May 17, 2019
The Trump Administration has refused to renew two waivers that allow Iran to keep operating a limited civilian nuclear program, a move that has infuriated the Islamic Republic and prompted it to stop abiding by two requirements of the nuclear deal.
The US is extending other waivers the administration had previously granted allowing nations that remain in the deal to engage in nonproliferation activities and nuclear research at three sites—Fordo, Bushehr and Arak—without facing sanctions, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ford said May 3. Instead of granting the waivers for 180 days, however, the administration will shorten their term to 90 days, though they are expected to be renewed.
Two waivers have been revoked. They allow Iran to ship surplus heavy water to Oman for storage and to swap any enriched uranium that exceeds a 300-kilogram limit with Russia in exchange for natural, or “yellowcake” uranium.
Iran sold some excess heavy water to the United States under the Obama Administration to stay under a 150-ton cap. That raised an uproar in Washington and the Obama Administration ceased buying any more heavy water. Iran then began shipping it to Oman so it would not exceed the 150-ton limit on the volume of heavy water that the nuclear deal allows it to keep inside Iran. But nobody around the world seems to want any Iranian heavy water. Iran keeps making it—and now it will store it all. Iran has no use currently for heavy water.
The second of those revocations involves low enriched uranium. Iran is limited to enriching to 3.67 percent, enough to use in power reactors, but nowhere near enough for weaponry. Iran has continued enriching to that limit, then shipping the uranium to Russia which uses it and sends Iran yellowcake in exchange, which yellowcake Iran proceeds to enrich and ship back to Russia. Iran does not currently have need for the enriched uranium since Russia supplies all the fuel needed by the Bushehr nuclear power reactor under a contract dating back many years.
The question now is whether Russia will still send Iran yellowcake. If it doesn’t, Iran will not be able to continue enriching, since it has no other source of yellowcake.
Russia has been silent in the weeks since the Trump Administration rescinded its approval of the swap arrangement. Russia does not want Iran to have a stockpile of low enriched uranium that Iran could later enrich more for use in weapons. So, it will be interesting to see what Moscow does.
Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, said in an interview with Bloomberg, “We are tightening restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program as part of our pressure campaign. Iran cannot have any path to a nuclear weapon.”
Some commentators, however, believe the Trump Administration is trying to goad Iran into breaking the terms of the nuclear agreement and hoping to push the Islamic Republic deeper into international isolation.
CNN quoted a source as saying National Security Adviser John Bolton had pressed to end all the waivers, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opposed that. The resulting compromise kept some and disposed of other waivers.
The US decision didn’t draw much attention around the world—except in Tehran, which was furious.
On May 8, the first anniversary of President Trump’s announcement that he was pulling the United States out of the nuclear agreement, President Rohani, announced Iran’s fury. In a televised address, he said Iran would continue producing heavy water and enriched uranium and would store it in Iran despite the agreement’s caps. He insisted that was not a violation of the nuclear agreement and said Iran wants to keep the agreement going.
He said, “This surgery is to save the deal, not destroy it.”
But then he gave the Europeans an ultimatum: if after 60 days Europe has not resumed full trade with Iran, then Iran would begin enriching beyond 3.67 percent in order to produce the fuel rods enriched to 20 percent that are used in the Tehran Research Reactor, which was provided to Iran decades ago by the United States.
Hardliners have long been pressing for the regime to dump the agreement, and Rohani’s ultimatum was clearly a result of hardliner pressure.
But the EU has gotten as angry at Iran as it is at Trump. Britain, Germany and France issued a joint statement saying they would not respond to any Iranian ultimatums. A source in the French Presidency told Reuters that if Iran violated any part of the deal, Europe would have to reimpose the sanctions it lifted in 2016.
The heart of the issue is trade. New statistics just released by the EU show its trade with Iran in the first two months of 2019 was down an astounding 80 percent from the same two months in the previous year. Trade with Greece, Luxembourg, Spain and France was down more than 90 percent.
The EU is working on a special trade mechanism it says will allow trade to resume. But progress on that mechanism has been exceedingly slow and the Islamic Republic now thinks Europe is just dragging its feet. More to the point, however, the EU has said it won’t put any new trade mechanism into effect until Iran adopts all the banking regulations outline by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), regulations only Iran and North Korea have spurned. Under pressure, Iran has adopted some FATF rules. But the remaining ones have been sitting in the Council on Expediency since January with no action taken. The EU thinks Iran is dragging its feet.
In his televised address, Rohani went beyond the nuclear deal in sending an ultimatum to Europe. He also pointed out that Iran works hard to stop the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan to Europe. He implied Iran might stop those efforts and allow drugs to flood Europe.
Of the waivers Trump did extend, one applies to the reactor in Bushehr where Russia provides the fuel. Revoking that would have allowed Iran to say it deserved the right to enrich uranium. Another renewed waiver allows China to work with Iran to redesign its reactor at Arak in a way the United States wants it redesigned, so it cannot make plutonium for bombs. Another allows work to continue at Fordo.
Critics of the waivers were particularly angry about the one covering Fordo. They point to information that came out after Israel exposed Iran’s nuclear archive last year. That data showed Iran had built Fordo solely to make weapons-grade uranium. But under the nuclear deal it cannot enrich any uranium there.
Arms control proponents skeptical of the administration’s hardline approach had argued that revoking the waivers would have been more significant than the administration’s earlier moves to cut off Iranian oil revenue or designate the Pasdaran as a terrorist group.
Behruz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that Article 26 of the JCPOA allows Iran to stop some of its commitments if another party fails to uphold the agreement. The only part of Article 26 that appears relevant is the final sentence, which states: “Iran has stated that it will treat such a re-introduction or re-imposition of the sanctions specified in Annex II, or such an imposition of new nuclear-related sanctions, as grounds to cease performing its commitments under the JCPOA in whole or in part.” But that doesn’t authorize Iran to take such action; it merely records that Iran claimed that right unilaterally.