Deal, Not Bombs, Seen as Only Way to End Iranian Nuclear Threat

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—  Dina Esfandiary, Middle East geoeconomics lead 

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Click here to read further research. 

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Trump still appears undecided about what to do but remains open to getting involved militarily. On Friday, he dismissed the European efforts to find a solution but ruled out the involvement of American ground troops. 

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“I’m giving them a period of time,” he told reporters in New Jersey, after meeting earlier Friday with his national security team. “I would say two weeks would be the maximum.” 

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A blueprint for a deal exists — the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that was signed by President Barack Obama and which Trump abandoned 2018. Under that accord, Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

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Earlier: Trump Sends Mixed Signals on Iran Strikes With Ceasefire Hint

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Daniel Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt, suggested making any new deal open-ended rather than setting an expiration date on some limits as the JCPOA did.

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“A tougher agreement could lead to Iranian compliance and an end to the war, therefore an end to the Iranian nuclear program,” said Kurtzer, who is now a professor at Princeton University.

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Iran adhered to the JCPOA for three years, Kurtzer said. The question now is whether the Israeli military campaign would persuade Iran to abandon uranium enrichment or make its leaders more determined to retain that ability.

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“We don’t know whether the debilitation of their military capabilities — their missile programs and nuclear programs — will now make a convincing argument otherwise,” Kurtzer said.

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Yet the Iranians might be wary of entering into a new nuclear agreement with Trump after he backed out of the last one.

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While the focus has been on the use of America’s so-called bunker buster bombs against the Fordow enrichment facility, the overall program, not to mention the sense of national identity wrapped up in its development, would be harder to eliminate.

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Iran has developed a heavily fortified network of sites nationwide to pursue its ambitions of uranium enrichment, as well as thousands of scientists and engineers working at dozens of locations. 

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“Striking Fordow successfully would be devastating but it wouldn’t end the program,” Barbara Leaf, former US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

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“I want to hear a pretty clear full-throated ‘yes, we’re ready to negotiate,’ from the regime, and we’re not hearing that yet,” Leaf said. “There’s conditionality.”

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A key element for any deal would be a trusted interlocutor, which seems no party is currently able to play. 

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Iran recently criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations-backed watchdog, for giving Israel an excuse to strike after it reported late last month that Iran expanded its stockpiles of near weapons-grade uranium. The agency denies the charge. 

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“A diplomatic solution is within reach if the necessary political will is there,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the UN Security Council. “This opportunity should not be missed.”

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