Iran says it is just days away from breaking its end of a major nuclear deal by stockpiling forbidden amounts of uranium. If it does so, it would be the latest signal that Tehran may put itself on the path toward a nuclear weapon in direct defiance of President Donald Trump.
The 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran, the US, European powers, Russia, and China put tight restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The Obama administration’s goal was to block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon diplomatically, instead of by force.
But Trump withdrew America from the deal last year, reimposed financial penalties on Iran, and asked European countries to cease their business with the country.
That led Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in May to announce that his nation would start stockpiling low-enriched uranium, which can be used for nuclear reactors but not for atomic bombs.
The nuclear accord compels Tehran to keep no more than 300 kilograms — or about 660 pounds — of low-enriched uranium and to sell the excess so that it can’t even come close to building a nuclear weapon.
But after the US left the agreement, reimposed sanctions, and blocked European nations from dealing with the country, Tehran seemingly felt it was free to regain what it had traded away.
That’s now clear: Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Monday that his nation will blow through the imposed limit by June 27 — only 10 days from now.
“We will go further from that ceiling, not only that but we will also increase production drastically. After we pass the limit of 300 kg, the pace and the speed of enriched uranium production at the lower rate will also increase,” he said, speaking at Iran’s Arak nuclear plant.
But there’s a catch: If European nations give Iran access to the global financial system and grow business ties, then Iran would comply with the nuclear agreement again, Kamalvandi said.
The European nations party to the deal — the UK, France, and Germany — may not comply with Iran’s demand, saying they would reimpose their own sanctions if Iran surpasses the low-enriched uranium limit.
However, they’re also working on creating a barter-trade system so they can do business with Iran despite America’s sanctions.
Which means Iran’s gambit — breaking a part of the nuclear deal to compel either the US or European countries to loosen financial pressure — may not work. But that won’t stop Iran from pursuing what seems like an incredibly risky and possibly futile plan.
Iran may be a relatively powerful country in the Middle East, but its options for pushing back against the US and its European allies are few. Its two best options are to cease compliance with the terms of the nuclear agreement and to threaten to disrupt the global energy trade.
Both of those moves are extremely dicey, especially the second one. It would garner the fury of the United States and other nations dependent on energy traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime passage aggressively patrolled by Iran where a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas and almost 20 percent of the world’s oil production flows.
Likely because the sanctions have put a major dent in Iran’s economy, Tehran chose to employ the risky, two-pronged strategy. With the announcement that it will soon have extra low-enriched uranium, Iran has signaled its intention to execute option one. Option two, however, is already seemingly underway.
In May, four oil tankers were damaged near the Strait of Hormuz. Two of them belonged to Saudi Arabia and one belonged to the United Arab Emirates, both staunch enemies of Iran and friends to the US. (The fourth was owned by a Norwegian company.)
United Nations ambassadors from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Norway said two weeks ago that the damages came after a country used divers to place mines on the large ships. The diplomats didn’t specifically name Iran as the culprit, but the US had already blamed Tehran for the sabotage, a charge Iran denies.
And last week, two oil tankers traveling in the Gulf of Oman — just east of the Strait of Hormuz — caught fire and sustained significant damage, leading the US Navy and other nearby ships to respond immediately. The Trump administration also said Iran was responsible for using limpet mines on at least one vessel and trying to shoot down a US military drone (Iran also denies this).
Put together, Middle East expert and Bloomberg opinion writer Bobby Ghosh wrote last Friday, Iran may be trying to “blackmail” America: “End the sanctions, or we take out some more tankers, and send oil prices surging.” That play may compel the US to negotiate with Iran over how to end the months-long crisis, talks Trump says he’s willing to have once Tehran is ready.
But Ghosh isn’t sure Iran’s gambit will work. “If you squint just enough, you can see that the Iranians are moving toward negotiations. It is a high-risk strategy, more likely to fail than succeed.”
There’s one good reason to suspect that: The blackmail approach assumes that the United States, led by Iran hawks such as National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will back down from the challenge and agree to diplomacy.
If they don’t, then a US-Iran tit-for-tat may be all the world sees in the foreseeable future — and that could have catastrophic consequences.
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/17/18681752/iran-nuclear-deal-uranium-trump
2019-06-17 14:20:00Z
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