Iran Nuclear Agreement

This book examines attempts to influence the outcome of the negotiations between Iran and the United States over Iran’s nuclear capabilities. In particular, it focuses on struggles within the United States around public and congressional opinion with regard to the accord. Trying to prevent a successful outcome to the talks became a cottage industry in Washington, with the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson being just one of those who were pouring millions of dollars into the effort. On the pro-diplomacy side, there were a wide range of religious, peace, and arms control groups with some financial support coming from the Ploughshares Fund trying to create the space for a negotiated agreement. The tactics of both sides of the debate are described and analyzed to show how a contentious foreign policy issue can become not just a decision for high-level government decision makers, but a wide-ranging fight that involves scores of nongovernmental organizations, the media, and thousands of activists.

The EU’s approach to Iran has emerged as one of the few successes of European foreign policy. Still, its role in international negotiations from 2003, as much as its broader approach to Iran, are generally poorly appreciated by policy-makers in Europe, the United States, and around the world. This book aims to explain the specifics of the EU’s approach to Iran, taking into account both the complexity of European foreign policy, in particular within transatlantic relations, and Iran’s (aspired) place in the international order. It informs the reader about the special negotiation format that included a number of world powers as well as multilateral bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Security Council. Furthermore, it provides an outlook on European post-nuclear deal strategies and offers conclusions on the effectiveness of Europe’s multilateral approach to foreign policy. By looking at the EU’s diplomatic activities towards Iran over more than a decade, the book focuses on Europe’s actorness in international politics. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners involved or interested in the European Union, Iran, U.S. foreign policy as well as Foreign and Security policy, including sanctions policy, and more broadly to European Politics, Middle East studies and international relations.

Entessar & Afrasiabi’s Iran Nuclear Negotiations (Rowman & Littlefied, October 2015) offered a thorough analysis of the negotiation process between Iran and the 5+1 great powers about its nuclear program. This book essentially builds upon it, focusing this time on the final nuclear agreement, the ensuing debates around it, and its global and regional ramifications especially in the Middle East. The first section analyzes the agreement through the prism of international relations theories, using a constructivist-critical theory approach. This is followed by an overview of the intense debates in Iran, the West, and other parts of the world, on the nuclear agreement and its various pros and cons, not to mention the connected, yet separate Iran-IAEA agreement. The second section covers Iran’s foreign policy and its various priorities, looking in particular at the impact of the nuclear deal on the country’s external relations and orientations, contextualized in terms of pre-existing issues and concerns and the profound influence of the nuclear agreement on the perceptions of Iranian power in the region and beyond. Iran’s relations with its Arab, Turkish, Russian, and other neighbors are discussed, focusing on both the direct and indirect impact of the nuclear agreement on these relations, especially the paradoxical implications of the nuclear deal with respect to the non-nuclear crises in the Middle East, such as the Syria-Iraq crisis, and the re-alignments that have put Iran at the crossroads of East and West. Other issues covered include energy security, regional economic cooperation, the endemic sectarianism highlighted by Iran-Saudi competition, and the deadlock on the Middle East peace process. The third section then examines the issue of a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone and the likely consequences of the Iran nuclear deal on this prospect, which, in turn, raises the issue of regional proliferation and counterproliferation. The last section explores some possible various scenarios and the challenges of implementation as a relatively long-term agreement, providing specific policy recommendations for the regional actors and the external powers that are stakeholders in the volatile Middle East.

In November 2013, a historic agreement on Iran’s nuclear program was reached between Iran and the world powers, raising the prospects for a long-term agreement that set the stage for normal relations between Iran and the West. This book provides readers with a comprehensive understanding of the agreement and the protracted process that preceded it.

In July 2015, eight parties – France, Germany and the United Kingdom, together with the European Union and China, Russia and the United States on the one side, and Iran on the other – adopted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. Under the agreement, Iran accepted limits to its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Hailed by some as a diplomatic achievement, detractors – both in the US and the Middle East – saw the deal as overly lenient. In May 2018, US President Donald Trump announced that the US would cease waiving sanctions and withdraw from the agreement. This Adelphi book assesses that Trump’s decision was a grave error. Like any multilateral agreement, the deal was not perfect, but Iran had been honouring its commitments. Drawing on a deep understanding of the non-proliferation regime and technical expertise, the authors trace the emergence of antipathy to the JCPOA and set out how many of the politicised criticisms of the accord are demonstrably incorrect. They argue that the little-known Procurement Channel – established by the JCPOA to give Iran a legitimate route to procure goods and services for its now-limited nuclear programme – has been an effective check on Iran’s illicit procurement of nuclear-related goods. Moreover, this book demonstrates that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes are not intrinsically linked, as not all Iranian missiles are designed to be nuclear-capable. While the deal endures for now, its survival will ultimately depend on Iran.

The Iran nuclear deal was a crowning moment of international diplomacy, allowing the world to step away from the edge of a self-created abyss. Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from this agreement threatens to return the world to that precipice. Dealbreaker recounts how this deal was made, why it was broken, and what the consequences of that action could be. When the United States made the decision in the 1980s to deny Iran access to nuclear technology, Iran was forced to turn to the black market to get the material, technology and know-how required to meet its need for nuclear power generation, inclusive of the ability to indigenously produce nuclear fuel. The revelation of Iran’s secret nuclear program in 2002 set in motion a battle of wills between the Iranians, who viewed nuclear power as their inherent right, and the rest of the world, who feared the proliferation implications of allowing Iran access to technology that could be used to make a nuclear weapon. The United States and its ally, Israel, pulled no punches, using diplomatic pressure to impose crippling economic sanctions, and covert activities to sow disinformation, sabotage equipment and murder Iranian nuclear scientists in an effort to stop the Iranian nuclear program from going forward. Iran prevailed, confronting the United States with the choice of either going to war, or accepting the reality of an Iranian nuclear program. The Iranian nuclear deal was the result. But the deal had an Achilles heel—the disinformation campaign waged by the United States and Israel to paint the Iranian program as military in nature left a residue of uncertainty and fear that the detractors of the deal used to attack it as little more than a sham. Donald Trump decried the Iranian nuclear deal as a “failed agreement” and promised to tear it up if he were elected President. Trump prevailed in the election, and ended up being as good as his word, pulling America out of the Iranian nuclear deal on May 12, 2018. Dealbreaker explores the nuances of the Iranian nuclear program, exposing the duplicity and hypocrisy of American diplomacy, supported by Israel and abetted by Europe, that led to the need for the Iranian nuclear deal and eventually caused the demise of an agreement that was simultaneously “the deal of the century” and fatally flawed.

On July 14, 2015, Iran and the six powers that have negotiated with Iran about its nuclear program since 2006 (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany--collectively known as the P5+1) finalized a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA is intended to ensure that Iran's nuclear program can be used for purely peaceful purposes, in exchange for a broad lifting of U.S., European Union (EU), and United Nations (U.N.) sanctions on Iran. The JCPOA largely reflects what was agreed in an April 2, 2015, framework for the accord. The agreement replaces a Joint Plan of Action (JPA) interim nuclear accord in operation since January 2014. This book examines the Iran Nuclear Agreement, and discusses Tehran's compliance with international obligations.