The Deal with Iran
On the 24th of November, the world woke up to news that a deal had been reached between the Permanent Five plus One (the UK, US, France, China, Russia and Germany) and Iran. A Joint Plan of Action was the outcome of weeks of hard negotiations. The deal was indeed revealed to be the fruit of years of US-Iran secret negotiations alongside a decade of public Iranian diplomacy following the revelation of a wide scale Iranian enrichment programme. This note seeks to outline the terms of the deal and reactions to it, background information for context and give a sense of potential technical and geopolitical outcomes.
• The deal as it stands brings in enhanced monitoring of Iran’s nuclear capability and rolls back elements of Iran’s enrichment programme resulting in a delaying and close supervision of any possible ‘breakout’ period in which Iran could race to a bomb. In return Iran gains a partial lifting of international sanctions.
• Debates over the Joint Plan of Action’s specifics have stressed the importance of intrusive inspections and fears over hidden elements to the Iranian programme.
• The Joint Action Plan also suggests potential points that would be dealt with in a comprehensive solution which, once fully implemented would see Iran rehabilitated as a normalised signatory of the Non-Proliferation treaty with a civil nuclear programme, though whether enrichment would be included remains a moot point.
• A variety of reactions have been noted from various states and commentators. The majority of reaction has been favourable.
• The deal signals important geopolitical shifts in the region that would benefit Iran and potentially lessen the importance of traditional allies in the Middle East: Israel and Saudi Arabia.