Last week, representatives of the P5+1 and Iran began a new
round of negotiations in Geneva aimed at achieving a final nuclear agreement by
the July 20 deadline. This session was the most ambitious to date as the
parties begin drafting an actual agreement to replace last November’s Joint
Plan of Action.
Optimism ruled the day heading into this most recent round
of talks given the relative smooth sailing of the previous four, but a significant
obstacle remains: the two sides must come to an agreement about the scope of
the Iranian nuclear enrichment capability, defined by the number of
centrifuges.
However, this issue is less critical than the dominant media narrative might suggest. Instead, domestic opposition – fervently opposed to the leadership within their respective countries on the basis of blind principle –remains the truly greatest threat to a nuclear deal.
Many commentators are quick to declare that the number of
centrifuges a state possesses directly correlates to its ability to build a
nuclear weapon. The concern is that Tehran would have a stronger “breakout
capability,” or shorter time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon, with
ample centrifuges running.
Centrifuges spin rapidly in order to separate out the ‘good’
useful isotope of uranium, which occurs very rarely in nature. Arguably, the more
centrifuges are running, the quicker a country can collect enough of the
desirable uranium to form the ‘critical mass’ required for a weapon. Iran
currently has around 19,000
centrifuges, though some 8,000 of those are not yet operable. Tehran has
expressed a desire to expand to up to 50,000 centrifuges in the future – a
number in stark contrast to the “few
thousand” U.S. negotiators would prefer.
However, a number as low as 3,000 centrifuges would be sufficient to
produce a critical mass of enriched uranium in about a year. The numbers game
becomes more complex when considering that civilian power plants require many
more centrifuge cascades than would be necessary for a weapon. This is
because power plants require a much smaller ratio of good to bad uranium but a
much higher volume of both to use as fuel in a reactor.
It should be noted that many other factors besides a number
of centrifuges impact a country’s breakout capability. Any nuclear deal with
Iran will hinge on nuclear monitoring by international agencies; regardless of
how many centrifuges Iran has, its compliance with monitoring (which has so far
been forthright)
will be the key to preventing cheating.
Moreover, hardware limits are not a surefire means to stop
proliferation. North
Korea has circumvented export controls on the materials used to construct
centrifuges by developing indigenous manufacturing. Clearly, rogue states
excluded from the international community can always find a way to build
weapons. From that perspective, making centrifuges a sticking point seems
unwise; constructive diplomatic relations are the best security solution for
the long run.
For this litany of reasons, commentators should be less concerned
centrifuge numbers. Instead, the chief challenge to reaching a deal will those
who cannot see the forest for the trees; political groups within both countries
resistant to any sort of peaceful resolution are actively working to disrupt
the talks even as progress is being made.
The U.S. Congress, particularly the House of
Representatives, continues to be a hotbed of opposition to the Obama
administration’s outreach. The markup of National Defense Authorization Act in
the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee resulted in an amendment
that would prohibit any deal with Iran that did not involve Tehran renouncing
support for terror groups and ceasing its ballistic missile program. More
daunting still is the fact that President Obama’s ability to lift sanctions without
an act of Congress would require executive
waivers issued every four-to-six months.
Hardliners in Iran are also working to disrupt the deal. A conference
under the slogan “We’re Worried” convened at the beginning of May, uniting
conservative elected legislators, members of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s
administration, and other conservative nationalists. Moreover, 75 hardliners in the majlis attempted to discredit Foreign
Minister and lead negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif with a censure
vote early this month simply because he publicly acknowledged the
Holocaust as a “horrifying tragedy.”
Thankfully, the hardliners are in the minority in both
countries. Poll
numbers in the United States show that around 60% of Americans approve of
the interim deal. Likewise, a similar
majority of Iranians are either ‘very hopeful’ or ‘somewhat hopeful’ that
the talks will end with a permanent deal, while less than half of them would
support a military nuclear capability.
It is clear that the governments of Iran and the United
States, as well as the peaceful majorities in each country, will have work
against naysayers for a deal to succeed. There is hope for resolving technical
questions, including the number of centrifuges, in negotiations so long as
diplomats continue their work. Ultimately, it is the outdated attitudes of
those who remain principally opposed to both fresh engagement and their own
domestic rivals that remain the most significant danger to a normalization of
relations between Iran and the West.
