Can the P5+1’s Vienna Deal Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Breakout?

On July 28, 2015, William Tobey took part in a timely conversation that examined the Iran nuclear deal. The expert panel discussion, titled "Can the P5+1’s Vienna Deal Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Breakout?" was hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed earlier this month in Vienna is the culmination of a longstanding Obama administration effort to resolve the international community’s nuclear standoff with Iran through diplomatic means. A host of serious questions surround the agreement, including the complexities of international law and politics necessary to enact its provisions, and the strategic calculations that Iran’s regional rivals will make in its aftermath. But the key question remains the most practical one: Will the JCPOA, advanced by its proponents as a far-reaching and robust arms agreement, actually prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon?

Can the JCPOA’s inspection and verification regime, which allows Iran a 24-day window to prepare – or “sanitize” – any suspected site for on-site review, provide an effective guarantee against violations? What will it mean when the JCPOA expires in 15 years under the “sunset clause” and Iran becomes a “normal” nuclear power? And how, in the meantime, will the deal’s removal of existing sanctions against currently designated terrorists and terror-connected entities – like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Qassem Suleimani, commander of IRGC’s expeditionary unit, the Quds Force – complicate efforts to constrain Sunni Arab states from pursuing nuclear arms programs of their own?

Speakers included:

Senator Tom Cotton, Keynote Speaker

U.S. Senator from Arkansas

William Tobey

Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Michael Doran

Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

Hillel Fradkin

Senior Fellow & Director, Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World, Hudson Institute

Lee Smith, Moderator

Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute