The High Stakes and Potential Payoffs of an Iran Deal

On the radar: Risks and rewards favor diplomacy; Nukes unaffordable; More than simple breakout estimates; EU readies for Iranian gas, if deal secured; Climate change and nuclear freeze; and how “Mean Girls” explains the Iran talks.

September 24, 2014 | Edited by Jacob Marx and Will Saetren

Give peace a chance - “David Cameron’s meeting today with the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani...is very welcome. If it presages a recognition that common interests between the UK and Iran on regional security, bilateral relations and the nuclear issue should override historic difficulties, its consequences will be very significant indeed,” writes former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in The Telegraph.

--The climate for striking a deal with Iran has never been better, argues Straw. Over the last year, significant progress has been made in talks over the country’s nuclear program. Perhaps most importantly, “the appetite of ordinary Iranians for normality with the West has been whetted by the relative domestic progress which Mr. Rouhani’s government has made.”

--“The stakes are high. A failure to agree a deal with Iran in the long-running nuclear negotiations, due to conclude in eight weeks’ time, risks being one of the foreign policy blunders of the decade...There are very few ‘easy’ major foreign policy decisions, still fewer where there is no risk involved. In this case, however, there is a clear balance in favour of [diplomacy].” Read the full column here. http://bit.ly/1wLq40W

Progress - “Without a doubt, reaching a final nuclear deal will expand our cooperation, and we can cooperate in various fields including restoring regional peace and stability and fighting against terrorism," President Hassan Rouhani told senior editors on Tuesday ahead of the annual gathering of world leaders at UNGA.

--Rouhani appeared to suggest relations with the United States had improved despite differences, and even if no final agreement is reached, the negotiating process, inconceivable two years ago, had permanently altered relations. "It doesn't mean we will go back to the way things were prior...The ground will be paved for further cooperation if the nuclear issue is resolved," Rouhani said. Stephen Adler has the full story for Reuters. http://reut.rs/1B6MURh

Tweet - @HassanRouhani: Right now, meeting w/ the President of #France @fhollande re expansion of bilateral ties. #ConstructiveEngagement http://t.co/1QxwADd26e

Unaffordable arsenal - As the United States military takes on new missions around the globe, it faces a zero-sum budget game. How can the military do more work on flattened budgets? “Fortunately, there is a sizable chunk of the Pentagon budget where we can safely cut back: the U.S. nuclear arsenal,” writes Ploughshares Fund’s Tom Collina in Foreign Policy.

--“the United States plans to spend about $355 billion on nuclear weapons over the next 10 years, and up to $1 trillion over 30 years. As they say in Washington, that's real money. Yet these weapons play essentially no role in responding to today's highest-priority threats...A quarter-century after the Cold War, spending this much money on nuclear weapons is simply not justified. But even if it was, the harsh reality is that the country does not have the cash to pay the tab.” Read the full story here. http://atfp.co/1ohMbHb

About “breakout” - “Setting limits on Iran’s nuclear program to dissuade the leaders in Tehran from...building nuclear weapons is a central objective of the P5+1 powers,” writes Greg Theilmann in a new policy brief for the Arms Control Association.

--“Consideration of the effect of agreed limits on the time it would take Iran to build nuclear weapons is therefore a necessary step in formulating the P5+1 negotiating position, but is not sufficient for navigating the appropriate course toward a comprehensive agreement. Relying on the narrow definition of the term “breakout”—obtaining enough weapons- grade uranium gas for one bomb—does not fully capture the path that would have to be traveled. It is also necessary to consider “effective breakout”—the time needed to build a credible nuclear arsenal—in order to ensure that the proper balance between verification and limitations can be achieved.”Read the full brief here. http://bit.ly/1sXS1i9

EU banking on deal - “The European Union is quietly increasing the urgency of a plan to import natural gas from Iran, as relations with Tehran thaw while those with top gas supplier Russia grow chillier,” writes Jonathan Saul and Henning Gloystein for Reuters.

--Current sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program are not preventing EU planners from preparing for the eventuality that a deal is struck, a European Commission source involved in developing EU energy strategy told Reuters. “Iran is far towards the top of our priorities for mid-term measures that will help reduce our reliance on Russian gas supplies," the source said. "Iran's gas could come to Europe quite easily and politically there is a clear rapprochement between Tehran and the West.” Read the full story here. http://reut.rs/1ruvUDT

Rouhani on Rezaian - “The jailing of a Washington Post reporter without public charges in Iran is not evidence of a power struggle between moderate and conservative political forces, Iran’s president said Tuesday.” Hard-liners in Iran are skeptical of Rouhani and nuclear negotiations with the West. “That internal political tension has led to speculation that Rezaian’s arrest was an attempt by hard-liners to embarrass Rouhani before his visit to New York and complicate chances for the nuclear accord.” Anne Gearan has the full story for
. http://wapo.st/1rtAoL1

Deja vu in New York - “In June 1982, up to a million demonstrators gathered in Central Park calling for a nuclear freeze. They were protesting the Reagan-era nuclear arms buildup and other developments they saw, not unreasonably, as a threat to civilization and to life on Earth, including talk by some Reagan aides about fighting and winning a nuclear war,” writes Teresa Tritch for The New York Times.

--Last weekend, the People’s Climate March brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of New York, while news of a U.S. nuclear arsenal expansion grabbed adjacent headlines. Tritch asks whether the climate movement faces a similar trajectory as the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s. Read the full column here. http://nyti.ms/1r9bzoq

Arab states single out Israel - “Arab countries have circulated a resolution at a nuclear meeting that singles out Israel for special attention over its alleged nuclear arsenal. The draft echoes previous such resolutions at annual meetings of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Backed by 18 Arab states, including Syria, the resolution expresses concern “about the Israeli nuclear capabilities” and calls on Israel to join the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.” The Associated Press has the full story. http://wapo.st/1r9jbXP

Quick Hits:

--“China’s Nuclear Threshold and No First-Use” by Gregory Kulacki for All Things Nuclear. http://bit.ly/1uGIHkY

-- “US, S Korean sources suggest North has SLBM ambitions” by Richard D. Fisher Jr., for IHS Janes 360. http://bit.ly/1yon1jJ

Events:

--President Barack Obama and President Hassan Rouhani speaking at the United Nations General Assembly. Week of Sept. 24 in New York.

--"Nuclear Deterrence Matters," with Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, U.S. Strategic Command. Part of the Huessy Congressional Breakfast Seminar Series. 8:00-9:00am Sept. 25, at the Capitol Hill Club, 300 First St. SE, Washington. RSVP online. http://conta.cc/1lQF5xj

--"The Regional Implications of a deal with Iran,” with Ken Pollack, Farideh Farhi, John Garver, Amb. Chas Freeman, and Haleh Esfandiari. Sept. 29, 2:30pm at the Washington Marriott. Part of the NIAC Leadership Conference. Details here. http://bit.ly/XvQffI

--Eric Schlosser discusses his book, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, at the World Affairs Council of Northern California. Sept. 29 in San Francisco. Details here. http://bit.ly/1qrePcW

--"Nuclear Stability in South Asia," Oct. 1, Noon-2:00pm, at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Suite 1225, 1400 K St. NW, Washington. Featuring Sumit Ganguly, Indiana University; Gaurav Kampani, University of Tulsa; David Karl, Asia Strategy Initiative; Col. David Smith, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Stephen Schwartz, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Sponsored by the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University Bloomington. RSVP Here. http://bit.ly/1odeg2m

--Public meeting for the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories. Oct. 6, 10:00am-3:30pm in Alexandria, VA. Details here. http://1.usa.gov/1udhOIV

--“Preventing Proliferation and Advancing Nuclear Disarmament” Annual Meeting of the Arms Control Association. Oct. 20, 9:30am-2:30pm at the Carnegie Endowment. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1uGHZnS

Dessert:

Iran deal in the Animal Kingdom - As the Iran nuclear talks continue, who better to explain these complex international negotiations than Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith of Mean Girls? Angela Miller of Win Without War and Amanda Waldron of the Council for a Livable World explain with 14 pictures at Buzzfeed. http://bzfd.it/1x8bV0G