Five Compromises to Avoid in a Comprehensive Agreement with Iran

A long term, comprehensive solution under the Joint Plan of Action needs to ensure Iran uses nuclear energy for exclusively peaceful purposes. Any such agreement will be complex and require a range of interrelated provisions. We have evaluated five commonly discussed proposals based on a set of criteria, including breakout potential, reversibility, stability, and verifiability and found them flawed. As a result, they should not be part of a long term agreement. They are:

• (Bad compromise 1) increasing allowed centrifuge numbers significantly while lowering low enriched uranium (LEU) hexafluoride (and oxide) stocks toward zero;
• (Bad compromise 2) allowing Iran to maintain in the Arak reactor a core holding significantly more fuel channels than required for fueling the reactor with low enriched uranium fuel;
• (Bad compromise 3) agreeing that Iran’s centrifuge plants can maintain installed but non-enriching centrifuges designated as in excess under the limits of the deal;
• (Bad compromise 4) leaving the resolution of Iran’s past and possibly ongoing nuclear weaponization and military fuel cycle efforts until after a deal is concluded and economic and financial sanctions are loosened, if not removed; and
• (Bad compromise 5) lack of constraints banning in a verifiable manner future Iranian illicit nuclear procurement efforts

Since late 2013, we, in consultation with a variety of governmental and outside technical experts, have evaluated various elements of a possible comprehensive solution with Iran that would follow the Joint Plan of Action. In January 2014, ISIS published a model comprehensive solution that contained a range of constraints and conditions. The constraints developed by ISIS aim to establish verifiable, irreversible limits on Iran’s ability to produce the nuclear explosive materials highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium and develop and manufacture nuclear weapons. These provisions are summarized in the Appendix to this report and can found in a more detailed form in the original report.

We believe these provisions and the associated verification measures would protect the national security interests of the United States and its allies. The resulting limited nuclear programs that would remain in Iran and expected extensive verification measures would eliminate the risk of Iran breaking out to nuclear weapons at declared or covert nuclear sites without that effort being detected in a timely manner. There would be adequate time for U.S. and international responses that would prevent Iran from succeeding in that effort.

A comprehensive solution such as the one proposed by ISIS necessarily involves many interrelated elements. Models of such agreements can differ and we recognize that elements of the ISIS model can change without changing an agreement’s overall effectiveness. Undergirding the ISIS model are arms control and non-proliferation principles which we believe are fundamental to any model. In deriving constraints, ISIS applied the following guiding principles:

• Adequate breakout times of at least 6-12 months based on a rigorous assessment of Iran’s centrifuge cascade configurations. Six months is considered a minimum breakout time to put together an effective international response in a post-agreement environment. Some analyses have shown that even six months may not be sufficient to mount an effective response. As a result, a six month breakout must be viewed as a minimum breakout period. A longer one is preferred. In terms of centrifuge numbers, a 6-12 month breakout time translates to 2,000-4,000 IR-1 centrifuges or an equivalent number of advanced centrifuges.
• Irreversibility, where irreversibility is used in the traditional arms control context, accepting that perfect irreversibility is not possible but in practice recognizes that reverting back to the previous, unconstrained situation should take a long time and be defined as taking on order of years and not months.
• Stability, defined as provisions that create a situation less likely to lead to on-going accusations of violations or that would not require an inordinate number of actions to maintain compliance, particularly if there is an incentive or little risk to violating that provision.
• Sufficient, legally binding transparency to allow effective verification by the IAEA that provides early warning of breakout, the determination of the correctness and completeness of Iran’s declarations, and assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear activities or facilities. While voluntary offers of transparency are welcome, experience has shown that transparency should be mandated in an agreement.
• An understanding of how Iran acquires the means to make sensitive nuclear facilities and operate them. This principle is important in constructing an adequate verification regime able to detect clandestine nuclear facilities and activities. It also requires a focus on Iran’s persistent efforts to procure key goods illegally for its nuclear programs. These efforts violate not just sanctions but also export control laws which will continue under any long term agreement with Iran.

In addition to guiding the development of provisions in the ISIS model comprehensive agreement, these principles also permit a method to determine why certain provisions are less desirable or even represent bad compromises that should be set aside. We applied these criteria to a range of provisions, several developed in ISIS-sponsored technical workshops, and others discussed publicly. Some of the ISIS provisions were developed at the request of government officials struggling to find solutions to what constitutes an acceptable deal. Several compromises are quite useful; others are not wise to pursue, including some weighed by experts in these workshops and consultations. This report has focused on a subset of proposals which should be abandoned due to their flawed nature. The full report is available on the ISIS website.