Iran nuclear deal may leave program in place, say analysts

USA TODAY

The emerging deal with Iran over its disputed nuclear program appears headed toward limiting the time it would take the Islamic republic to make a bomb, a pact unlikely to satisfy members of Congress who seek to end Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon altogether.

U.S. diplomats met Wednesday in Vienna with Iran and other world powers to begin writing the text of a final deal. While the sides remain far apart on several issues, it seems the Obama administration is discussing an Iranian nuclear program that would retain capabilities that could be used to produce a weapon sometime in the future.

"The Iranians will have some kind of enrichment capacity" at the end of negotiations, "which means they can essentially breakout in a period of time of their choosing," said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who's advised the administration on Iran sanctions.

Jofi Joseph, former director for non-proliferation in Obama's National Security Council, says an achievable deal would accomplish Obama's goal of preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Any deal would increase inspections and monitoring, increase the number of inspectors in Iran and the number of places they can go, and "those would significantly reduce the chance of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon," Joseph said.

The talks are being coordinated by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, whose spokesman, Michael Mann, said Wednesday parties are "getting down to the nitty-gritty" in talks that will continue until Friday, the Associated Press reported. An interim agreement reached in November set a target date for a deal on July 20.

Obama has said repeatedly that an Iranian nuclear bomb is "unacceptable." But some states, notably Israel, and U.S. congressmen have denounced the pending deal as possibly allowing Iran to maintain technology it has developed over decades that could produce an atomic bomb in a matter of months.

Iran, backer of several terrorist organizations in the Middle East, has the world's fourth-largest proven oil reserves and second-largest natural gas reserves. Yet Iran's leaders say its nuclear program is for power generation and medical and scientific research, a claim the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has questioned.

"If they accuse us of building nuclear bomb, their claim would be baseless as a lie," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday, according to Iran's Mehr News Agency. "We would not tolerate scientific apartheid and deem ourselves equal before international conventions; yet, we would not do any illegal and unlawful act."
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A picture taken on Oct. 26, 2010, shows the reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran.(Photo: Magid Asgraipour, AFP/Getty Images)

Iranian officials have insisted they will not dismantle their $100 billion nuclear infrastructure, including machines for producing nuclear fuel and a heavy water power plant near the city of Arak that would produce plutonium, an alternate fuel for a bomb.

Secretary of State John Kerry has said that increasing Iran's "breakout period" — the time it would take Iran to produce enough nuclear fuel for one bomb — from the current two months to six-to-12 month would be a significant accomplishment, though he said: "I'm not saying that's what we'd settle for."

Dubowitz said a six-to-12 month breakout window is "exactly what they're going for." The longer window would give the United States more time to discover what Iran is doing and mobilize to stop it should it decide to cheat on a deal.

It's unclear if such an agreement would satisfy Israel or almost 60 members of the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats, who have signed onto a bill to increase economic sanctions on Iran unless it agrees to much greater limitations than the White House appears ready to accept.

That bill would require the president to certify that Iran's program has no military dimension, that "illicit" facilities for producing nuclear fuel are dismantled and that Iran answer questions on suspected past military dimensions of its program and curtail its development of ballistic missiles.

One of the thorniest issues to settle is whether Iran destroys, dismantles or simply de-activates machines for producing nuclear fuel, called centrifuges, says arms control expert David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Albright, who has testified before Congress and consulted with administration officials, estimates that a six-to-12 month breakout period can be achieved if Iran's 19,000 active and non-operating centrifuges are reduced to 5,000.

"The question is what happens to the rest," Albright said. "There's evidence that the administration will fold and allow Iran to keep the remainder centrifuges in place, not operating, or allow them to keep them somewhere."

Leaving centrifuges in place but turned off or disabled, or dismantling them and moving them to storage, "doesn't address the concerns" that Iran would retain the capacity to abandon the deal after economic pressure has lifted and get them working again, Albright said.

"You need a deal that would guarantee that if Iran does make that move the United States does have time to figure out how to respond and stop it," Albright said.

Other experts, like Joseph, say creative solutions can provide a 6-12 month window that would be acceptable to both the USA and Iran.

"Folks on the Hill are pretending a deal that would completely eliminate Iran's breakout capability is possible and that simply is not the case," Joseph said. "As long as it has a limited number of centrifuges spinning it has at least in theory the possibility of breaking out to produce a weapon."

On the other hand, safeguards and monitoring measures can be implemented that would alert the world community if Iran is violating the terms of an agreement, he said.

Centrifuges could be removed and stored in a separate facility under constant monitoring by the U.N. atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. And an agreement could curtail Iran's development of much more efficient centrifuges, Joseph said.

Now is when "the haggling and horse trading is going to start," said Michael Adler, analyst at the Atlantic Council, a think-tank based in Washington.

"They have gone over everything and obviously they're wide apart," he said. "In other words the real work begins now."