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PaperclipPerfector  18hr ago (text post)   2949 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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There are conflicting reports on if Iran was starting to concede it's nuclear stance during negotiations last week.

On the one hand, Oman said Iran was going to reduce it's stockpile.

“The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb,” said Albusaidi, describing the understanding as “something completely new” compared to the previous nuclear deal negotiated under former US President Barack Obama.

He said the negotiations have produced an agreement on “zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), calling it a breakthrough that makes the enrichment argument “less relevant.”

On existing stockpiles inside Iran, Albusaidi said that “there is agreement now that this will be down-blended to the lowest-level possible … and converted into fuel, and that fuel will be irreversible.”

“I think we have agreement on that, in my view,” he added.

Wall Street Journal says the opposite though. Laurence Norman, WSJ reporter in Germany, says, "My understanding comes from non-U.S. officials close to the talks as well as what Washington has said. This is what we have from 3 people."

Iran came to Geneva on Thursday with a draft text of a few pages as it had been asked. It did not permit the U.S. or others to keep the text. It was planning to do so Monday at the technical talks. But they talked through what was in it. But the draft text was not the key text

Attached to the text was a single piece of paper, which Iran described as its 10 year nuclear plan. The text was based around the idea that as Iran's enrichment needs expanded, it's enrichment should be permitted to expand. The paper set out an ambitious set of targets or expanding its civilian nuclear program. The new version of the Khondab reactor (formerly known as Arak heavy water reactor) would be completed. A number of other long-planned, never-built research and power reactors would be put into operation.

In order to fuel those supplies, Iran would need to run 30 cascades of IR-6 advanced centrifuges Tehran said. That's more than 5,000 advanced centrifuges. Iran would need to be able to enrich up to 20% to meet the demands. That is what Iran was proposing.

Let's compare that for a moment to JCPOA. For the first decade under that accord, Iran was permitted around 6.000 IR-1 basic centrifuges. For 15 years, its enrichment purity cap was 3.67%. In other words, Iran was saying the enrichment deal shld be weaker than the Iran deal.

Overall, I don't think we can take it for granted that Iran was capitulating during talks.

Is there any way for Iran to credibly promise not to get a nuclear weapon in the foreseeable future?

It strikes me that with each Israeli-USA attack on Iran, it becomes more obvious to any Iranian that a nuclear weapon might be a useful thing to have. The bombings might set back the physical process, but they increase the motivation.

If a bunch of guys come to my house several times and kick in my door and beat me up and break my furniture and tell me "you better not get a gun, if you get a gun we'll get really angry!" My first thought, and I would think any man's first thought, is "I better get a gun."

I just can't see a way for Iran to credibly make a promise that they don't want a nuclear weapon in a world where they quite obviously should want a nuclear weapon.

Is there any way for Iran to credibly promise not to get a nuclear weapon in the foreseeable future?

Lots of countries make their facilities open to IAEA inspectors. South Africa was declared to have fully dismantled its nuclear stockpile upon inspections. The USSR and USA inspected each others' facilities as part of arms reductions treaties. Etc.

Iran was one of these countries until 2020 or so. Except Trump backed out of the JCPOA for spurious reasons and while Iran continued to abide by its terms after the withdrawal, it led to a growing distrust of the West among Iranians. So in 2021 they end up with a more conservative government since all electing moderates does is get you burned. The idea that a deal would be useful now only works under the idea that Trump is extremely petty and backed out of a perfectly good deal because he didn't like the fact that Obama negotiated it. You can bitch about specifics all you want, but Iran was getting inspected during this time. If you're going to make the argument that Iran was trying to covertly violate the deal then fine, that gives an excuse to pull out, but if that's the case it makes no sense to try for another one.

Iran was one of these countries until 2020 or so. Except Trump backed out of the JCPOA for spurious reasons and while Iran continued to abide by its terms after the withdrawal, it led to a growing distrust of the West among Iranians.

I don't think the reasons were spurious because I think the correct and credible reason was that Iran was not, in fact, "one of those countries" and the JCPOA was worth less than the paper it was written on. And Iran was not abiding by even the JCPOA's extremely lax provisions.

Iran was one of these countries until 2020 or so

Well do you agree with the criticism that the JCPOA contained a sunset clause, i.e. the restrictions on Iran ended after 10-15 years?

Do you agree with the criticism that the JCPOA did not permit so-called "anytime anywhere" inspections but instead gave the Iranians the ability to delay inspections of facilities?

Well do you agree with the criticism that the JCPOA contained a sunset clause, i.e. the restrictions on Iran ended after 10-15 years?

Is this an actual criticism that anyone levied? It's pretty standard practice for treaties/laws/contracts to sunset after a period of time with the understanding that they will be renegotiated before the term of the contract ends.

Is this an actual criticism that anyone levied?

Absolutely. The concern was that Iran was getting a lot of significant concessions up front and in return was agreeing to limitations which were only temporary.

I don't think this is true. (But would very much appreciate a correction if I am wrong.)

I recall following these negotiations closely when they were occurring and don't remember anyone citing upfront concessions as a reason not to do JCPOA. Everyone of the negotiators was familiar with the failure of KEDO in North Korea (for promising nuclear reactors now in exchange for disarmament later), and a lot of effort was spent to avoid this failure mode. Skimming the Congressional Actions section of the wikipedia article on JCPOA, I don't see any mention of legislators saying they won't vote for JCPOA because of upfront concessions, and this wapo article from the time about reasons people won't vote for it does not mention upfront concessions.

There are of course other reasons that Republicans did not vote for and eventually withdrew from the treaty, but again I do not think time-based concessions was one of them.

Me: Well do you agree with the criticism that the JCPOA contained a sunset clause, i.e. the restrictions on Iran ended after 10-15 years?

You: Is this an actual criticism that anyone levied?

Me: Absolutely. The concern was that Iran was getting a lot of significant concessions up front and in return was agreeing to limitations which were only temporary.

You: I don't think this is true. (But would very much appreciate a correction if I am wrong.) I recall following these negotiations closely when they were occurring and don't remember anyone citing upfront concessions as a reason not to do JCPOA.

According to "United Against Nuclear Iran":

The deal provides Iran a clear pathway to nuclear weapons as restrictions on its uranium- enrichment and plutonium-processing capacities lift and the deal “sunsets” over the next 10 to 15 years.

In exchange for temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, Iran is receiving permanent benefits up-front.

Link: https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/sites/default/files/jcpoa-fact-sheet-pdf-052019.pdf

"Anytime anywhere" inspections is a pretty big ask. I can see why the West would want it, but I can't see any major power agreeing to it. I doubt the Russian inspectors in the US were ever allowed into Area 51, for example.

"Anytime anywhere" inspections is a pretty big ask. I can see why the West would want it, but I can't see any major power agreeing to it.

Given Iran's actual behavior, I don't think it's unreasonable.

Iran's behavior was pretty typical foreign policy. For a country to support various paramilitary proxies and unsavory non-state actors is commonplace in geopolitics. I've never seen any good evidence for the theory that if Iran's religious government got nukes, they would use them offensively.

I have enough theory of mind to understand why the argument that "even a 0.00001% chance that Iran would use nukes offensively is too much, and in any case we should keep them defenseless so we can do whatever we want to them" is appealing to many Israelis and to US hawks. It's not appealing to me, however.

Iran’s behavior in the current war offers plenty of evidence- the attacking random countries thing.

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The JCPOA was negotiated after the US invaded Iraq due to patently false claims of WMD. It is widely understood that the WMD inspections led by the US/IAEA helped the US invasion in identifying/destroying military targets.

Therefore given the US's actual behavior, this restriction did (and still does) seem pretty reasonable to a majority of the outside world.

The JCPOA was negotiated after the US invaded Iraq due to patently false claims of WMD. It is widely understood that the WMD inspections led by the US/IAEA helped the US invasion in identifying/destroying military targets.

Therefore given the US's actual behavior, this restriction did (and still does) seem pretty reasonable to a majority of the outside world.

Are you saying that WMD inspections in Iraq were of the "anytime anywhere" variety?

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I generally agree with you, I'm just observing it's a huge ask and probably a hard sell.

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