The final nuclear deal will permanently improve the international community’s capability to verify Iran’s activities, according to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — is built upon a foundation of deep nuclear science and technology in both limiting Iran’s nuclear program and introducing necessary verification measures,” he wrote in a new article. From February to July, Moniz played a key role in the negotiations between Iran and the world's six major powers. The following are excerpts from his piece on Medium.com.
The Iran Nuclear Deal
Here’s the top line. With the agreement, there will be an extensive and extended rollback for 15 years of Iranian nuclear activities with a permanent improvement in verification capability by the international community. This is the fundamental architecture of the agreement. This would also include unique verification options for 25 years that could become the basis for the strengthened global nonproliferation verification regime highlighted earlier in the support letter from the scientific community.
Without the agreement, the Iranian nuclear program is likely to go right back to a rapid expansion and, without a strong verification program, the nuclear weapons concern will be magnified.
With the agreement, the international unity that was so critical for both sanctions effectiveness and the negotiation process will be preserved.
Without the agreement, international unity, which arose from the shared commitment to bring Iran to the negotiating table, will likely unravel, along with economic sanctions. American leadership on global issues will suffer.
With the agreement, Iran’s commitment within the JCPOA is to never acquire or develop nuclear weapons or to engage in the development of key nuclear weaponization capabilities — a feature highlighted in the scientists’ letter as unique.
Without the agreement, the world will have far less insight into possible covert weaponization activities.
With the agreement, reprocessing activities that could lead to plutonium separation will not be pursued — without it, they will not be proscribed.
With the agreement, the scope and scale of the Iranian nuclear program will be rolled back in multiple dimensions. Not only will the number of centrifuges engaged in enrichment be scaled back very substantially, but the stockpile of enriched uranium will be reduced by 98 percent for 15 years. This alone accounts for a significant extension of the time to reach a weapon-equivalent of highly enriched uranium should Iran decide to “break out” through uranium enrichment.
With the agreement, Iran’s potential “plutonium factory”, the Arak reactor, will be redesigned to allow effective peaceful uses but not rapid accumulation of plutonium suitable for weapons. All the plutonium-bearing spent fuel for the lifetime of the Arak reactor will be removed from Iran, greatly complicating any Iranian attempts to make nuclear weapons from plutonium. These uranium and plutonium measures underscore the statement of U.S. military leaders that this agreement is more effective than military action in pulling Iran back from the nuclear weapons threshold over a significant period.
Without the agreement, Iran will likely resume expansion of its enrichment program and buildup of huge stocks of enriched uranium, and the Arak reactor will be completed as now designed, providing a potential plutonium pathway to a bomb.
With the agreement, significant verification measures are put in place, including daily access to Iran’s major nuclear facilities for international inspectors. Most important, the Additional Protocol that allows inspector access to suspicious sites anywhere will be permanently followed by Iran and supplemented with special measures for as long as 25 years.
Two unique measures in the agreement are a fixed time frame for providing access to suspicious sites and full uranium supply chain surveillance. These provide a very significant deterrence value against cheating, since the odds of getting caught — with the concomitant strong response from the international community — are raised substantially. The sanctions regime has already shown Iran the severe consequences of not following their Nonproliferation Treaty obligations, and the stakes are raised substantially with the JCPOA.
Without the agreement, all of these verification benefits would be sacrificed.
Our Director of National Intelligence General Clapper has stated that, while there can never be 100% certitude in detecting any particular covert activity, the intelligence community will gain much greater visibility into the Iranian nuclear program with the JCPOA.
Although future Iranian behavior is most important, resolution of possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s previous activities, up to 2003, has attracted attention. It should be emphasized that the IAEA has already done substantial work on PMD. The JCPOA achieves the objective of requiring Iran to promptly cooperate with the IAEA so that the IAEA can finally finish the job, in particular through access to the military site Parchin. The U.S. intelligence community and the IAEA have already published reports that identify Iranian activity associated with nuclear weapons technologies up to 2003, but completing the PMD report is viewed as important for the integrity of the IAEA process going forward.
With the agreement, Iran and the IAEA developed the protocol for Parchin inspection, a site that has been visited previously by the IAEA. This protocol by standard practice is confidential between the country and the IAEA; indeed the confidentiality ultimately is to the benefit of all countries, including the United States. Terming this protocol a “secret side agreement” is a severe distortion and serves no legitimate purpose. The IAEA has a strong self-interest in assuring the integrity of the inspection process and producing a complete PMD report in December for the Board of Governors, which includes the United States.
Director General Amano has rightfully objected to characterizations that Iran will “self-inspect”. He has been clear that the negotiated procedure for Parchin inspection, specifically designed for closing out the existing PMD issue, does not compromise the integrity of the safeguards system. Given available information, a “red team” of DOE national laboratory experts that I convened supported the integrity of the protocol.
With the agreement, the international unity exhibited in the P5+1 negotiations and in the application of economic sanctions has extraordinary value in looking forward to implementation of the JCPOA and denial of any Iranian aspirations to a nuclear weapons program.
Without the agreement, the loss of this unity would weaken U.S. moral authority and collective backing for any response — diplomatic, financial, or military — to potential Iranian actions that do not comply with the JCPOA. The idea of renegotiation lacks credibility. As designed, sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table — and now is the time to harvest the fruits of that negotiation.
Without the agreement, the U.S. standing in negotiating other regional issues in collaboration of major powers would be seriously compromised. …
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