While Iran continues to keep the pressure on to weaken the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) effort to get to the bottom of the well-founded allegations that it had a nuclear weapons program, the Obama administration is giving the impression that it is softening its position on this critical issue. The administration should publicly state that the results of the IAEA’s investigation are critical and are linked to sanctions relief.

Two proliferation experts discuss the risk of other regional states pursuing nuclear capabilities of their own to counter Iran, and whether they have the necessary funds, technical capability, outside help, and political will.

On September 21, 2015, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano informed the Board of Governors that one day earlier he had visited a suspect site within the Parchin Military Complex in Iran. A few days prior to Director General Amano’s visit, as foreseen in an unofficial draft Iran/IAEA agreement, Iran, took environmental samples at the suspect location. Amano said in a public statement that access to the site was important in order to “clarify issues related to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.” However, the manner in which environmental samples were taken raises troubling precedents for both the IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s past work on nuclear weapons and the verifiability of the long term nuclear deal, the Joint Compreheansive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Inspections at Parchin are again in the limelight. Questions and concerns have been raised over whether the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is getting the requisite physical access to the site to collect meaningful information. These questions are salient since Parchin—where the IAEA has long had questions about high-explosive work connected to the possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program and subsequently, about the years of sanitization carried out at the base—will likely become the standard for access given to other military and suspect sites under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

On Thursday, August 6, Belfer Center Senior Fellow Olli Heinonen took part in a teleconference sponsored by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) to assess the Iran nuclear agreement.

Heinonen was joined by fellow arms control experts Joan Rohlfing and Frank von Hippel in the panel discussion titled "Decoding the Iran Agreement: What Constitutes Effective Verification and Monitoring?" The discussion was moderated by The Atlantic's James Fallows.

Two flashes, one in Hiroshima and the other in Nagasaki, extinguished the lives of 200,000 people, made equally large by the amount of suffering resulting from the consequences that the blast and radiation generated. This was also the start of the nuclear armament race, first between the United States and the then-Soviet Union, soon followed by the United Kingdom, France and China.

The two Cold War adversaries and environment the Cold War generated held the nuclear aspirations of the allies at bay. The warning by President Kennedy of a nightmare scenario of several dozen states gaining nuclear weapons in the coming age unless steps were taken did not materialize. Security guarantees by the U.S. and Soviet Union to their allies, access to peaceful nuclear technology and the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1968 were medicines to curb nuclear proliferation.

On July 23, 2015, Olli Heinonen took part in an expert panel that explored the outcome of the historic nuclear negotiations with Iran. The panel discussion, titled "The Iran Nuclear Deal: Pitfalls & Promises," was held the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

The event, which was the fifth in the Iran Forum series sponsored by a consortium of eight Washington think tanks, can be viewed in its entirety.

Olli Heinonen, senior fellow at the Belfer Center, testified on Wednesday, July 22, 2015 before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services' Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing. The hearing was titled “The Iran Nuclear Deal and its Impact on Terrorism Financing.”

Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Robert Blackwill, Member of the Board of the Belfer Center and Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, General James Cartwright,Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, Paula Dobriansky, Senior Fellow with the Belfer Center's Future of Diplomacy Project, Ollie Heinonen, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, David Petraeus, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, Dennis Ross, International Council Member of the Belfer Center, and Gary Samore, Director of Research at the Belfer Center, are all signatories of the Public Statement on U.S. Policy towards the Iran Nuclear Negotiations published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The statement urges the Administration to continue negotiating until it has completed an agreement that strengthens monitoring and verification of the Iranian program, clears issues of possible military dimensions to the Iranian program, restricts research and development in order to delay Iran's ability to deploy advanced centrifuges, only provides sanctions relief in exchange for verifiable actions undertaken by Iran, and contains measures to penalize Iran if it violates the terms of the agreement. It also urges action in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and in the broader region to contain Iranian influence and reassure allies of American commitment to stability.

Unfettered access to sites, facilities, material, equipment, people, and documents is imperative to the credible long-term verification of any nuclear agreement with Iran. This “anywhere, anytime” access and short notice inspections must not be subject to a dispute resolution mechanism, which would delay the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) access.