’s allies failed to negotiate the desired outcome of the deal, Iran received exactly what it wanted from the JCPOA; relief from economic sanctions in exchange for limited restraints on the Iranian nuclear program, plus an unexpected 1.7 billion dollars from the U.S. The current deal requires Iran to reduce its number of uranium enriching centrifuges from 20,000 to 6,104. This may seem like a large reduction but Iran recently acquired advanced IR-8 centrifuges which enrich uranium twenty times faster than the current IR-1 centrifuges, a majority of the 6,104 centrifuges to be kept are IR-8 models (Zuckerman, “Over the Rainbow”). With 6,104 centrifuges, ten years into the deal Iran will be at a twelve month breakout time while 15 years in Iran while be at a almost zero breakout time. This means that by the end of the deal Iran will have the capability to create a nuclear weapon, a stronger military and economy fueled by the lifted sanctions, and power over the middle east in the form of fear. This crucial time at the end of the deal will leave the U.S. in a situation with very few options of diplomacy. We will have to try and create a new deal to halt Iran’s imminent acquisition of a nuclear bomb. If Iran refuses to compromise then the U.S. and NATO will be forced into a situation where they must protect the best interest of all nations around the world and quickly agree on a strategy to freeze Iran’s nuclear assets, which could quite possibly result in military action.

 A nuclear Iran would give immense power to an untrustworthy nation lead by a radical ruler with a public Jhagad against Israel and outspoken hatred of America and its allies, it is imperative that we continue to deny Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he plans to “repeal and replace” the current deal but has yet to take any action towards changing the deal nor has he released any details about his vision for the revised agreement. The United States and the U.N. could have delayed negotiations further and let the sanctions continue to deplete Iran’s economy until they came to the table asking for a deal. Yet, the threat of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon was too iminate to wait and let the sanctions run their course. The main argument of those for the deal is that the agreement succeeds in slowing Iran’s nuclear progression. This is true in the short term if Iran complies to the deal but at the end of the compromise we will be right back where we started. This one-sided deal is the product of rushed negotiations, irresolute American diplomacy, and the inability to uphold demands during negotiations. The future of the deal is uncertain; assuming that President Trump stays true to his word, the deal will be repealed, renegotiated, and replaced with a new and hopefully improved compromise. A nuclear agreement with Iran is a necessity in order to contain Iran’s nuclear capability. However, the accords agreed upon within the JCPOA are too fragile and do not sufficiently limit Iran’s nuclear capability in the long run, while also giving Iran a dangerous amount of power with hollow consequence.   
