Since Joe Biden’s election to the presidency, supporters of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran—formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—have been advocating for the new administration to rejoin the agreement. Doing so would be a strategic mistake, argue Michael Oren and Yossi Klein Halevi:
Iran needs to acquire three components in order to become a military nuclear power: highly enriched uranium, a functional warhead, and a missile capable of delivering it. The JCPOA addresses only the first of these efforts in any detail, and even then, offers merely partial and temporary solutions. The deal largely ignores the second effort, and actually advances the third.
The JCPOA did limit Iran’s immediate ability to enrich enough uranium for a bomb. . . . But [it] allowed Iran to retain its massive nuclear infrastructure, unnecessary for a civilian energy program but essential for a military nuclear program. The agreement did not shut down a single nuclear facility or destroy a single centrifuge. . . . If the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment were inadequate, they were also designed to be short-lived, some sunsetting as early as 2024.
The regime, [meanwhile], already possesses Shahab-3 missiles, based on the North Korean No-dong, capable of hitting any country in the Middle East and even nations as far away as Romania, [along with] detailed plans for fitting a nuclear warhead on the Shahab-3. Iran aims to expand its threat to Western Europe and the United States by developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. Intelligence sources agree that the rockets Iran has already developed for its space program can easily be converted to ICBMs.
In return for merely postponing [its development of nuclear weapons], the deal rewards Iran extravagantly. The JCPOA infused the Iranian economy with tens of billions of dollars in immediate sanctions relief and trade deals and promised to provide hundreds of billions more. Yet rather than invest in its decaying infrastructure, the regime used portions of this windfall to expand its international terror network, enhance the offensive capabilities of Hamas and Hizballah, and further assist the Syrian regime in massacring and uprooting its own people. In addition to extending its dominance of Lebanon, Iran has consolidated its influence in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza. Rather than buying Iran’s moderation, the JCPOA helped fund its quest for regional hegemony.
Read more on Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/case-against-iran-deal/617755/