Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during the meeting of the National Combat Board with Coronavirus (Covid-19) in Tehran, Iran on November 21, 2020.
Iranian Presidency Flyer | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Iran swung into the game in 2021.
Within the first week of the year, the country had seized a South Korean tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and announced its return to 20% uranium enrichment, a massive violation of the 2015 nuclear deal signed with the world powers.
The seizure of tankers, Iran said, is in response to South Korea holding $ 7 billion of its cash that was frozen due to US sanctions the Trump administration imposed on Iran after it pulled out of the in 2018 Agreement had terminated. The South Korean Foreign Minister met in Tehran on Tuesday to discuss the release of the tanker.
The moves are sure to be a headache for Biden’s new administration, whose top officials never wanted the nuclear deal – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA – to be abandoned at all.
What does 20% enrichment mean?
How important is this 20% nuclear enrichment? For starters, 20% represents highly enriched uranium and was the level at which Iran enriched uranium between 2010 and 2013 before the JCPOA was agreed. Its activities resulted in Iran facing the toughest sanctions ever co-ordinated by the US and the EU.
In the context of the nuclear agreement, however, Iran was only allowed to enrich U-235 to 3.67%. U-235 is the isotope of uranium that can sustain a split chain reaction.
“Iran appears to be trying to maximize its leverage on the Biden administration in the hopes that the US will agree to re-enter the JCPOA instead of trying to renegotiate it,” said Anne Harrington, professor of international relations and nuclear technology dissemination specialist at Cardiff University in Wales, said CNBC.
A law recently passed by the Iranian Hawk parliament – on the objections of the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani – requires Iran to ramp up its nuclear program on several fronts.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior official with the Defense of Democracies Foundation, shared Harrington’s prediction. “Tehran hopes to create a crisis by increasing nuclear deployment, which the US will hopefully defuse with early relief of sanctions.”
The minimum threshold for a raw nuclear weapon is 400 kg of uranium enriched with 20% U-235 – but weapon-grade uranium is 90% U-235, nuclear experts told CNBC. Still, they stated, reaching 3-4% enrichment is roughly two-thirds of the work done for that 90% figure, as any increase beyond that amount disproportionately accelerates the onset time.
The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency said last week that Iran is also planning to store 120 kg of this 20% enriched uranium annually as part of a target set by parliament.
And while Tehran currently still allows the IAEA to inspect its nuclear facilities, the new law requires the government to suspend inspections by the UN watchdog by February if the sanctions are not lifted.
“The fact that the more Hawkish Iranian parliament can enforce a law requiring Iran to expand its nuclear program on multiple fronts is worrying,” said Harrington. “In the worst-case scenario, this strategy could heighten tensions and lead to a dangerous chicken game.”
Iran has long argued that its nuclear development is for peaceful purposes only and has been defending its gradual violations of JCPOA parameters since July 2019 in response to US sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy.
Iran will likely demand concessions
The steps are “an indicator of how well the regime is taking risks,” said Ben Taleblu. “This is also a leverage effect ahead of the impending political transition in Washington.”
Despite this month’s aggressive nuclear ramp-up, “as Iranian Foriegn Minister Javad Zarif pointed out in his remarks earlier this month, these actions are reversible,” noted Harrington. “If the US and Europe comply with the JCPOA again, so will Iran.”
Still, everything could change if Iran votes to elect a new president in June.
Biden has expressed his goal of going back to some form of the 2015 deal. Some of his key foreign policy decisions were the original negotiators and architects of the deal. But Tehran is unlikely to make it easy to seek compensation for the economic damage it has suffered from sanctions and other US concessions in recent years.
“This is a double-edged sword for both the Iranians and the Biden government,” said Sanam Vakil, deputy head of the MENA program at Chatham House. The Iranians are cautious about getting back to the table too quickly, while for Biden “the optics are pretty hard to justify giving in to the Islamic Republic and giving in to pressure tactics, especially given previous criticism of the deal”.
“Iran would like to remind the international community, and in particular the Biden government, that Iran doesn’t just have the diplomatic path by increasing leverage with the nuclear movements and seizure of South Korean tankers,” said Vakil.
“There is this impulse in the country to exert pressure to win concessions.”
Comments are closed.