The Folly of an “Interim” Agreement with Iran

The gaps between the stated Iranian and United States positions on the elements of a nuclear deal suggest that an interim arrangement is most likely. Such an agreement would be defended as temporary, while a permanent deal is negotiated.

Such an “interim” deal would be a grave error for the United States. It will, I argue in National Review, neither produce long-term stability nor bring about Iranian nuclear disarmament. It will not be temporary, because Iran’s goal in an interim arrangement would be to prevent a U.S. military strike and enlist the United States in preventing an Israeli strike because, the Trump administration would tell the Israelis, “We are still negotiating.” And if Iran cheats, it will get away with the cheating. The history of arms control agreements shows that those who enter (and celebrate) them do not want to call out cheating — thereby admitting the failure of their “achievement.”

The full text follows and is also available at the National Review site.

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While the negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran are opaque, there are enough leaks and on-the-record comments to see where it’s all likely heading: to an interim agreement that badly undermines U.S. interests.

Most press coverage has centered on the enrichment issue: the Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff comments saying Iran cannot enrich at all vs. Iran’s government saying it will never give up its “right” to enrich. “They have to walk away from enrichment,” Rubio said on The Sean Hannity Show. He added that “the only countries in the world that enrich uranium are the ones that have nuclear weapons. . . . If you have the ability to enrich at 3.67 percent, it only takes a few weeks to get to 20 percent, then 60 percent and then the 80 and 90 percent that you need for a weapon.”

Witkoff was, if anything, clearer in an interview on ABC:

We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability. We’ve delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this without disrespecting them. . . . But everything begins [with] a deal that does not include enrichment. We cannot have that. Because enrichment enables weaponization. And we will not allow a bomb to get here.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi replied on May 21 that “I have said it before, and I repeat it again: Uranium enrichment in Iran will continue — with or without an agreement.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency added some facts to this debate on May 31, issuing two new reports on Iran. The IAEA said Iran keeps very actively building up its stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium, increasing it from 294.9 to 900.8 pounds since the agency’s last report, in February — in other words, while it has been negotiating with the Trump administration. As the New York Times put it, “the increase gives Tehran the capability to produce bomb-grade fuel for roughly 10 weapons.”

The IAEA also found that, as Reuters reported, “Iran carried out secret nuclear activities with material not declared to the U.N. nuclear watchdog at three locations that have long been under investigation.” Iran has refused for years to come clean on previous “military dimensions” of its nuclear program.

So the picture seems clear: The Trump administration says no bomb and no enrichment, and Iran keeps enriching and saying it will never stop fully.

What’s left to negotiate? The conflicting demands of Araghchi and the Trump administration would seem to be leading to an American or Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites. But as clear as President Trump has been on “no bomb,” he has also been clear about how badly he wants to avoid military action.

Can the circle be squared? Not in any way that protects U.S. interests against the Iranian nuclear program. But if the goal is a deal — almost any deal — that can be called a victory, an interim arrangement is by far the most likely outcome.

Think of an interim deal of, say, one year — during which a comprehensive agreement will theoretically be negotiated. Under this deal, Iran agrees to kiss and make up with the IAEA, allowing the full inspections it has never granted. It agrees to stop enriching above 3.67 percent. It agrees to export or down-blend most of its stocks of uranium enriched above, say, 20 percent.

The Trump administration can call this a great victory that only the president could have reached. The Iranian program is frozen, they move back from being so close to ten bombs, and the IAEA can ensure that they keep their promises.

How can the two sides deal with the Trump demand for zero enrichment? Remember that Araghchi said “uranium enrichment in Iran will continue,” not uranium enrichment by Iran. Perhaps the 3.67 (or a higher figure like 5 or 10 or even 20) percent enrichment will be conducted in Iran by some sort of international consortium in which Iran participates. Or, more likely, the Trump administration will say zero enrichment is still our demand and we will get it in the final deal we will negotiate over the coming months. Iran, meanwhile, will say it will negotiate in good faith but will never agree to that in a final arrangement.

What’s the problem with this supposedly temporary deal?

First, there will never be a final deal. Iran’s goal in an interim arrangement would be to prevent a U.S. military strike and enlist the United States in preventing an Israeli strike because, the Trump administration would tell the Israelis, “we are still negotiating.” Iran will play out the clock, hoping for the administration to be weakened by a defeat in the 2026 congressional elections and then gone after the 2028 elections.

Second, under such a “interim” deal, Iran would keep its centrifuges and — as we have seen in the last few months — can start spinning them whenever it wants. It would thereby again create hundreds of pounds of highly enriched uranium in just a few months.

Third, Iran has always had a secret nuclear program and surely would continue to while this “interim deal” plays out. It would cheat. And who would stop it? The IAEA? But the IAEA just reports, while enforcement is up to the members of the IAEA Board of Governors and the U.N. Security Council. The history of arms control agreements shows that those who enter (and celebrate) them do not want to call out cheating — thereby admitting the failure of their “achievement.” As the late Angelo Codevilla wrote in “The Flaws of Arms Control,” arms control fails because “Western governments want arms control to get past present troubles — not to take on new ones; and [] the individuals who promote it know that to recognize that the advertised outcomes are not forthcoming is to indict themselves. Hence their personal interest coincides with that of the violators.”

If an interim deal is reached, Trump will call it fantastic, brilliant, and perfect. How likely is it that one year later he will say, “I was wrong, I was outsmarted, it was a bad deal”? Watching his reluctance to act against Putin’s crimes in Ukraine, we can see that abandoning an interim deal on the ground that Iran isn’t keeping its word is implausible at best for Trump.

Which means that what Rubio and Witkoff have been saying is actually quite right: Zero enrichment is absolutely necessary as part of an Iran deal, as are forcing Iran to export its highly enriched uranium and breaking down the cascades of centrifuges that produce it.

So Trump should stick to his guns, or, in this case, his F-35s: Tell Iran it cannot maintain a nuclear weapons program that puts it weeks or months away from a bomb. The program must end, once and for all, or it will be destroyed.

An “interim agreement” that claims to avoid a crisis for the moment, while the United States and Iran start serious negotiations that will resolve it permanently, is folly. It will neither produce long-term stability nor bring about Iranian nuclear disarmament. This is the moment of Iran’s greatest vulnerability, because of its loss of air defenses and powerful proxies. This is the moment to make Iran choose: a permanent agreement under which it completely ends enrichment, agrees to civil nuclear power with imported fuel only, fully opens its program to international inspection, and abandons its nuclear weapons ambitions — or alternatively understands that in rejecting such an agreement it is choosing a path whose consequences for the regime will be dire. To allow Iran to escape this choice would be a diplomatic disaster that would sooner or later threaten the security of the United States and its allies.