Trump’s House of Iranian Nuclear Cards that He Dealt to Himself

Trump’s House of Iranian Nuclear Cards that He Dealt to Himself

In the fall of 2015, Iran finalized the UN endorsed “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA) with the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China. It was a flawed but sufficiently effective treaty to contain Iran’s nuclear program, a plan that had the potential of building a nuclear arsenal. It took years to negotiate, and then-President Barack Obama, who campaigned on resolving the Iranian nuclear threat, called the issue the "most consequential foreign policy debate that our country has had since the invasion of Iraq."

Under the JCPOA, Iran reduced its large stockpile of low-enriched uranium to no more than 660 pounds from roughly 12.5 tons — a 98 percent reduction, actually sending this larger remaining stockpile to Russia. Iran also began to disassemble and store more than 13,000 centrifuges — it was allowed to have only 5,060 spinning — and began to convert the underground Fordo nuclear enrichment site to a research-and-development installation. Iran initiated removal and disablement of the core of its heavy water reactor at Arak so that it could not produce plutonium, an alternative pathway to a bomb. The Accord also provided for inspections and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Despite assurances from all of our major intelligence agencies that this flawed plan was in fact working, that Iran’s ability to manufacture a function nuclear bomb has indeed been stopped for at least the 15-year term of the agreement, a very arrogant President Trump, claiming he would do much better, withdrew the United States from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018, saying it was the worst deal ever. But Iran immediately responded with an enrichment spree that haunts the negotiations to this day. Tehran wasted no time instantly ramping up their efforts to restore their program of nuclear enrichment, building up new stockpiles of enriched uranium, which was soon just shy of achieving nuclear-weapons-grade fissionable material. The speed and amount of the build-up came as quite a surprise to US weapons experts. Had Trump opened a Pandora’s Box he could not close?

Iran was soon much stronger, also developing ballistic missile capacity that could, someday, be used to carry nukes that were capable of reaching Europe. Then the US-Israeli “obliteration” campaign of bombing and missile strikes began. In response, Iran has brought the oil-dependent world to its knees by cutting off the 20% of global oil and gas that had relied on open passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the only way oil could be exported out of the Persian Gulf and then to oil and gas buyers in Europe and Asia. Trump arrogantly assured the world that he would open the Strait and guarantee that Iran would never have a nuke. His unilaterally declared war on Iran left the United States isolated in its efforts, with the exception of Israel, which seemed to be in a never-ending conflict with Iran.

Writing for the April 26th New York Times, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, tell us that the bomb-buried “970 pounds of potential bomb fuel represent only a small fraction of the problem… Today, international inspectors say, Iran has a total of 11 tons of uranium, at various enrichment levels. With further purification, that is enough to build up to 100 nuclear weapons — more than the estimated size of Israel’s arsenal… Virtually all of that cache accumulated in the years after Mr. Trump abandoned the Obama-era deal…

“Now, matching or exceeding that diplomatic accomplishment is one of the most complex challenges facing Mr. Trump and his two lead negotiators, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, whose planned travel to Pakistan for another session of negotiations was canceled at the last minute by Mr. Trump. Central to the negotiations is the American demand that Iran halt further enrichment and that it hand over the fuel stockpile it has built up over the past eight years; Iran is resisting on both fronts.

“Mr. Trump is acutely aware that whatever he can negotiate with the Iranians will be compared with what Mr. Obama achieved more a decade ago. While the two countries are still exchanging proposals, and could well come up empty-handed, Mr. Trump is already judging his own, yet-to-be-negotiated agreement as superior.

“‘The DEAL that we are making with Iran will be FAR BETTER,’ Mr. Trump wrote on his social media site [in late April]. The Obama-era deal ‘was a guaranteed Road to a Nuclear Weapon, which will not, and cannot, happen with the deal we’re working on.’… Based on Mr. Trump’s often-shifting objectives for the conflict with Iran, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff face a daunting list of negotiation topics, many of which the Obama team failed to address. They have to find a way to limit Iran’s ability to rebuild its arsenal of missiles. (The 2015 deal never addressed Iran’s missile capability, and Tehran ignored a United Nations resolution imposing limits.)

“They need to find a way to fulfill Mr. Trump’s mandate to protect anti-regime protesters, whom Mr. Trump promised to help in January when they took to the streets. In fact, those protests were among the triggers for the American military buildup that ultimately led to the Feb. 28 attack… And they must negotiate a [permanent] reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians shut down after the American-Israeli attacks, a move Mr. Trump was clearly unprepared for. Now Iran has discovered that a few inexpensive mines and threats to ships have given it huge leverage over the global economy, pressure it can dial up or down in ways that nuclear weapons cannot.

“But it is the fate of the atomic program that lies at the negotiations’ heart. As in the 2015 talks, the Iranians declare they have a ‘right’ to enrich under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, one they refuse to give up. But that still leaves room for ‘suspension’ of all nuclear efforts for some number of years. (Vice President JD Vance demanded 20 years when he met his Pakistani interlocutors two weeks ago, only to have Mr. Trump declare a few days later that the right period was ‘unlimited.’)… William J. Burns, the former C.I.A. chief who played a lead role in the Obama-era negotiations, said in The New York Times on Friday [4/24] that a good deal would require ‘tight nuclear inspections, an extended moratorium on the enrichment of uranium and the export or dilution of Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium in exchange for tangible sanctions relief.’”

But Iran does not seem anxious to make concessions, certain they can outlast the US, and is not particularly ready to resume full negotiations with the US. To make that point clear to Mr Trump, Tehran has even resumed executing the dissents and protestors Trump vowed to protect.

I’m Peter Dekom, and perhaps, sadly, Donald Trump is hoping that perhaps media focus on the recent failed assassination attempt, plus maybe resurrection of coverage of the Epstein Scandal, just might be sufficient distraction from his Iran War debacle… or maybe not.