Nuclear Issues

5 Items

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

What if the Iran Negotiations Fail?

Spring 2015

The Belfer Center’s Iran Project and the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) co-sponsored a luncheon panel on the Iranian nuclear negotiations and the scenarios for the potential breakdown of current international talks on Iran, entitled “And Then What? Imagining the Middle East if Nuclear Negotiations with Iran Fail.”

JPOA negotiating teams

US Department of State

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

How To Muddle Through With Iran

    Author:
  • Dennis Ross
| October 19, 2014

It is no accident that hardly anyone involved in the Iranian nuclear negotiations has expressed optimism about meeting the November 24 deadline for a comprehensive agreement. The Iranian and U.S. governments are continuing to meet regularly -- most recently last week in Vienna -- but there are few signs of meaningful progress. Indeed, the essence of the deal that has always made most sense -- a rollback of the Iranian nuclear program in return for a rollback of sanctions -- seems increasingly beyond reach. Instead, the Iranians have been insisting on a rollback of the sanctions in return only for limited transparency on their industrial-size nuclear program. But Washington has insisted for a long time that, given Iran’s past violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), limited transparency won’t be enough. Further, it has already stated that it will not accept an industrial-scale program, although it is prepared to agree to a limited-enrichment capability.

A nuclear research reactor at the headquarters of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, in Tehran, Iran, which went online with American help in 1967, before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution strained ties between the two countries.

Associated Press

Analysis & Opinions

Can Iran and the United States Make a Meaningful Deal?

| October 10, 2014

It appears increasingly likely there will not be a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear program by the late-November deadline, says nuclear expert Gary Samore. Washington and Tehran, he says, remain too far apart on how large Iran's enrichment program should be, but they are interested in working out an extension of talks.

Kurdish peshmerga forces stand by their armed vehicles in Mahmoudiyah, Iraq, a day after they take control of the village from the Islamic State group, as they patrol on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014.

(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

Bad Move, ISIS: Why America and Iran Should Work Together

| Oct. 06, 2014

"While a threat to U.S. interests, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) presents us with a unique opportunity to 'reset' the Middle East equation—to actively transform regional relations, to abate the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia and to forge a new working relationship with Iran," writes Payam Mohseni. "As the United States moves to escalate its war against ISIS and forge a coalition against the terrorist group, it is important that Iran be included in the process. After all, U.S. and Iranian interests have increasingly converged in the Middle East with the emergence of a common enemy, and no power in the region is better suited to taking on ISIS than Iran and its affiliated Shi’a militias in Iraq."

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Payam Mohseni Named Inaugural Director of Belfer Center's Iran Project

| June 23, 2014

Payam Mohseni, visiting assistant professor of Iranian and Middle East politics at Harvard University, has been named Iran Project Director and Fellow for Iran Studies at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.