Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Gary Samore, Director of Research at the Belfer Center, write that as  nuclear negotiations with Iran stretch into early July, scholars and politicians have published a stream of analyses of the costs, benefits and risks of a deal. The winner of our prize of the week for confusing and clouding public debate on this critical issue is an op-ed published in The New York Times on June 23, “The Iran Deal’s Fatal Flaw.”

Hussein Kalout, Research Associate with the Iran Project at the Belfer Center, writes that the ongoing conflict in Yemen is best understood as a continuation of the Saudi-Iran regional "Cold War" that has gripped the Middle Eastern region in recent years. He argues that Saudi and Gulf support for Yemeni President Hadi was originally based on the idea that an autocratic system in Yemen would hamper the spread of Iranian influence, but that after Hadi proved unable to mollify opposition groups and was pushed out by the Houthi movement, was forced to intervene to try and prevent the "loss" of Yemen to Iran. He points out that the potential for an agreement between Iran and the P5+1 on the Iranian nuclear program has also pushed Saudi intervention, due to concerns about Iran's ability to further its regional designs after sanctions are lifted. He concludes that Yemen is significantly much more important for Saudi strategy than it is for Iran, but that the Saudi goal of placing President Hadi back in power is unrealistic, and Iranian and Saudi animus will likely continue for some time.

James Sebenius, Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project at the Harvard Law School, writes that the U.S. administration should remember that time is on the side of the P5+1, not Iran, in the nuclear negotiations. He argues that the interim agreement, which both sides are currently adhering to, severely limited the size of the Iranian nuclear program, removing any utility to play for time on the Iranian side of the talks. The same agreement, however, allowed the US and its allies to keep the majority of sanctions on Iran, costing the Iranian economy significantly, especially with the sharp decline in oil prices. Furthermore, Iran is spending money in assisting allies and proxies in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, further depleting its treasury and causing further decline in its domestic economy. He concludes that as a result, the US can afford to keep negotiating well past the June 30 deadline, and still be in a stronger position in the talks, as long as the P5+1 holds together on sanctions.

William Tobey, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, writes for the Iran Task Force that the emerging agreement with Iran over its nuclear program will be fatally weakened if it does not address issues of the past military dimensions of the Iranian program. He notes that while the IAEA has reported that Iran undertook a covert military program potentially related to nuclear weapons development and that the United States initially emphasized understanding all aspects of the PMD issue, Secretary of State John Kerry has appeared to back down from this demand, raising the specter that it will not be addressed in the final agreement. He argues that this is a mistake, as the US intelligence community does not have perfect confidence in knowing every aspect of the Iranian nuclear program, failing to understand every aspect of the Iranian program will hinder verification efforts, and the Iranian willingness to come clean on PMD issues is an important indicator of their willingness to comply with a final agreement.

Jim Walsh, Research Associate at MIT's Security Studies Program, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on methods of assessing the emerging nuclear accord with Iran. He argued that on balance, the agreement is likely to be a boon for both nonproliferation and for U.S. national security. He cautioned against using a standard of perfection for an agreement, noting that almost every nuclear arms control agreement was criticized and despite this have been overwhelmingly successful. He also suggested limits that would be necessary to make the agreement a success, that the IAEA will be able to determine if Iran is willing to hand over the necessary information on its program in order for an agreement to go forward, and that the agreement is unlikely to trigger proliferation across the region and may in fact help prompt further discussion of a nuclear free zone in the Middle East. 

Albert Carnesale, Chancellor Emeritus of the University of California, Los Angeles and Chairman of the International Council of the Belfer Center, writes in The National Interest that the crucial question that must be considered in debating the emerging nuclear accord with Iran is not "is it a good deal?" but "is it a good deal compared to the alternatives?" He argues that referencing some undefined "better deal" is not helpful for debate, and notes the key features of the emerging agreement that would push back Iran's breakout time by a year in exchange for sanctions relief. He suggests that there is debate over whether or not more sanctions would produce an agreement or cause the talks to fail, and suggests that the U.S. should compare the deal to the other two main alternatives, an unconstrained nuclear program or a war with Iran. He notes that the deal can be successful by spelling out monitoring and constraints on the program, and will create verification measures significantly stronger than those currently in place under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, although it would come with the cost of legitimizing Iran's nuclear program and providing funds that may potentially be used for terrorist activities in the region. He concludes that the deal as it appears based on information released now appears to be a good one, in that it will overall enhance the security of the United States and its allies.

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.

Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on lessons from prior weapons of mass destruction negotiations for the current talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Drawing on arms control agreements during the Cold War and the post-Cold War era, he argued that negotiated agreements on nuclear weapons are a crucial part of American national security although they are complementary to, and not an alternative to, other military, diplomatic, covert, and economic means of geopolitical competition, that no arms agreement is perfect from the perspective of both sides as they are by nature negotiated settlements, claims that the United States can't or should make agreements with "evil" regimes or those that cannot be trusted are false, the United States can make agreements with regimes that it is trying to contain or subvert in other ways, and which are in turn engaging in other actions that are threatening American citizens and soldiers, arms control agreements overall have reduced the number of nuclear weapons and helped reduce the likelihood of war, and that there is no "good" or "bad" agreement on its own, but only when assessed against alternative options.

William Tobey, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on lessons from prior arms control and disarmament agreements for the current negotiations with Iran. Using examples from Iraq, North and Libya, he identified five key patterns for arms control negotiators to be cognizant of, including the fact that decisions to disarm are usually incomplete and taken incrementally, deceptive actions by the proliferator can appear as progress, strong verification and intelligence measures can deter cheating while lax verification can encourage it, verification is built on checking declarations for inconsistencies, and inspections are only as effective as political support.  From these lessons, he identified three key lessons, including a complete declaration of nuclear activities is crucial, unwillingness to provide this declaration is evidence of Iran's willingness to comply with a full agreement, and successful agreements require vigilance over time, and cannot be considered solved after an agreement is signed.

Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Simon Henderson, Baker Fellow at the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy, write for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that the final agreement with Iran over its nuclear program needs to take into account the efficiency of Iranian centrifuges when calculating breakout time, and not just the number of centrifuges allowed to enrich. They note that the exact efficiency in Separative Work Units (SWUs) of the Iranian IR-1 centrifuge is not exactly known, and therefore it is very possible that American estimates of Iran's enrichment capacity dangerously underestimates how much Iran is able to enrich, meaning that estimates putting its breakout time at one year are are inaccurate. They argue that it is necessary to understand exactly how efficient the Iranian centrifuges are in order to understand how many Iran needs to maintain a breakout time of about one year, and that this figure cannot only be calculated from the number of centrifuges Iran possess.