Iran Cannot Be Trusted to Respect a Revived Nuclear Deal

T he difficulty for nations in making treaties is trust: No supranational government exists to force nations to keep their promises. Especially when their security and core interests are at stake, nations have strong interests to cheat. Democracies should place little trust in autocracies, which won’t hesitate to break their promises to other nations just as they so easily break them to their own citizens. President Biden ignores these lessons in his rush to seek diplomatic victory by reviving a nuclear deal with Iran, which will only leave the mullahs in Tehran richer, more powerful, and closer to possessing nuclear weapons.

In 2015, Iran, the U.S., Russia, China, France, the U.K., and Germany agreed in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Iran would limit its work on developing nuclear weapons in exchange for economic-sanctions relief and the release of billions of dollars in Iranian assets. President Donald Trump, however, withdrew from the agreement because of Tehran’s work on ballistic missiles, the limited scope of the terms agreed to, and in general the threat to the region posed by an aggressive Iranian regime. In his zeal to undo any and all Trump policies, and further spurred by a futile quest to increase world oil supplies in the midst of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Biden has pursued a JCPOA 2.0: a halt to Iran’s nuclear-weapons work in exchange for billions in sanctions relief.

Last month, Iran and the Biden administration stated that both parties were close to reaching a deal. Rumors circulated that measures would be implemented in phases as both parties return to their compliance with the JCPOA. First, Iran would suspend uranium enrichment above 5 percent purity and release Western prisoners held in Iran. (Earlier this month, Iran released two British-Iranian prisoners in return for access to over $515.5 million from the U.K.) In return, the U.S. would unfreeze $7 billion of Iranian cash in South Korean banks. Once those initial measures have been taken, the U.S. would lift sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, and Iran would return to core nuclear limits, such as a 3.67 percent cap on the enrichment purity of uranium. News reports suggest that Iran and the U.S. would have announced a deal by now were it not for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s demand that JCPOA 2.0 exempt Russia from Western economic sanctions involving Iran.

Biden officials should have learned by now not to place hope over experience when dealing with revisionist dictatorships that aim at overthrowing the U.S.-led international order. American leaders need not go as far back as World War II for examples. Vladimir Putin’s horrifying attack on Ukraine should serve as vivid, present reminder. In 1994 the Budapest agreement, which Russia entered into with the United States and the United Kingdom, guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for Ukrainian disavowal of nuclear weapons. Once Ukraine returned Soviet-era nukes based on its territory, it had only Putin’s goodwill to rely on — a promise that turned to dust. In 1997, the U.K. agreed with China on terms to return Hong Kong to Beijing — an agreement that President Xi Jinping has violated over the past two years, with China’s crackdown on Hong Kong political freedoms. When then-senator Biden favored arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union and later Russia, he cannot have overlooked Moscow’s systematic cheating and the need for eventual U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

To defend themselves and protect their interests against rising autocracies, the United States and its allies can depend only on themselves. When the regime in question is known for lying, cheating, and spreading terrorism, it is even more dangerous to pony up billions first for the promise that Tehran won’t secretly build a nuclear weapon later. The United States cannot trust the Iranian regime — a Russian ally — to fulfill its obligations under the JCPOA; even with the deal’s revival, Iran’s recent nuclear activities have sped up its capabilities.

Iran has already made clear its untrustworthy nature. Its activities since the U.S. withdrawal from the deal have made it impossible for the country to comply with the JCPOA’s purpose. The JCPOA was designed to remove the key elements needed to create a bomb, and, should Iran break its commitments, still limit Tehran’s breakout time to build a bomb to at least one year. But after the Trump administration’s withdrawal, Iran raced forward with its nuclear research and activities to the point where the Biden administration has had to admit that Iran’s recent high uranium enrichments, and the knowledge it has gained from its nuclear advancements, allow the country to develop a nuclear bomb in well under a year.

Further reason for the U.S. not to trust Iran is the regime’s foreign policy beyond the nuclear realm. For decades, the regime has consistently lied, spread terrorism around the globe, violated human rights, and called for the destruction of Israel and the West. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the mullahs have made clear that their goal is to drive the United States out of the Middle East, destroy Israel, and replace our alliances with a fundamentalist Islamic order run out of Tehran. Iranian-backed militias killed U.S. soldiers in the 1983 Beirut bombing and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia; Iran is also directly responsible for the deaths of American servicemembers during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The JCPOA did not deter Iran from further pursuing its designs to disrupt the Middle East, but only emboldened and enriched the rogue regime. Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu provided evidence, in documents taken from a warehouse in Iran, of Iran’s extensive research of nuclear-weapons development and production — in defiance of the JCPOA. The evidence also showed that even after the JCPOA ratification, Iran stored its research findings on nuclear-weapon developments for future use. Iran never abandoned its dreams of acquiring nuclear weapons; it merely postponed them.

Iran also refused to abide by limits on its ballistic-missile activities. A year after the JCPOA was signed, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tested a ballistic missile, which had “Israel should be wiped off the Earth” inscribed on it in Hebrew. Last year, the IRGC attacked U.S. positions in Iraq with its missiles. This year, Iran launched a military satellite into orbit and attacked the Kurdish part of Iraq with a dozen ballistic missiles.

Iran continues to support U.S. rivals and to frustrate U.S. interests in the region. During the JCPOA’s negotiation, Iran had signaled that the agreement would set the table for future win-win deals: For example, for its part, Tehran would reduce support for terrorism in the Middle East. Instead, the Iranian regime used the JCPOA funds provided by the Obama administration to spread extremism and terrorism in the region. Iran increased its support of terrorist groups in Yemen, Gaza, and Lebanon, and funded extremists in Iraq and Syria. Iran used foreign airplanes, which it had acquired through the lifting of the sanctions, to transport troops to Syria, where they supported the Assad regime’s brutal war on its own citizens. Not only has Iran consistently violated U.S. sanctions by delivering oil to Venezuela and to Hezbollah in Lebanon, it has also served as a proxy for Russia and supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a leaked interview, former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif admitted that General Qasem Soleimani was sent to Syria to suppress dissent on Vladimir Putin’s orders. Far from bringing Iran into the league of civilized nations, the JCPOA aligned the regime closer with Russia.

Iran could not demonstrate its lack of credibility any more clearly than in its continuing hostile acts against American personnel and citizens. As part of the JCPOA and to show good faith, Iran released several American prisoners. Both during and after the deal, however, the Iranian navy consistently harassed the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf. On one occasion, the Iranian navy illegally seized several U.S. sailors. Iran continues to hold several U.S. and British citizens in prison, using them as leverage for negotiations. It has launched missiles against U.S. positions in Iraq and supports terrorist groups that continue to attack America and Israel in the region. Reportedly, Iranian teams seek to assassinate former U.S. officials, such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo (national-security adviser and secretary of state, respectively, under Trump), forcing them, even after their government service, to travel with armed security.

Finally, the Iranian regime’s mistreatment of its own people reveals that it cannot be trusted to keep its promises. The regime has always claimed that it represents the Iranian people, who bore the brunt of Western sanctions. But Iran imposes a strict religious law, regularly silences the speech of its citizens, and sends them to jail without due process. It has filled its prisons with political dissidents and those whose only crime is just to think differently. Since the signing of the JCPOA, Iran has become even more oppressive. The regime put down protests in 2019–20 by shooting and killing hundreds of protesters. In 2020, the IRGC shot down a civilian Ukrainian airliner taking off from Tehran, killing 176. At first, the IRGC denied any involvement, but it had to admit fault when clear proof emerged. Iran’s elections, including the most recent presidential election, are mostly a sham.

Recent years tell a tale of Iranian deception, aggression, and bad faith; the regime’s credibility, if it ever had any, is severely undermined. Even as the regime engages in the current JCPOA negotiations, it is advancing its uranium enrichment. For the U.S. to enter into an agreement with Iran now, with no means to enforce the terms and purposes of the deal, would be a grave mistake. The Biden administration, weakened by its disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and trying to cope with the crisis in Ukraine, should change course.