One major player continues to emerge in the Middle East, Iran. With the Islamic State’s Caliphate almost completely annihilated, and several countries still in disarray, the time is right for regional powers to exert their influence. For the past three years we have heard several discussions and debates revolving around the Iran Nuclear Deal. Is it good? Is it bad? Or what even is the deal about? We are going to take a look into what exactly makes up the Iran Nuclear Deal and how it will effect the Middle East and the U.S. moving forward.

The Iran Nuclear Deal is officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was a deal agreed upon between Iran and what’s known as the UN Security Council’s Permanent members the P5 + 1. The P5+1 consists of the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany as the plus 1. The agreement was reached in the summer of 2015 after 20 months of negotiations, and fully implemented January 16th, 2016 during the Obama Administration. The purpose of this deal was to lift crippling sanctions on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Iran has had a long history with nuclear power, and pursued that item since the 1950’s, even to the point that at one time the United States leased enriched uranium to Iran for their use. Relations between the U.S. and Iran quickly started to deteriorate. The U.S. had placed economic sanctions on Iran for decades following the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis when 52 Americans were held captive for over a year. President Carter approved sanctions after this incident, President Reagan after Iran invaded Iraq in the early 1980’s, by President Clinton after Iranian nuclear violations and support for Palestinian terrorist organizations, and once again by George W. Bush following more nuclear program violations. Sanctions were placed on Iranian banking assets held overseas, banks, insurance, oil and automobile industries, and investment sectors for foreign companies to do business with Iranian companies. The European Union and the United Nations also placed many of these sanctions on Iran.

For Iran to have these sanctions lifted, the Iran Nuclear Deal specified many qualifications and requirements they must meet. To make a nuclear bomb, uranium must be enriched to 90%. By accepting the deal Iran agreed to only enrich Uranium to 3.67% for the next 15 years, enough to be used for nuclear power. At the time of the deal Iran possessed 20,000 centrifuges used for the enrichment. They must reduce that number down to 5,060 for 13 years. The 5,060 can also only be their oldest and least efficient ones. In regards to their Uranium stockpile, they had to reduce it by 98% down to only 660lbs for 15 years. All of these activities would be limited to a single facility for 10 years.

They also agreed to not build any new heavy water production facilities. Heavy water facilities create spent fuel which contains plutonium which can also be used for an atomic bomb. Any spent fuel created must be shipped out of Iran, with most of it going to the U.S. In addition to the stipulations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have monitoring access to all nuclear facilities at any time.

While all sanctions on Iran’s banks, oil, and industry were lifted, several sanctions remained in place that were not lifted. These sanctions that remained in place, and still remain now, involve missile technology, terrorism sanctions listing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, individuals connected with terror, human rights abuses, and future sanctions in regards to Iran’s involvement in Yemen and Syria. Additionally, if Iran is found to be in violation of the JCPOA, all previous removed economic sanctions “snap back” into place.

You may also remember a few years ago, and during the time of our presidential election and debates, discussion of the U.S. shipping $400 million to Iran on pallets in the middle of the night a day after the nuclear deal was implemented. What was that all about? And why did President Trump say it was ransom money but President Obama said it wasn’t related to any American prisoners?

After the previously mentioned Iranian Hostage crisis in 1979, President Jimmy Carter froze all Iranian assets held within the United States. This accounted for around $12 billion in assets. Most of the money was returned or unfrozen a few years later, but $400 million was not.

The Shah of Iran had made an advanced payment of $400 million before the revolution for American made fighter jets and weapons. After the crisis occurred, the U.S. was in no position to fulfill that order, especially since the Shah who made the order was ousted with Ayatollah Khomeini coming to power. Therefore, the order was never fulfilled, and the funds were never returned. So essentially Iran had made a government to government transaction that was never completed or resolved for three decades. A final agreement of $400 million and $1.3 billion in interest was agreed upon to be paid to Iran.

Then things start to get even more interesting. The Iran Nuclear Deal was implemented on January 16th, 2016, and the $400 million was shipped back to Iran in the form of Euros, Swiss Francs, and other international currencies on January 17th . On that same day that the money was transferred, 5 American hostages were released from Iranian custody. In return, 7 U.S. detained Iranians were freed. So you have three major events taking place all at one time. A nuclear deal being struck, a payment of $1.7 billion dollars, and a prisoner swap. While all three events were vacillated by three different teams, some major diplomacy was happening. So while the money transfer wasn’t technically a ransom payment, the three events weren’t totally separate either. This deal was used as leverage to clear away a number of diplomatic disputes between Iran and the United States.

The talks around the deal we hear now are in regards to its effectiveness. Two sides have two different philosophies and arguments. When the deal was signed, the Obama administration had one thought process about the deal. Previous sanctions of Iran allowed for vertically no enrichment of uranium. As a result Iran would open secret facilities that the U.S. wouldn’t learn about until years later. Since many of the pursuits of nuclear energy were being done in secret, they weren’t being monitored by the IAEA, and were in violation of previous agreements they had signed. Therefore, the deal was made on the thought process that if they were allowed minimum access to do these activities, it would create much more transparency, get rid of the secret movements, and allow monitoring off all Iran’s nuclear activity.

It was also done with economic impacts in mind. With sanctions to so many of Iran’s business sectors, the country was doing very poor economically. The price of most foods had risen 40%, inflation was at 16%, and youth unemployment was at a staggering 40%. And being unable to work with businesses from other countries, there was little hope for the people of Iran to break their poverty woes. With the lifting of the sanctions, around $100 million in frozen foreign assets was released, and businesses such as the oil company Shell and automobile manufacturers started looking at business opportunities within the country. All of these items combined were the basis to complete this deal.

The second school of thought comes from the current administration. President Trump makes the claim that the deal is too lenient. The deal has to be recertified every 120 days. It was last decertified in January, with the president stating he would not recertify in May and pull out of the Iran Nuclear Deal unless congress added new conditions.

The new conditions first dealt with the sunset laws. The current administration does not want certain aspects of the deal to expire after 10, 13, or 15 years like they are listed above. Any limits on Iran’s nuclear program should be permanently in effect. He also stated that ballistic missile sanctions and nuclear sanctions should be linked. If Iran is found in violation of trying to obtain or create ballistic missiles, then in turn that would be linked to pursuing a nuclear weapon and a violation. Recently rebels in Yemen have been found to be launching Iranian made missiles into Saudi Arabia. Finally, Iran is restricting access by IAEA to military sites. President Trump believes the military sites should also be inspected, with intelligence reports that Iran could be developing nuclear technology on its military bases.

As you can see, any dealings with Iran are complicated, and have been for decades. Yet, Iran is a major player in the Middle East, and their influence will only increase in the coming years. How the U.S. chooses to deal with that influence will shape our Middle Eastern foreign policy and politics in that region for a long time to come. With Iran having a presence in countries with lots of turmoil such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen,Afghanistan, and Lebanon, this is not the last we will hear of Iran in a post ISIS world.

Side note fun fact: Missouri has a nuclear power plant near Fulton, MO. Additionally, around 150 nuclear warheads are stored at Whiteman Air Force Base outside Jefferson City. Several Middle Eastern bombing runs have been conducted from that base. Which means  a bomber can leave Missouri and fly to Iraq, bomb a target, turn around and fly all the way back and land in Missouri.

Sources:

Borger, Julian, “Iran Nuclear Deal: Sanctions waived as Trump begins countdown to keep us in”, the guardian.com, 1-12-18
“Iran Nuclear Deal: Key Points”, BBC.com, 10-13-17
“Iran, the United States and a Political Seesaw”, newyorktimes.com, 1-11-12
Obama, Barack, “The Historic Deal that Will Prevent Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon”, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov, 1-16-16
Ostroukn, Andrey, “US Ultimatum on Nuclear Deal, new sanctions draw Iran threat”, Reuters.com, 1-13-18
Tulley, Shawn, “5 things you need to know about the $400 million America sent to Iran”, fortune.com, 8-5-16
Vick, Karl, “Why the U.S. Owed Iran That $400 million”, Time.com, 8-5-16