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 ending 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.
An urgent U.S. priority in any resumed talks should be to restore International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring activities in Iran, which were suspended by a law signed by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on July 2. In the wake of the June military strikes, the IAEA can no longer account for roughly 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which may have been buried under rubble or, as some believe, removed from storage facilities before the strikes. The agency also can’t account for an unknown number of centrifuges that were produced after Iran denied the IAEA’s access to centrifuge production workshops in 2021.
Iran remains adamant that it will not give up domestic enrichment.
Bringing all of Iran’s enriched uranium, centrifuges, and other potential components of a nuclear weapons program under IAEA surveillance and accountancy is essential to blocking Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons. IAEA experts visited Tehran on August 11 to discuss the modalities of resuming the agency’s activities in Iran, but they were not given access to the country’s nuclear sites. Although the Iranians are likely to soon grant the IAEA access to facilities that are not of proliferation concern, such as the Bushehr power reactor and the Tehran research reactor, they will continue withholding the kind of full cooperation essential to giving the IAEA a complete and accurate picture of their nuclear program. They may regard such cooperation as acceptable only as part of a comprehensive agreement and use the denial of cooperation as a bargaining chip to be played much later in the negotiations.
Resumed U.S.-Iranian talks could quickly focus on the issue that stalemated the first five rounds of negotiations during the second Trump administration: whether an agreement should ban all enrichment and enrichment-related infrastructure in Iran. The Trump administration says it remains firmly committed to its “zero enrichment” proposal, as the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told ABC News on August 18. It may believe that the threat of further military strikes if Iran tries to revive its nuclear program––combined with Iran’s current strategic vulnerability, economic weakness, and international isolation––means that Tehran has little choice but to abandon its enrichment program and perhaps even its nuclear weapons ambitions altogether.
Iran remains adamant, however, that it will not give up domestic enrichment. Iran’s nuclear program, and especially its enrichment program, is a source of national pride, a demonstration of technological prowess, and a symbol of defiance. Iranian officials also claim that it serves as an insurance policy against possible fuel supply cutoffs by possible future suppliers of enriched uranium to Iran. The program, moreover, is an overriding national priority that Iran has pursued at enormous economic and human costs, including the martyrdom of senior scientists and military leaders.
We can assume that Iranian advocates of acquiring nuclear weapons, whether within or outside the leadership, staunchly oppose an enrichment ban, regarding it as tantamount to abandoning their nuclear ambitions once and for all. With hard-liners arguing that capitulating to U.S. demands would be a national humiliation and betrayal, Khamenei may fear that accepting zero enrichment could destabilize the regime.
Seeking Solutions
Outside experts have suggested ways to close what appears to be an unbridgeable gap between the U.S. and Iranian positions on the enrichment issue. One such idea that has received attention in both official and think-tank circles is establishing a multilateral fuel cycle consortium that could produce enriched uranium to help meet the region’s civil nuclear needs. Proponents believe the involvement of more than one country in the ownership, management, and perhaps even the operation of an enrichment facility would promote transparency and reduce the opportunity for any one country to divert the facility to the production of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
But finding a formula for a multilateral consortium that would be acceptable in both Tehran and Washington is likely to be very difficult. A consortium that sited an enrichment facility in a Gulf Arab country and excluded any domestic enrichment in Iran would have little appeal in Tehran. On the other hand, a consortium that permitted continued enrichment in Iran would have little appeal in Washington. Moreover, an enrichment facility managed and operated on a multinational basis, wherever it is located, could risk the dissemination of enrichment technology to additional countries, which would be a significant problem from a nonproliferation perspective.
With disagreement on enrichment blocking a comprehensive agreement, U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reportedly considered pursuing an interim agreement. Such an interim agreement would be a limited-duration arrangement that would set aside the enrichment issue for the time being, show progress on a small package of steps valued by one side or the other, and buy time to negotiate a final deal. Both sides might see an interim agreement as a way to keep the talks going rather than face the domestic political consequences of either failing to reach a comprehensive deal or making painful compromises to achieve one.
The two sides will have to come to grips with the enrichment issue.
The elements of a possible interim agreement in the wake of the Israeli and U.S. military attacks would probably be quite different from what may have been considered by negotiators before the June war. For example, the suspension of Iranian production of uranium enriched to 60 percent––which was previously recommended by outside experts as an element of an interim deal––would no longer be of much interest to the United States because such production has already been halted, at least temporarily, by the attacks.
In a postwar interim agreement, the United States might seek an Iranian commitment to accept a significant restoration of IAEA monitoring activities or to refrain from certain nuclear-related activities, such as preparations to resume enrichment at damaged facilities. In exchange, Iran might seek partial sanctions relief, the release of billions of dollars of Iranian funds held in overseas accounts, or a pledge by the United States not to attack or support an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.
But with each side seeking to maximize its benefits and minimize its concessions, finding a mutually acceptable formula for an interim deal could prove very difficult. And even if one could be found, an interim agreement would probably not last very long. With Iran likely to withhold full cooperation with the IAEA during any interim agreement, the continued uncertainty about unmonitored Iranian nuclear activities could become intolerable for Washington. And Iran’s repeated failure to get major sanctions relief while still refraining from steps such as withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) could become intolerable for Tehran, especially its hard-liners.
Sooner or later, the two sides will have to come to grips with the enrichment issue. It is conceivable that the Iranians could eventually buckle under the threat of further military attacks and accept zero enrichment. But given the fierce hard-line opposition and the leadership’s fear of the potential domestic consequences of surrendering to Israel and the United States, that is very unlikely. And if the Iranians don’t buckle, the Trump administration will have to choose between two main options. The United States could rely on military and intelligence means to stop any Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Or it could revise its negotiating position to seek an agreement that permits enrichment in Iran with tight limits and strong verification.
The Downsides of Ditching Diplomacy
The military option would involve walking away from the negotiations, prioritizing intelligence collection to focus heavily on possible evidence of resumed nuclear activities, and, if necessary, using military force or covert operations to stop Iran from rebuilding its nuclear program and its degraded missile forces and air defenses. Israel would presumably take the lead in implementing this option but would have the support of the United States in terms of collecting intelligence, defending the approach diplomatically, and possibly participating in military or covert operations.
Supporters of this approach, including a significant number of officials and non-governmental experts in Israel and the United States, are confident that the deep penetration of Iran by Israeli intelligence and the dominance that Israel and the United States enjoy over Iranian airspace would enable the allies to detect evidence of resumed nuclear activities and, if necessary, strike Iranian targets with a high probability of success. Moreover, the absence of an agreement, in their view, would give Israel and the United States the ability to act promptly and decisively against Iran at a time of their choosing, without the delays and obfuscations associated with negotiated verification and enforcement procedures. And it would not involve compensating Iran with sanctions relief or throwing a lifeline to a regime struggling to stay afloat.
But pursuing the military rather than the diplomatic track has major downsides. The U.S. and Israeli military attacks were extremely successful against large, well-known nuclear facilities. But an Iranian effort to build an initial nuclear arsenal at much smaller, deeply buried secret sites would be much less vulnerable to preemptive strikes. Because forgoing negotiations would probably ensure that the IAEA’s lack of sufficient access would persist, such a covert program would be easier for Iran to pursue under this approach.
This strategy could require repeated military strikes well into the future. Such a “mowing the grass” approach may prompt Iranian retaliation against Israel, U.S. interests, and U.S. partner countries––which, in turn, would risk drawing the United States into another prolonged armed conflict in the Middle East. It would also alienate the United States’ Gulf partners, which fear regional instability and favor détente with Iran, and reduce prospects for greater regional normalization and integration. And ending negotiations and turning to military means could trigger Tehran’s withdrawal from the NPT and possibly a long-deferred decision to build nuclear weapons.
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 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.
Accommodating Iran’s desire to retain some enrichment would not guarantee a deal.
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.
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 snap back) 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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