Managing the Atom

Speaker: Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, Research Fellow with the Iran Project and Project on Managing the Atom

With President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Iranian nuclear agreement (JCPOA), the future of the deal is under serious question. Please join the Iran Project and The Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) for an expert-level roundtable analyzing the ramifications of this decision and the how leading international and regional players will react to these latest developments.

An Iran Project Director’s Lunch on the future path of US-Iran engagement and strategic policy after the Iran nuclear deal with Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, and Michael Singh, the Lane-Swig Senior Fellow and managing director at The Washington Institute.

A panel discussion on the impact of the Iran nuclear deal on the Arab world with Hussein Kalout, Associate Fellow at Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Research Affiliate at the Belfer Center’s Iran Project; Ibrahim Fraihat, Senior Foreign Policy Fellow, Brookings Doha Center; and Abdulwahab Al-Qassab, Associate Research Fellow, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies.

A panel discussion with Robert M. Danin, MEI Senior Fellow and Senior Fellow, Middle East Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Gonul Tol, Founding Director, Center for Turkish Studies, Middle East Institute; and Nasser Hadian, Professor of Political Science, University of Tehran.

The news released April 2nd about a framework agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 heralds an important success in the diplomatic process to prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. However, many questions about the deal's parameters, implementation and effects. This seminar will explore these questions and others relating to the announcement of the framework agreement.

This seminar will be open to Harvard students, staff, and faculty only, and will require an RSVP.

As nuclear negotiations with Iran go into their second year, and the US congress considers a new sanctions bill, the chances of reaching a comprehensive settlement are highly uncertain. The number of regional and global actors with stakes in Iran’s nuclear trajectory means that a failure of negotiations would have far-reaching consequences. Different scenarios leading to the breakdown of talks could produce distinct pathways for the aftermath of diplomatic failure. In particular, whether or not negotiations end with the P5+1 united or divided will affect the prospects of further multilateral sanctions, as well as the behavior of Iran and its regional rivals.  The panel will examine these scenarios, and consider the consequences of a collapse of the negotiations for Iran’s nuclear policy, for regional politics and security, and for relations among the P5+1.