Iranian nuclear programs

After the disastrous eight-year war with Iraq concluded in , Iran resumed nuclear research with the assistance of China, Pakistan, and Russia. In February , Iran resumed enrichment activities at Natanz. The UNSC called on Iran to cease nuclear enrichment and imposed economic sanctions to pressure the Iranian government to comply with its resolutions.

Iran failed to comply with the resolutions. In September , U. President Barack Obama revealed intelligence indicating the existence of an underground enrichment facility in Fordow, near the religious center of Qom. The United States and Israel then deployed the Stuxnet computer worm , which interrupted the operation of centrifuges at Natanz, ultimately destroying approximately a thousand of the machines.

The election of a new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, in June broke the diplomatic logjam. The next month Rouhani spoke by telephone with Obama, and U. The first high-level contacts between the United States and Iran since the Iranian revolution of signaled the diplomatic possibilities surrounding the nuclear file.

The Obama administration was concerned that absent an agreement, Iran could develop a nuclear weapon within a matter of months if it chose to do so. Specifics of the JCPOA included a ten-year cap on the number of operational centrifuges from more than 20, to just over 6, , a fifteen-year uranium enrichment cap of 3.

This gave the agreement the force of an executive order, which could be quickly undone by a future Republican president. If President Obama desired a lasting foreign policy achievement, this was a fatal error. While negotiations were in progress, on March 3, , Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington and spoke to a joint session of Congress , decrying the agreement as insufficient to curb Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Without deeper and permanent concessions, Iran could follow North Korea into the club of nuclear-armed nations. The unspoken hope by the Obama administration was that the Iranian regime would moderate by the time the restrictions in the nuclear deal lifted.

This was a significant miscalculation. The revolutionary generation of was not disappearing—it was metastasizing. The quixotic hope for a more moderate Iranian government never came to pass, and probably will not happen provided the government remains in the hands of an all-powerful religious leader with no incentive to compromise. And given the way they have hardened and protected their nuclear infrastructure, there is little possibility that they can bombed out of acquiring them.

But then what? Rinse and repeat indefinitely? Not only would Iran retaliate militarily — via some combination of regional proxies, its own irregular forces, its now-formidable medium-range ballistic missile forces or naval operations in the Persian Gulf — but such an operation would present opportunities for mischief to Beijing and Moscow.

Would either of these consequences be worth whatever temporary setback could be inflicted on Iran? The United States has learned to live with nuclear-armed adversaries in the past, most notably with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and more recently with North Korea. Such an accommodation would be uncomfortable, to be sure. No one in Washington would choose this scenario if there were any alternative.

But that was true in the past as well. The harsh reality is that the enemy always gets a vote. In the late s, Moscow voted to go nuclear; in the mids Pyongyang voted for the same; and in the not-too-distant future, Tehran will cast a similar ballot.

Washington adapted in the past and will have to adapt again in the near-term future. That is not merely the best option, it is the only option. While it is the best, indeed only option, however, we should be under no illusion that it is good option. There is no reason to assume that such a nuclear balance of terror would usher in an era of peace and harmony in the region.

Iran is a revisionist power that has long sought regional hegemony at the expense of its neighbors and will continue to do so under the umbrella of mutually assured destruction.

But such is the inevitable tragedy of great power politics. Sometimes there are no good options — only bad, really bad and utterly catastrophic ones. Accepting the inevitability of a nuclear-armed Iran may well be a bad option. But at least it is realistic and neither really bad nor utterly catastrophic. Finally, it is worth considering the if there are dangers inherent in accepting the reality that Iran is an inevitable nuclear power, consider the upside of such an accommodation.

From an American perspective, a nuclear balance of terror in the region — perhaps involving a future nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia as well as Israel and Iran — would likely stabilize the geopolitical order in the region, enabling the U. It would allow the Washington to downgrade its ties with Riyadh — ties which have grown increasingly problematic in recent years. In turn, further U.