Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the United States isn’t currently discussing nuclear issues with Iran.
Iran, a top geopolitical rival to the United States, behind only Russia and China, has long been seen as a high risk for the development of a nuclear weapons program.
Under President Barack Obama, the United States signed a deal with Iran, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that Mr. Obama and other supporters said would ensure that Iran’s nuclear program remained relatively undeveloped. The JCPOA’s goal was to ensure that Iran was restricted to nuclear power by keeping highly enriched uranium, which could be used to manufacture high-yield nuclear weapons, out of the hands of the revolutionary Islamic state.
Opponents said it didn’t go far enough to mitigate the risk.
With the backing of strong and sustained opposition to the 2015 deal among Republicans, then-President Donald Trump in 2018 withdrew the nation from the agreement. Mr. Trump at the time called it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into,” saying that Iran had violated the deal in “spirit” through its development of an intercontinental ballistic missile, evidence that Iran could manufacture a nuclear weapon within 12 months, and other acts.
President Joe Biden has sought to bring the United States back into the deal with Iran, but as of yet has been unsuccessful because of pushback from the adversary.
During a July 23 appearance on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Mr. Blinken confessed that, despite Mr. Biden’s hopes to reenter the deal, the United States isn’t currently pursuing nuclear negotiations with Iran. Mr. Blinken blamed Iranian obstinacy and Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the treaty for the lack of discussion about the issue.
“Let me ask you about Iran,” Mr. Zakaria said during his interview with Mr. Blinken. “President Biden campaign saying [sic] get back in the Iran deal. You did not do that. You tried to search for ... a better deal; it’s gone nowhere. At this point, Iran is days by some estimates away from the capacity to enrich, which puts her on a path to ... the potential to weaponize. You used to criticize Donald Trump for leaving Iran that close. Isn’t it a fair criticism of you and your administration, you haven’t managed to do anything to shorten that?”
Mr. Blinken responded, “First, it was a terrible mistake to pull out of that agreement, because we had Iran’s nuclear program in a box. It’s now, you’re absolutely right, gotten out of that box.”
Mr. Zakaria interjected with a question about the United States reentering the 2015 deal.
“That’s exactly what we sought to do. And we worked, engaged intensely,” Mr. Blinken replied, citing international efforts joined by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, and Russia “to see if we could get back into mutual compliance with the JCPOA.”
“But to be fair, you asked for new conditions,” Mr. Zakaria said.
“Actually, no ... fundamentally, what we tried to do is to get back into the existing agreement with some modest modifications. An agreement was on the table,“ Mr. Blinken said. ”Iran either couldn’t or wouldn’t say yes.”
Mr. Blinken insisted that the United States projected strength during these negotiations and wouldn’t “take any deal” that failed to “meet our security objectives [and] interests.” But he said Iran refused to move back toward the deal.
“So we made a very good faith effort to get back into compliance with them. They couldn’t or wouldn’t do it,” he said.
“We’re now in a place where we’re not talking about a nuclear agreement.”
He said that the United States was rather taking a broader approach to smooth out U.S.–Iranian relations through diplomacy and de-escalation.
“We are very clearly making it known to them that they need to take actions to de-escalate, not escalate the tensions that exist in our relationship across a whole variety of fronts,” Mr. Blinken said. “We‘ll look to see if they do that. Maybe we’ll have an environment where we can get back into a conversation about their nuclear program. Right now, we’re not in it.”
Still, he said the State Department and other defense officials are continuing work “to flesh out every possible option for dealing with a problem ... if it asserts itself.”
After the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran sparked controversy with other signatories for its development of centrifuge technology, which allows for the enrichment of uranium-235.
Low-enriched uranium, with less than 20 percent uranium-235, poses little threat of being used in weapons. But uranium at higher levels of enrichment can yield a much more powerful fission reaction.
According to a 2020 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran holds more than 12 times the amount of high-enriched uranium than the amount permitted under the JCPOA. Additionally, the report found that Iran was building new underground facilities near Natanz, home to its main nuclear enrichment facility.
Iran has also suggested that it hopes to build more mid-sized nuclear power plants in the future and to expand its uranium mining operations.
Mr. Blinken downplayed these concerns, saying that the United States and its allies were confident that, despite Iran’s increased potential for enriching uranium, the nation wasn’t pursuing actual weapons.
“Keep in mind, of course, that the fissile material—which is what the deal was designed around—is one critical piece,” Mr. Blinken said, referencing material at high enough levels of enrichment to undergo nuclear fission, the process that powers nuclear weapons. “Weaponization, actually having an explosive device, is another.
“To the best of our judgment and that of many others, they have not pursued that work in a number of years.
“If they were to restart that part of the program and these two things came together, then it would become an even more urgent problem. But we are working across a whole series of lines of effort to push back on them to make sure we have a strong deterrent, to make sure we have the appropriate pressure and then to see if we get back to an opportunity where we can work on a nuclear deal.”
Iran has long insisted that its nuclear goals are purely peaceful, with the development of nuclear weapons even being labeled haram, a violation of Islamic law, by Ayatollah Ali Khomeini. But despite this, rumors and concerns persist about the nation’s nuclear ambitions, ambitions that U.S. allies worry could further destabilize the region if achieved.
