Dr. Andrey A. Baklitskiy
Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced American Studies at the Institute of International Studies, MGIMO University
I will try to look at how the situation around the Iranian nuclear problem as a whole could be made more sustainable. We are now in the middle of negotiations for all of the original members of JCPOA to return to their commitments. There is a good chance this will happen, at least there is interest on both sides. It also seems that we are not going to get back to the JCPOA as it was on the implementation day, January 16, 2016. But even if we get there, the big question will be how to make the whole situation more sustainable in the long run. The question was there from the beginning – limitations on the numbers and types of centrifuges were supposed to go away in ten years, limitations on the level of uranium enrichment and the stockpile would have disappeared in 15 years. Now it’s five and almost ten years instead of ten and 15 years. Obviously some of those issues are even more pressing now than before the US withdrawal and things that followed.
As it seems to me, the JCPOA was generally based on a number of assumptions, some of them were more clearly stated, some less. There was a general feeling that successful implementation of JCPOA will change the dynamics of US-Iranian relationship and one can maybe build something on that. There was an idea that limitations on numbers and types of centrifuges and limitations on the level of uranium enrichment and the stockpile will go away, this would be fine. It was not a bug, it was a feature, so people say, “Yes, once 10-15 years pass, Iran would be a normal country, a member of NPT, there are no restrictions on the number of other countries regarding stockpile, that is ok. The idea was a strict verification as the most important part that would stay forever as Additional Protocol. And there were some building possibilities for future nuclear talks in the JCPOA, because Iran was supposed to ratify the Additional Protocol bending parliamentary actions. Never mind, it was just an agreement between executives, so president Rouhani had no control over this. Then again US would lift sanctions instead of simply waiving them, bending the congressional actions which the executive had no control of. So, it was understood that there probably will be some talks about those in the future. And then, of course, US primary sanctions were never touched as well as Iranian permanent restrictions. Probably there was hope that this would be touched once we move forward on some of those issues.
There was no successful implementation of the JCPOA, even now there is this question that even if all the sides get back to the compliance, the next US president will withdraw and we will start this whole issue again. There is no safeguard that can stop US from withdrawing from the deal, that’s why I am very skeptical that Iran will agree to anything permanent this time, to dismantle, for example, the centrifuges it built. Temporarily disabling them – yes, but nothing we can know that can change. Enrichment was very demonized in this process, including partly by Iran itself, because it was using the limits on enrichment, the number of centrifuges and percentage of enrichment as a political tool. It was showing to the US that the plan was not working, showing the Europeans that they should do something. But this whole talk about how Iran is now closer to the bomb every time we see another enrichment limitation going away, this makes all this thing about Iran just getting back to being a normal country under the NPT much less sustainable. It probably was not sustainable in the first place, but it is getting less sustainable now.
I don’t think the ratification part was changed in any way of form. There is an understanding that verification is critical, we still have verification ongoing and we hope there will be some extension with the IAEA so we don’t lose this chain of custody when we continue to have the same information and not start from scratch. Then, the future talks are up in there, Eric described a lot of the possible approaches to those talks.
As I said, it is not new, all these issues have been discussed before. I remember talking to a high-level Iranian official in 2015 and saying, “How do I move forward?” because some limitations will go off and then Iran can enrich at levels it was, so what do we do about it now. His response was “Maybe Iran will not go beyond those levels, because there is no need for it neither politically nor economically, no real reason for doing this in that sense.” And also what has always been hanging over the top leadership is this famous Netanyahu’s limits, the red line which he put out saying “If you enrich this number of uranium, we are going to bomb you.” It was never withdrawn, so I guess Iranians will have to consider that when they plan for the enrichment capabilities. However, this is an open question whether the West and its allies will have to leave this Iranian self-restraint just believing that Iranian will restrain itself without any agreed limitations.
One other thing which was very much discussed in 2015 and before they came to the Iranian nuclear deal was the regional fuel cycles. Making Iranian enrichment capabilities regional by creating some kind of JSC where countries of the region would have shares and would get the enrichment from that. Obviously, it was not successful in 2015, but there are some reasons why it would get even harder if we ever get back to this idea, one obvious reason for that, with all those assassination explosions Iranians would be even less willing to get anybody close to their enrichment capabilities.
The other possible complication will be presidential elections in Iran in a month and they probably will get them a much more conservative administration which could be much less interested in any flexible arrangements like this. But then, again, the Middle East changed since 2014-2015. We have United Arab Emirates having their NPPs coming in line, which will have to find enrichment from somewhere, Koreans who are building them don’t have their own enrichment, so they are buying it from Russians, for example. It seems that there are some realignments going on in the Middle East. You can see that the Biden administration may be less interested in the Middle East, in giving the countries in the Middle East a free pass, could be increasing interest in the Gulf States, in other states in the Middle East in some kind of cooperative relations or at least relations as a whole with Iran. So we might just get back and revisit some of those old ideas... I am not talking about WMD-free zones in the Middle East which is still ongoing and will probably be ongoing a long time, but if the countries of the region are left to their fate, they will have to figure out how to move forward on their own. Maybe they will be much more interested in cooperation and those things could be addressed there.
On the Russian approach to all those things and Russian stand on future negotiations, generally, there is a significant difference between the Russian approach to Iran and the western approach to Iran. First, there is a difference on the nuclear issue. Russia started this whole process with the believe that Iran was not building nuclear weapons. Tehran is using its nuclear program for mainly political reasons and is using it as a bargaining chip. When you start with the assumption that Iran is not building nuclear weapons, the picture is very different than when you start from the assumption that Iran is building nuclear weapons. So, for Russia it was “Ok, so what can we do so that the West be satisfied and not freaking out about Iranian capabilities, and what can we get Teheran in return, so they are not freaking out that they are limited by illegal limitations that they have under the articles, for example, Article 4 of the NPT?” On the regional side of things, Russia has no problem with Iran trying to establish regional hegemony, in the same way as Russia has no problem with Saudi Arabia trying to establish regional hegemony or Turkey trying to establish regional hegemony. That is what countries in regions do if they are big and powerful and trying to shape the regional dynamics in their favor as long as it happens without wars or major perturbations. This is how the world works. You can pick a side and then try to support it, but Russia is not picking sides in the Middle East, except for Syria maybe. In that case, everything else is a fair play.
Iran is Russia’s neighbor. Russia doesn’t want to be destabilized in any way. So, keep this situation stable and then you do whatever. In that sense Russia would be happy if there are any future negotiations with the US which will make this deal sustainable. We are now in 2021, in 2024 there could be a new US president, it could be Donald Trump again and the whole thing will start over again. If there is any kind of more durable solution, Russia will be fine with it. There was some fear in Russia in the process of negotiation of the JCPOA that Iran would go westward, that the West, the US and the Europeans will get full access to Iran and it could be bad for Russia in a sense. Those fears are already gone, I don’t think anybody believes now that there is a possible rapprochement with the West, with Europe, with the US after the implementation of the JCPOA. There is a huge feeling in Iran that you cannot trust Europeans and the Americans. If you try to build your economic sustainability, you would have to deal with countries which are not just leaving you at any moment. They all do, but to different extent, so you will work with China, with Russia, with India, with Central Asia countries, your closest neighbors etc. In that sense this factor is much less relevant now.
