Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has handed an olive branch to the Iranian regime but has also said categorically he will prevent the country from getting a nuclear weapon.
“We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed. God Bless the Middle East!” he wrote.
A Verified Agreement
Olli Heinonen, former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told The Epoch Times he found it interesting Trump referred to a “verified” nuclear peace agreement.
“Very often we have heard in the past ’verifiable' agreements. This could mean that the deal will only be in force when the verification of undertakings has been completed,” he said.
“The difference is that Iran should fill all requirements before it can have the benefits of the agreement fully available,” Heinonen said.
“In other words, no wishful thinking where benefits become available automatically with time regardless of Iran’s compliance, for example, certain restrictions like number of centrifuges or embargoes end after certain periods of time.”
Tehran repeatedly said that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and that it has declared all of the nuclear material, activities, and locations required under an agreement it has with the IAEA.
Robert Goldston, a professor of astrophysics at Princeton University who worked on robotic techniques to verify uranium enrichment plants, told The Epoch Times “there may be a path forward for quite a new version of the Iran deal.”
“The IAEA could hold all non-nuclear weapon states wishing to enrich uranium to the same standard—including, for example, Saudi Arabia and Japan,” he said.
Goldston said these countries could enrich enough uranium to supply their nuclear power plants under strict verification measures that would not expire.
“In practice, this would mean that Iran could enrich uranium up to 5 percent content of U-235, not the current level of 60 percent,” he said.
“However, it would be permitted to enrich as much uranium as it liked to 5 percent, so long as it was using the enriched uranium for peaceful uses such as developing the technology to make fuel pins for its nuclear reactors.”
Russia’s Role
However, he said, “The only way that a new deal can be struck with Iran is if the U.S. and Russia agree on its form.”Moscow and Tehran have a friendly relationship, having fought on the same side during the Syrian civil war and with Iran supplying large numbers of drones to Russia that have been used in the Ukraine conflict.
Goldston said he hoped when Trump speaks to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, they discuss a proposal for a new deal with Iran, along the lines he described.
The NSPM establishes that Iran should be denied a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; Iran’s terrorist network should be neutralized; and the country’s aggressive development of missiles, as well as other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities, should be countered.
“If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end. I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left,” the president replied.
“Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens,' are greatly exaggerated,” the president wrote, partially in capital letters.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Feb. 7 that negotiations with the United States were, “not intelligent, wise or honorable.”
Back Channels?
Heinonen said despite the public utterances, Tehran and the Trump administration may be using back channels to communicate about a possible deal.The former IAEA deputy director general said he expected they would “certainly pass messages to Iran not only through public statements.”
“Those messages are likely more nuanced than the public statements and will also be important in sensing Iran’s readiness for negotiations,” he said.
Last year, Oman, an Arab state on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf, was used as a back channel to avoid a major escalation.
The White House said, in its Feb. 4 fact sheet, “President Trump will not tolerate Iran possessing a nuclear weapons capability, nor will he stand for their sustained sponsorship of terrorism, especially against U.S. interests.”
Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile was estimated on Oct. 26 to be 6,604.4 kilograms, up by 852.6 kilograms since the last quarterly report in August.
Despite persistent denials about a weapons program, Iran has increased its enrichment of uranium up to 60 percent purity, not far short of weapons-grade.
This has been a major concern to Israel, Iran’s main adversary in the region and the most likely country to be targeted in the event that Iran develops an atomic weapon.
On Feb. 16, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem, and both said they were determined to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Meanwhile, on Feb. 17, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, “When it comes to a country like Iran, they cannot do a damn thing.”
“You cannot threaten Iran on one hand and claim to support dialogue on the other hand,” he added.
Heinonen said Iran, while stockpiling high enriched uranium and building up its nuclear capabilities, currently has “surprisingly open discussions between various factions about how to proceed with building [their] capacities and even leaving the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].”
“This debate could also be used to threaten the U.S. and other parties to get concessions to save some parts of the program,” he added.
Decades of Cover-up
Kamran Dalir, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told The Epoch Times, “The Iranian regime will resort to all kinds of deception to cover up its nuclear weapons program.”The NCRI is a coalition of opposition groups, the biggest of which is the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (People’s Mojahedin or MEK), which was set up by Marxist students in 1965.
The MEK took part in the Iranian revolution against the Shah in 1979, but later ran into conflict with Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime.
Dalir said the regime in Tehran has been lying to the West since 2002 when the MEK revealed two secret nuclear sites run by the regime.
“They will never abandon their enrichment program, nor would they allow full monitoring. This regime is the master of deception,” Dalir said.
“Looking at the past two decades, while it has been negotiating, the regime has also advanced its program. The regime’s tactic is to prolong the status quo to have time to obtain the bomb.
“We do not ask any country to overthrow the regime. We do not want money, weapons, or foreign boots in Iran. We have the necessary means to overthrow the regime.”
In December, Britain, France, and Germany told the U.N. Security Council they were ready to trigger the snapback. The U.N. resolution which contains the snapback mechanism expires on Oct. 18, 2025.
Asked if he thinks Trump was pursuing full-scale regime change, Heinonen said, “Many people likely want to have changes in the behavior of Iran, but this change might not at this stage be the main goal.”
