Emerging West deal with Tehran: Acknowledgement of Iran’s nuclear threshold status

Over the past two weeks, media reports have surfaced detailing alleged clauses of the new nuclear agreement being discussed by Iran and the United States. 

If the publications are accurate, the first takeaway is that Iran’s status as a nuclear threshold state is receiving Western acknowledgement.  

According to the reports, Iran will agree to not enrich uranium beyond the 60 percent level. But contrary to the previous 2015 JCPOA agreement, Iran will be able to hold on to the uranium that has already been enriched. 

This means that the transition to the military-grade enrichment level of over 90 percent becomes a simple process for Iran, lasting just weeks. It also becomes a matter that depends on an Iranian decision rather than on Iran needing to gain the ability to implement the decision. 

Nevertheless, it must also be noted that despite its enrichment capabilities, Iran still has a significant gap separating it from an ability to assemble a bomb, known as the weaponization stage. 

The Iranian weapons group, as it is dubbed, is responsible for taking over the nuclear program after the uranium enrichment phase is complete. That group was formerly headed by Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in Iran in November 2020. 

There does not appear to be any progress in this area of weaponization, involving a nuclear warhead creation, and placing it on a missile. In exchange for an Iranian enrichment freeze, Tehran will reportedly pledge to stop attacks on U.S. positions in Syria and Iraq via its proxies in these countries. 

In addition, Iran will commit to expanding its cooperation with international nuclear inspectors and to not selling ballistic missiles to Russia. The U.S., for its part, will not remove its sanctions on Iran, but will avoid making them more severe. 

However, a big question mark hovers over the issue of sanctions enforcement. For example, according to some reports, the agreement would lead to the U.S. allowing foreign tankers carrying Iranian oil to sail through. Subsequently, the U.S. will thaw billions of dollars in Iranian assets, in exchange for the release of American prisoners by Iran. 

In the July 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, Iran was granted access to $150 billion dollars of its frozen assets. Following the JCPOA, Iran's military deployment in the Middle East changed dramatically.

The scope of the current Iranian involvement in the Middle East as we know it today, involving tens of Iranian proxy militias in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and influence in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and more – can be tied to the funds that Iran gained following the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Today we see Iranian involvement worldwide. Such as, its dissemination of Islamic revolutionary concepts, pursuing a campaign to Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani into a mythical figure from Kashmir to the Middle East, supplies of UAVs, to Russia in its war in Ukraine, and iran is the prime funder and supplier of Hezbollah in Lebanon. It also heavily subsidizes Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and a network of allied militias in Syria and Iraq. Iranian activities have also stretched out to Venezuela and to countries in Africa.

The question therefore arises: What will prevent Iran from moving forward on these issues? The standard answer is American and Israeli deterrence, but questions need to be asked about this as well. 

A few months ago, an American senior official issued a statement that could be understood to mean that Washington was giving a green light for an Israeli attack, if Iran moved past certain red lines in the nuclear project. U.S. National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, appear to signal a new threat by Washington, when he stated on May 4: “We will continue to send a clear message about the costs and consequences of going too far, while at the same time continuing to seek the possibility of a diplomatically brokered outcome that puts Iran’s nuclear program back in the box."

If the agreement emerges in line with the leaked clauses, this would mean that Sullivan's statement was designed to put the Israelis to sleep, and to nudge the Iranians to move forward, reviving dormant negotiations. Unfortunately, the statement did not improve the emerging agreement, and the entire world remains dependent on Tehran's decision on whether to reach the bomb or not. 

Israeli officials, meanwhile, have reportedly indicated that Israel has its own clear red line, and that is an Iranian decision to enrich uranium to the 90 percent level. Whatever happens next, it is all too convenient for the international community to expect an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites if negotiations fail, or to expect Israel to do "the dirty work" and face the consequences on its own. 

Treating the issue as if it is an Israeli problem is a strategically short-sighted approach, and one that ignores the multiple and tangible threats that Iran’s agenda and activities pose to the world. A nuclear Iran, with missile delivery vehicles that are already in place, is a global problem.

It would spark a regional nuclear arms race with the Saudis, the Egyptians, and possibly the Turks, eventually undermining global security. And it would create a nuclear umbrella over a network of Iranian-backed radical actors.

It's time to change the framing of the discourse, one that takes into account the destructive role that Iran plays both in the Middle East and around the world. 

Sarit Zehavi is the founder and president of Alma Research & Education Center

Yaakov Lappin is a research associate at the Alma Center, a military affairs correspondent and analyst at JNS, and an in-house analyst at the Miryam Institute