Brooking’s Markaz’s Robert Einhorn concurs with the expert consensus that the JCPOA is working out as planned, despite the sad plaints of conservatives on both sides:
… opponents have had to scale back their criticism, in large part because the JCPOA, at least so far, has delivered on its principal goal—blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons for an extended period of time. No one can dispute that Tehran has sharply reduced its capacity to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons and would need at least a year to rebuild enough capacity to produce a single bomb.
Iran’s positive compliance record has not given opponents much ammunition. The IAEA found Iran in compliance in its two quarterly reports issued in 2016. True, Iran temporarily exceeded the agreed ceiling on heavy water but quickly rectified the infraction, which most observers attributed to the practical difficulty of ensuring that production overages are exported in a timely way rather than to an intention to circumvent the limit. Critics have also pounced on a German report that Iran’s illicit attempts to procure nuclear and missile items continued in 2015. But Tehran’s requirement to import all nuclear items for its permitted civil nuclear program through the JCPOA’s procurement channel—and stop procuring items outside the channel—did not kick in until January 2016, and neither Washington nor Berlin has information that illicit efforts continued after that time.
But…
Legislation proposed in Congress could also threaten the nuclear deal. Many proponents of new sanctions legislation genuinely seek to reinforce the deal—for example, by renewing the Iran Sanctions Act without attaching poison pills. But for some other members of Congress, the bills are designed to undercut the JCPOA. In a July 11 statement of policy, the administration threatened to veto three House bills, stating that they “would undermine the ability of the United States to meet our JCPOA commitments by reimposing certain secondary economic and financial sanctions lifted on ‘Implementation Day’ of the JCPOA.” For now, the administration is in a position to block new legislation that it believes would scuttle the nuclear deal.
It would be interesting to know if the continued opposition State-side remains a general & childish enmity of the President’s policies and accomplishments, some unvoiced technical concerns, or if some members of college remain opposed due to influence from Israeli PM Netanyahu or even Sheldon Adelson.
The JCPOA has also had knock on effects, as AL Monitor‘s Narges Bajoghli reports:
“They’ve gotten incredibly sophisticated,” [anonymous hacker] said as he marveled at the speed at which Iranian hackers have been able to create a defensive and offensive arm against Western cyberattacks. Yet, as he neared 2015 on his ad hoc timeline, his pen began to slow.
“With the Iran [nuclear] deal, we saw a parallel cooling down of attacks in the cyberworld. The nuclear deal has not only opened discussion with the Iranians on nuclear issues, but it has created a mutual detente in the cyberworld, and that’s huge, because cyberwarfare between Iran and the West was getting to really bad levels.”
David, an Iranian-American internet security specialist who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, agreed. He said, “Before the Iran deal, we were witnessing a heightened level of cyberwarfare between Iran and the US/Israel. It was getting to a very [worrisome] level, as Iran’s capabilities had increased exponentially in a very short period of time. But the Iran deal has put a halt to all of this.” David’s employer is one of the leading US firms that monitor Iranian cyberactivity.
As a software engineer, I admit to a certain – professional – curiosity as to what sophisticated means. And what does all of this include?
The West and Israel reportedly targeted Iran with four pieces of cyberweaponry between 2010 and 2012: Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and Gauss. Each time, the Islamic Republic retaliated almost tit for tat, stealing encryption keys and certificates. In 2013, Israel said Iran was constantly attacking its power grid and water systems.
David said, “It was with Operation Cleaver [2014] that targeted US defense contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, that the United States began to really look at and study Iran’s cyberactivities. We concluded that Iran’s cyberactivities are now on par with China.” The FBI issued warnings about Operation Cleaver, which was known to have hit US Navy servers and caused breaches in other major targets.
In the end?
In a 2014 interview with Reuters, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said, “I’ve grown to fear a nation-state that would never go toe to toe with us in conventional combat and that now suddenly finds they can arrest our attention with cyberattacks.”
Alex [anonymous hacker] said he agrees with Hayden’s assessment. “That’s why the Iran deal has been so significant. These cyberattacks were happening because the United States and Iran distrusted each other and we were after their nuclear program, so they were retaliating in kind. The Iran deal has slowed all of this down and hopefully will ensure that we don’t have to be attacking each other in this fashion,” he said.
In another AL Monitor article, Barbara Slavin covers a controversy concerning the amount of information the IAEA is providing in their quarterly reports:
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, which publicizes the quarterly IAEA reports, said that by “failing to provide more information about the status of key technical aspects of Iran’s nuclear program and the implementation of its JCPOA commitments to date, the IAEA is withholding vital data about the status of Iran’s nuclear program. It risks undermining public transparency and confidence in the agreement.”
“As an analyst, I always want more detail and information, but I think the IAEA provides enough to demonstrate Iran’s compliance,” Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation programs for the Arms Control Association, told Al-Monitor. “Given the skepticism about past noncompliance, more detail would be helpful.”
Amano, queried about the low level of detail in the report at a press conference in Vienna on March 7, said, “Our role is to provide factual, objective reports including the details the agency considers necessary.”
Experts acknowledge that the tone as well as the length of the reports has changed as the IAEA has moved from a position of questioning what amounted to a suspected criminal — the agency’s attitude toward Iran since undeclared nuclear facilities were discovered in 2002 — to monitoring what amounts to that country’s nuclear probation.
