By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Path to a Good-Enough Iran Deal

It is not clear whether the recent Israeli and U.S. military strikes have decreased or increased the likelihood of a nuclear-armed Iran. The attacks have certainly inflicted major damage to the country’s nuclear program. But they have not extinguished the Islamic Republic’s interest in nuclear weapons. They have amplified uncertainty about the quantity, location, and current condition of critical elements of Iran’s nuclear program. And they have failed to block Iran’s pathways to building a bomb, including by using its surviving equipment, materials, and expertise in a small, covert operation.

In the aftermath of the strikes, the Trump administration has resumed its pursuit of a new nuclear agreement that would prohibit uranium enrichment and its associated infrastructure in Iran––a “zero enrichment” outcome that would stymie any Iranian intention to build a bomb but that has been firmly rejected by Tehran, at least so far. If, after determined efforts, such an agreement cannot be achieved, the administration may seriously consider relying solely on military and intelligence means to thwart Iran’s efforts to revitalize its nuclear program, an approach strongly favored by the Israeli government. But a military option could lead to perpetual armed conflict in the region without reliably preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. A preferable option would be to negotiate an agreement that permits but strictly limits and rigorously verifies uranium enrichment in Iran.

 

Back to the Table

Since the ceasefire ended the 12-day war, the Trump administration has sought to resume its bilateral engagement with Iran. But Iran has not been ready to meet, in part due to divisions within Tehran’s elite on the merits of negotiations with the United States. Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, have insisted on preconditions that Washington is unwilling to accept, such as a U.S. guarantee that Iran would not be attacked while negotiations were underway. According to Reuters, however, regime “insiders” say that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and members of the clerical power structure have recently reached a consensus that resumed negotiations are vital to the survival of the regime. If that is the case, Iran and the United States are likely to find a formula for returning to the negotiating table before long.

 

Course Correction

The better option for the United States would be to reconsider its zero enrichment proposal and, instead, seek to negotiate a tightly restricted and rigorously verified uranium enrichment program. A revised U.S. proposal could be based on the principle that Iran would be permitted to have an enrichment program capable of meeting only the realistic, near-term fuel requirements of a genuinely peaceful nuclear program––a position consistent with Iran’s longstanding (and disingenuous) claim that its program has always been exclusively peaceful. With Russia supplying fuel for the Russian-built power reactors at Bushehr and the operation of Iranian-designed power reactors still a long way off, Iran’s current enrichment requirements are very modest, perhaps confined for the time being to fueling the Tehran research reactor and possible new research and isotope production reactors, whose enriched uranium requirements are much smaller than those of nuclear power reactors.

Such an approach would require Iran to eliminate its current stocks of uranium enriched to over five percent in uranium-235, either by diluting them or transferring them to another country (as Iran’s excess inventory of enriched uranium was transferred to Russia under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). It would also call on Tehran to dismantle or transfer to another country for secure storage centrifuges in excess of the enrichment capacity needed for meeting near-term fuel production requirements.

Iran would be required to promptly convert uranium enriched to below five percent, whether newly produced or in its existing inventory, from the gaseous form, which could be fed into centrifuges and further enriched for nuclear weapons, to the powdered form, which is less readily usable in a weapons program and is the form needed for the process of fabricating nuclear reactor fuel or targets for isotope production. On-hand inventories of enriched uranium below five percent as well as natural uranium in the gaseous form, would be limited to the amount required to meet near-term fueling needs.

Iran would be required to declare to the IAEA and provide a justification for any expanded enrichment capacity, such as more centrifuges, increased enriched uranium inventory, or new facilities, that it believed was needed to support actual, near-term additions to its civil nuclear program––a new nuclear reactor in an advanced state of construction, for example––rather than to support planned additions that would not materialize for quite some time. In addition, the agreement would permit enrichment only at a single, above-ground enrichment facility and would require the permanent closure of the Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities.

To rebuild the IAEA’s, and therefore the international community’s, complete and accurate understanding of Iran’s nuclear program, especially in light of today’s major uncertainties, monitoring and inspection arrangements in a new agreement would have to include but go beyond the measures contained in the JCPOA. Iran would provide detailed information about unmonitored activities carried out after it suspended the application of the IAEA Additional Protocol in 2021, such as the production of centrifuges. Equipment and activities related to the fabrication of nuclear weapons would be banned, with dual-use equipment and activities declared and verified. Advanced monitoring technologies, including real-time, online enrichment monitors, would be extensively used at the discretion of the IAEA.

Streamlined inspection arrangements would be required to facilitate prompt IAEA access to suspect sites, including military and other sensitive facilities. Expeditious dispute resolution and enforcement procedures could help ensure that the relevant authorities, such as the governments of the parties to the agreement, the IAEA Board of Governors, or the United Nations Security Council, are in a position to take timely and appropriate action to address matters of non-compliance.

Special measures would be needed to deter noncompliance, including the right of parties to the agreement to suspend sanctions relief and other benefits to a noncompliant party. A U.S. unilateral statement reserving the right to take any necessary steps, including the use of force, to respond to violations of the agreement could also help deter noncompliance, although such a statement would not be part of the agreement.

A new agreement would, of course, include incentives for Iran, including sanctions relief and the release of Iranian funds still frozen in overseas accounts. Reversible commitments by Tehran would be matched by reversible incentives offered by Washington. Primary U.S. sanctions barring U.S. persons and entities from doing business with Iran could be relaxed, both to give American traders and investors opportunities available to their European and Asian counterparts and to give the United States a greater stake in the continuation of the agreement, which would address a key Iranian concern that a future U.S. administration could decide to withdraw from the agreement.

To be durable and to address concerns about the JCPOA’s “sunset provisions,” which terminated key restrictions after ten and 15 years, the agreement would be permanent or have a very long duration, such as 25 to 30 years. It could be negotiated bilaterally between Washington and Tehran, in consultation with interested third parties, and perhaps later be formalized as a multilateral agreement. To make it legally binding and enhance its durability, the agreement should take the form of a treaty, requiring an affirmative two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate, as compared to the JCPOA, which was a non-binding political commitment and did not require affirmative congressional approval.

In parallel with a nuclear agreement, there should be a separate commitment by Iran not to transfer ballistic missiles, rockets, and drones and associated equipment and technology to non-state entities, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Reinforcing such an Iranian commitment would be ongoing cooperation between the United States and its regional partners to block Iranian assistance to its proxy network, using such tools as intelligence sharing, interdictions, sanctions, diplomatic pressures, covert operations, and targeted military attacks.

 

Tough Talks Ahead

Although the United States and Israel have extraordinary intelligence capabilities, their intelligence services alone cannot provide confidence that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. It will take national intelligence services plus a newly empowered, in-country presence of experienced IAEA personnel, with enhanced rights of access and advanced surveillance technologies, to provide such confidence. Only a new agreement negotiated with Iran can ensure that the IAEA will play such a role.

Restricting Iran’s enrichment program in a new agreement could substantially increase the time it would take Iran to break out of the agreement, if it decided to do so, and produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon. On the eve of the 12-day war, Iran’s breakout time was about a week. Restrictions along the lines suggested here would extend that timeline by several months. Together with enhanced IAEA monitoring measures capable of promptly detecting a breakout attempt, this would provide plenty of time for the United States or others to intervene, including with military force, to thwart such a move. Moreover, the recent military attacks by Israel and the United States will greatly boost the credibility and deterrent value of the threat to intervene to stop an Iranian effort to race for a bomb.

Protesting the U.S attack on Iranian nuclear sites, Tehran, June 2025

A new agreement would serve U.S. regional security interests, as well as those of the United States’ partners, much better than a strategy of mowing the grass. Instead of a confrontational regional environment characterized by periodic attacks against Iran and Iranian retaliation, a new agreement could bring greater stability and predictability. The United States would need to stay involved in regional affairs, both to assist its partners in defending against resurgent threats from Iran and its proxies and to press for strict Iranian compliance with the agreement. But the risks that the United States would be drawn into an armed conflict in the Middle East would decline significantly. Moreover, the United States’ Gulf partners would welcome the deal and the opportunities it could provide for closer regional economic and political ties. It would also reaffirm Iran’s adherence to the NPT and renunciation of nuclear weapons, which, together with verification measures to make those pledges credible, could help alleviate regional proliferation pressures.

But there are significant obstacles to achieving such an agreement. U.S. President Donald Trump would need to reverse course on zero enrichment and then overcome domestic opposition, including the charge from his base as well as mainstream skeptics of negotiations with Iran that the new deal merely recycles the JCPOA. He would also have to withstand strong criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a vocal advocate of eschewing talks with Iran, and cope with potential unilateral military actions by Israel that––intended or not––could complicate or derail negotiations.

Another potential obstacle is the “snap back,” a provision of the UN Security Council's Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA. That provision enables JCPOA participants to respond to non-compliance by another participant by bringing back into force all previous UN Security Council sanctions against Iran that were suspended by the JCPOA. On August 28, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (known as the E3) initiated the 30-day snap-back process. If Iran agrees within thirty days to steps that, in the E3’s view, demonstrate Tehran’s willingness to reach a diplomatic solution—such as a resumption of U.S.-Iranian negotiations or the restoration of IAEA activities in Iran—the snap back would not be implemented. In that case, Resolution 2231 (and the right to invoke the snapback) would probably be extended beyond its October 18 expiration date. But if Iran does not agree to such steps, sanctions would be reimposed. Some Iranian lawmakers have warned that implementing snap-back sanctions could lead to Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT, an action that could preclude negotiation indefinitely. Any prospects for productive negotiations could thus depend on the outcome of talks between Iran and the E3 countries over the next month.

Iran, of course, will have a say on whether a new agreement is achievable. In theory, the Islamic Republic should welcome U.S. acceptance of its primary negotiating demand: that it be allowed have a civil nuclear program that includes enrichment. But accommodating Iran’s desire to retain some enrichment would not guarantee that a deal could be reached. Iranian negotiators may balk at restrictions on enrichment that deny them, perhaps permanently, a strategically important threshold nuclear weapons capability. They are also likely to resist monitoring arrangements that are more extensive and intrusive than they have accepted under the JCPOA. It would be a very tough negotiation.

It may not prove possible to negotiate an agreement with the strict limits on enrichment and the rigorous monitoring, inspection, and enforcement measures needed to reliably block Iran’s pathways to acquiring nuclear weapons or to resuming its status as a threshold nuclear-weapon state. In that case, the Trump administration will have little choice but to leave the negotiating table and turn to military, economic, and other coercive tools to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. But if Washington must pursue that strategy, it would be of immense value in gaining the domestic and international support needed to sustain it, to be able to show that it made a flexible and sincere effort to find a diplomatic solution first, and was turned down by an Iranian regime determined to preserve its nuclear weapons option.

 

 

 

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