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On May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Why

“We cannot prevent an Iranian bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement…” “Therefore, I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.”

– Remarks by President Trump on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on May 8, 2018

[Vox] The problem, though, is that the deal wasn’t “rotten”: The best evidence we have suggests Iran was actually complying with the deal. Iran has dismantled a huge portion of its nuclear program and given international inspectors wide latitude to make sure it isn’t cheating; the country is significantly further from a nuclear weapon than it was when the deal came into force.

The rationale:

The first one is that the deal isn’t entirely permanent; the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program start to relax about 10 years after the deal was signed (though the agreement not to build a nuclear weapon is permanent).

The second is that the deal didn’t cover other problematic things Iran was doing, including ballistic missile development and its support for violent militias around the Middle East (like Hezbollah in Lebanon).

One year after

On 5/8 2019, one year after US President Donald Trump announced his country’s pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran says it is no longer committed to parts of the agreement. [aljazeera.com]

On 6/13, two tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman, a month after four other ships were struck in the region. Tehran has denied any involvement and described them as a false flag operation.

On 6/17, Tehran has sped up the countdown to its breach of the nuclear deal with the announcement that it will exceed its uranium stockpile limit in the next 10 days. The country’s atomic agency also said Tehran might also start the process of enriching uranium up to 20% from 7 July. Kamalvandi, the spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), said Iran needed 5% enrichment for its nuclear power plant in the southern Iranian port of Bushehr and 20% enrichment for a Tehran research reactor.

Iran also announced water supplies at the Arak water reactor would exceed a 130-tonne limit within the next two and a half months if the country did not find a client to buy heavy water byproducts.

On 6/20, a US military surveillance drone has been shot down by Iranian forces while flying over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital shipping routes.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the aircraft had violated Iranian airspace, and that the incident sent a “clear message to America”.

But the US military insisted the drone had been over international waters at the time, and condemned what it called an “unprovoked attack” by the IRGC.

After President Donald Trump’s last-minute pullback from military retaliation, the American focus has shifted to diplomacy and an effort to build international support for Trump’s approach.

A deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached in 2015 between Iran and P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany).

The deal came after years of tension over Iran’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran insisted that its nuclear programme was entirely peaceful, but the international community did not believe that. [BBC]

A deal summary by Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Uranium Enrichment

Uranium is required to produce nuclear power and create nuclear weapons. However, the naturally-occurring form of the element does not have a sufficient level of a common fissile isotope U-235 to set off a nuclear reaction.

The amount of U-235 in uranium must be increased through a process of enrichment.

Uranium enriched to between 3 and 4 percent can be used for nuclear power plant fuel, but it must be enriched to around 90 percent for use in weapons.

Iran previously reached a near 20% level enrichment before the deal.

When uranium is mined it typically has about 140 atoms of U-238 for every atom of U-235. Refining it to a purity of 3.67% means using centrifuges to remove 114 unwanted atoms of U-238 for every atom of U-235. Boosting its purity to 20% means removing 22 more unwanted atoms of U-238 per atom of U-235, while going from there to weapons-grade material means removing just four more per atom of U-235. [TheGuardian]

Cap: Stockpile of Low-enriched Uranium

JCPOA set a limit of 3.67 percent enrichment and a stockpile limit of 300kg (660lbs) for 15 years (until 2031).

The United States said in 2015 the deal reduced Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium by 98 percent, to less than the amount needed for one weapon from enough for about 10. [france24]

Limit: Enrichment capability

Iran had two facilities – Natanz and Fordo – where uranium hexafluoride gas was fed into centrifuges to separate out the most fissile isotope, U-235.

Much of Natanz is deep underground and Fordow is buried inside a mountain, which is widely believed to protect them from aerial bombardment.

The deal allows Iran to continue enrichment at Natanz but with constraints. It turns Fordow into a “nuclear, physics and technology centre” where centrifuges are used for purposes other than enrichment, like producing stable isotopes.

First-generation centrifuges installed in Iran is capped at 6,104, reduced from 19,138.

Plutonium Track

Spent fuel from a heavy-water reactor contains plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb.

Iran had been building a heavy-water nuclear facility near the town of Arak.

Under the JCPOA, the core of that reactor has been removed and filled with concrete to make it unusable

The reactor is being redesigned so as to “minimise the production of plutonium and not to produce weapon-grade plutonium in normal operation”

Iran will not be permitted to build additional heavy-water reactors or accumulate any excess heavy water until 2031.