Negatives and Positives: Iranian parliament releases its report on JCPOA

By: Ali Attaran

On Saturday afternoon, October 3, 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Special Committee finally released its report and announced conditional approval of the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) which was signed in mid-July.

The report offers a relatively comprehensive, mostly technical, evaluation of the plan of action. As stated in its introduction, 170 working hours, 40 days, were spent on preparation of the report. This included 23 hours on field-visiting Iran's nuclear enrichment sites in Fordo, Natanz and Arak. The report consists of 8500 words and is organized in six sections: Introduction and General Points of the Report; Evaluation of the Legal Dimensions of the JCPOA; Evaluation of Scientific, Technical and Research Dimensions of the JCPOA; Evaluation of Security and Defense Dimensions of the JCPOA; Evaluation of Economic Dimensions of the JCPOA, Particularly the Sanctions; Evaluation of Political and General Dimensions of the JCPOA; and finally, Suggestions.

The report came out after intensive, at times controversial, sessions of discussion. The incumbent nuclear negotiators, including Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his deputies Abbas Araghchi and Majid Ravanchi, besides the former negotiating team, Saeed Jalili and his deputy Ali Bagheri, attended a number of sessions. IAEA director Yukiya Amano was also invited for a briefing upon his visit to Iran on September 20, 2015.

One day before the report was released, Abbas-Ali Mansouri Arani, a pro-deal MP and member of the Special Committee, published an Instagram post claiming that the report was arranged against the pre-determined agreements, creating controversy that overshadowed the report.

Clearly, attempts have been made to make the text appear balanced: despite controversies created by hardliners of the committee such as Hamid Rasaei, the report avoids using critical language against the Iranian nuclear negotiating team. Nonetheless, despite expressing gratitude towards Javad Zarif and his team and their success in partial establishment of Iran's nuclear rights, the text frequently and explicitly expresses concern about ramifications of the deal, particularly in the security field. It does not conceal its suspicion towards the genuine intention of other parties to the deal, particularly the United States. Washington may "convert JCPOA [loopholes] into an instrument for strategic containment of Iran and setting up 'infrastructures of infiltration' inside Iran" the report reads.

A summary of the Special Committee report is presented in the following:

a) Evaluation of the Legal Dimensions of the JCPOA

Negatives:

• Asymmetry of commitments: Iran's commitments are explicit, unequivocal and subject to verification. On the other hand, commitments by other parties are complicatedly articulated, and hence, prone to renege.
• Iran has taken on long-term commitments beyond the framework of the NPT.
• Iran's right to nuclear enrichment should have been articulated in a more explicit manner in the JCPOA document.
• Mechanisms of arbitration are "clearly and intentionally [set up] against Iran, and practically nonfunctional," for being used by Tehran, in case other parties fail to fulfill their commitments.
• Previous resolutions have not been 'terminated', but merely 'suspended'.
• The IAEA, with "its strongly undesirable record in observing confidentiality and undertaking technical and legal duties" is assigned with verification of Iran's nuclear program.

Positives:

• Previous UN Security Council resolutions against Iran have been lifted.

b) Evaluation of Scientific, Technical and Research Dimensions of the JCPOA

Negatives:

• The JCPOA has dimmed the prospect of Iran's nuclear program. In virtually every dimension, the deal scales down and restricts Iran's nuclear capacity and its progress towards industrialization.
• Infrastructures will be partially decommissioned in Fordo, and the nuclear facility will be converted from an unassailable enrichment site to a research facility.
• Iran's uranium stockpile will significantly shrink, which is a "serious fault" in the JCPOA. This can decelerate Iran's nuclear program and strip it of its most valuable asset.
• Technical alterations that will be applied to Iran's industrial enrichment program and nuclear R&D will decrease the possibility of a snap-back by Iran in case of violation of the JCPOA by other parties.
• The mechanism of the Procurement Working Group embedded in the JCPOA can function as an obstacle against Iran's scientific progress in other fields, including electricity, mechanics, computer and software, and aerospace.

Positives:

• The deal preserves the primary function of the Arak reactor as a heavy water facility, and seeks to modernize the power plant, which will be helpful in the area of nuclear pharmaceuticals.
• Nuclear facilities in Fordo will be preserved.

c) JCPOA from Security and Defense Dimensions

Negatives:

• Compliance with the five-year limit set on Iran's arms trade will result in the spread of terrorism in Western Asia and North Africa, and will weaken the "Resistance Front".
• Security ramifications of the JCPOA and inspection mechanisms will compromise Iran's military and security sectors.
• The JCPOA provides access to Iran's military sites and prepares the ground for unprecedented collection of intelligence data from inside the country, "which compromises the human, scientific, military, and security infrastructures, intelligence and capital of Iran."

Positives:

• The phrase "activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons" included in the Resolution allows for Iran to develop its missile program with no obstacles in the following years.
• With the Foreign Ministry's interpretation of Resolution 2231, Iran's defense and missile activities will continue with no restrictions.

e) Evaluation of Economic Dimensions in the JCPOA, Particularly the Sanctions

This section starts with acknowledging the adverse impact of sanctions for Iran's economy. It follows that lifting sanctions, regarded as the main objective for Iran throughout the negotiations, could accelerate Iran's economic progress. Yet, the report argues that despite the hardships inflicted, sanctions could have never succeeded in "paralyzing" Iran's economy, in case the "resistive economy" model, an idea initiated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, would be pursued.

Negatives:

The legal base of SWIFT will not be abolished, and even after the Transition Day, 8 years after Resolution 2231 was issued, it will be merely suspended and not terminated.

In general, sanctions are not fully abolished and terminated, but rather suspended. In the report's wordings: "the legal base of the sanctions remains intact," which means Iran's key objective has not been achieved in the nuclear talks.

No mechanisms of verification and arbitration are applied regarding commitments undertaken by other parties to the negotiations.

Positives:

The report acknowledges that the SWIFT system has been lifted and calls this a "very positive" step.

The report also positively views lifting of the main bulk of sanctions regarding export of crude oil and oil products.

f) Evaluation of Political and General Dimensions

Section F of the report distances from the technical language of the previous sections. It starts with this paragraph: "The rational and legal tact of the Islamic Republic of Iran, coupled with the resistance and heroism of the noble nation of Iran, forced the Imperial Order to turn from baseless claims of warmongering options towards negotiations, increasingly isolated the brutal Zionist regime, debunked the untrue claims of the existence of a global consensus against the noble nation of Iran, and took out of their hands the Iranophobia tool."

It warns that Washington seeks to continue sanctions, this time under non-nuclear, political excuses. "The text of the JCPOA presumes that the US has no intention for hostile action against Iran," the report reminds, which is against Washington's record of conduct.

Negatives:

Mechanisms embedded in the JCPOA such as the IAEA or Procurement Working Group increase ways of referring Iran's case to the UN Security Council.

g) Suggestions

The report calls for the government's vigilance and doubling efforts in security and defense fields. It also calls for a proactive approach in fighting terrorism in Western Asia and Northern Africa, and supply of arms for friendly states. It also states that inspection of military and intelligence centers should be categorically banned, while warning that implementation of the JCPOA and presence of "foreigners" in the country potentially paves the way for 'infiltration' in security, economic and cultural domains.