Washington Think-Tank Mulls Options If Iran Nuclear Talks Falter

Mohammad Eslami, vice president and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on Friday that since President Ebrahim Raisi made a visit to the site in January, the pace of the projects have changed thanks to the president’s emphasis. 

Eslami did not elaborate on the details nor did he mention that Russia is responsible for the projects.

Vienna negotiations hit a bump in the road on March 5 when Russia asked that sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine should not impact implementation of a revived 2015 nuclear deal , the JCPOA. Moscow later said it received the needed assurances from the US.

The Bushehr reactor is not part of the current nuclear dispute between the West and Iran, as Russia handles the nuclear fuel cycle. Iran has been enriching uranium and stockpiling more purified fissile material at other facilities.

The United States had expressed reservations about Russia building the Bushehr nuclear power plant but finally relented in late 2000s, saying that as long as Russia controls the fuel, it did not see the project as a proliferation risk.

Russia commissioned Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr, in 2011. It has one operational unit that generates 1,000 megawatts, providing less than two percent of the country’s electricity.

Iran is expanding the Bushehr reactor to generate more electricity as the country suffers from a chronic shortage of electrical power, with daily outages that cripple industry and anger home consumers.

Around six weeks after Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said June 9 that four weeks remained during which he could certify the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear work, he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that Iran’s nuclear work was “galloping ahead.”

Iran began restricting IAEA access to that required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the end of 2020 after its nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed. Iran announced its latest steps downscaling agency monitoring equipment June 8 after the IAEA board passed a critical motion moved by the United States and some European countries.

Grossi told El Pais that even if stalled negotiations succeeded in reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, under which the agency had extensive inspection powers, there would remain a period for which he lacked knowledge. He did, however, moderate his June 9 comments.

“If there is an agreement [to restore the 2015 deal, the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], it is going to be very difficult for me to reconstruct the puzzle of this whole period of forced blindness,” Grossi said. “It is not impossible, but it is going to require a very complex task and perhaps some specific agreements.”

Iran has breached several JCPOA restrictions on its nuclear program, which it began doing in 2019, the year after the United States, under President Donald Trump, withdrew from the agreement and imposed draconian sanctions on Iran.

Grossi expressed to El Pais concern over the number of centrifuges, used to enrich uranium, Iran is either constructing or has in operation. Both numbers and type were limited by the JCPOA.

Fragile database

“The agency needed to reconstruct a database, without which any agreement will rest on a very fragile basis, because if we don't know what's there, how can we determine how much material to export, how many centrifuges to leave unused?” Grossi asked.

The number and kind of centrifuges Iran operates, or has ready, determines how quickly it could enrich sufficient ‘weapons grade’ uranium, generally taken to be 90 percent purity, for a bomb. Iran currently enriches to 60 percent, way above the JCPOA limit of 3.65 percent.

The US Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley said Tuesday Iran was “a few weeks” from having enough sufficiently enriched uranium for a bomb “it if chooses to enrich at that level,” although weaponization would take longer.

US-Iran Talks over JCPOA restoration seem stuck, despite diplomatic efforts by the European Union, with some analysts arguing both sides await the outcome of November’s US mid-term Congressional elections. For now, both Tehran and Washington are dealing with domestic critics and arguing the onus lies with the other.

Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian repeated Friday that Iran wanted US assurances it would get the “full economic benefits of the agreement.” He said Iran would not be “bitten twice,” referring to Tehran’s argument that when the US was ‘in’ the JCPOA, it used other means than direct sanctions to restrict Iran’s access to world trade.

One economic imperative for Iran is foreign investments, which might prove hard to secure given the closed nature of its government-controlled economy and its image as an un-hospitable country for foreign businesses.

As he stepped into his new role -- with responsibility for military operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and across the region, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich told reporters at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Thursday that such assaults could lead to a new escalation, while Russia and China are vying for economic and military influence across the Mideast.

“We’re in this position where we’re not under attack constantly, but we do see planning for attacks ongoing. Something will occur that unleashes that planning and that preparation against us,” Grynkewich said. 

He also expressed concerns about Iran preparing to send Russia armed and unarmed drones to use in its war on Ukraine, saying it “is not a surprise … but it’s concerning.”

He also referred to Tehran’s rapidly growing stockpile of near-weapons-grade nuclear fuel in recent months, saying, “Everyone in the region is very concerned.”

His remarks came as the Syrian defense ministry said an Israeli strike killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded seven others near Damascus early Friday. 

According to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor the attack targeted an "Iranian weapons depot", an air force intelligence facility and a high-ranking officer's office, as well as a car near the Mezzeh military airport.

It said three Syrians were killed in military positions hosting air defense batteries in the perimeter of the Mezzeh airbase, as well as three non-Syrians and two “collaborators” of the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group at a workshop for manufacturing Iranian drones near the town of Sayyidah Zaynab, commonly known as Sitt Zaynab, 10 kilometers south of Damascus.

Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) known as MI6, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, he was skeptical that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wants to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA.

"I'm not convinced we're going to get there. ... I don't think the Supreme Leader of Iran wants to cut a deal," Moore said and added, "The Iranians won't want to end the talks either, so they could run on for a bit."

Asked about these remarks during the State Department briefing on Thursday, spokesperson Ned Price said, “I…don’t think you need a security clearance to discern the fact that Iran at this point doesn’t seem to have made the political decision – or decisions, I should say – necessary to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA.”

After almost 16 months of negotiations with Iran and seven months after Washington says a final draft was offered to Tehran, negotiations remain stalled, as Iran seems to demand more concessions. More pundits and critics of the Biden strategy have begun to say that Iran simply wants to drag out the talks to prevent any decisive decision in Washington, while expanding its nuclear program to the point of a nuclear threshold state.

Price in his comments Thursday agreed with Moore’s assessment. The fact is that a deal has been on the table for months now. We have continued to engage in indirect diplomacy with Iran, courtesy of the efforts of the European Union and other partners, but Iran, to this point at least, has not displayed an inclination to seek that deal. So certainly, those comments ring true,” he said.

Iran’s former president Hassan Rouhani told his former aides in Tehran earlier this week that he could have made a deal with the new Biden Administration as early as March 2021 but the hardliners in parliament blocked any progress in the talks by passing legislation to intensify uranium enrichment and reducing UN inspections.

But the Biden Administration still argues that diplomacy remains the best option to restrain Iran’s nuclear program.

The British spy chief who said he agrees with the diplomatic option said, "I think the deal is absolutely on the table. And the European powers and the (US) administration here are very clear on that. And I don't think that the Chinese and Russians, on this issue, would block it. But I don't think the Iranians want it.”

Speaking later in the day at the Aspen forum, Israel's defense minister Benny Gantz said Israel had the military capability to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, if it came to that as a last resort.

"Should we be able to conduct military operation to prevent it, if needed? The answer is yes. Are we building the ability? Yes. Should we use it as a last (resort)? Yes. And I hope that we will get United States' support," Gantz said.

Bahrain's Undersecretary of Political Affairs Sheikh Abdulla bin Ahmed bin Abdulla Al Khalifa declined to directly answer a question about whether his country might participate in pre-emptive military action against Iran's nuclear program.

But when asked whether it would be fair to interpret his answer as "an ambiguous maybe," he quipped: "Fair enough."

Two days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s summit in Tehran with his Russian and Iranian counterparts during which both Moscow and Tehran urged Turkey against a new military operation in northern Syria, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, "We exchanged ideas, but we never asked and we never ask permission for our military operations."

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Erdogan that a new Turkish offensive would be “detrimental” to the region.

Highlighting Turkey’s disagreements with Iran and Russia over Syria, Çavuşoğlu said the two countries' support for the Syrian regime is unacceptable to Turkey. “What we say is important, what our president says is important," Çavuşoğlu said. 

He said Turkey had paused operations against the YPG/PKK in the east of the Euphrates because both the US and Russia had committed to clear them from this region, adding that “Since this has not happened so far, these terrorists have started to increase attacks against our own lands from there, as well as continuing the attacks against the Syrians, the opposition, our soldiers, and our police. What would the US do in such a situation now? What would Russia do?"

Turkey refuted Iraqi claims Wednesday that it had attacked a mountain resort in Zakho in northern Dohuk province, killing eight and wounding another 23 people. 

Turkey regularly carries out air strikes in northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives as part of a long-running campaign against outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militias. Ankara regards both as terrorist groups.