! A FLAWED DEAL There are aspects of the agreement that remain unknown to the public. It is understood that there are some unwritten and classified arrangements in place concerning inspections by the IAEA, and that some 17 undisclosed documents that Members of Congress have access to but that have not been made available for public scrutiny. Nevertheless, the core of the agreement is known and has elicited a wide range of reactions internationally. This has included some strong criticism, with serious allegations being made that the JCPOA fails to meet the international community’s own objective of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear breakout power, while also making concessions to Iran that have the potential to have long-lasting and potentially highly damaging ramifications. 1. Flaws in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – ! Inspections, Snap-back, & the Sundown Clause The international community’s exclusive and stated objective in initiating negotiations with Iran was to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities. Specifically, the P5+1 states sought to ensure that Iran would not become an established nuclear threshold power, a status that many feared Iran was already on the verge of acquiring when the interim agreement was signed in November 2013. The US government has expressed its belief that the terms of this agreement, through its restrictions on Iran’s permitted levels of uranium enrichment, will bring Iran back to being at least a year from weapons breakout during the ten-to-fifteen-year period within which the International Joint Plan of Action is fully operational. Despite this, there are a number of factors that give cause for serious concern that the Iran agreement will not be able to meet its own most basic objective of preventing Iran from further progressing towards nuclear weapons capabilities, and indeed at some point producing nuclear weapons. The concerns in this regard relate to three basic areas of the agreement. The first is the question of whether or not the agreement sets out adequate provisions for inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and other facilities in Iran that might be of concern. The second area relates to the matter of sanctions relief, and specifically the concern that, through the lifting of sanctions, the international community may lose its ability to ensure Iranian compliance. In the event that Iran breaches an aspect of the agreement, the Obama administration has argued that sanctions could be easily and rapidly put back in place. This claim has been disputed, and there are concerns as to whether the reimplementation of sanctions could realistically be expected to do anything to prevent Iran from disregarding the agreement if it so chose. Finally, the temporary nature of the deal has been identified as problematic. For while Iran ultimately receives indefinite sanctions relief, critics have claimed that once the terms of the deal have expired, there would be little to prevent Iran from resuming progress towards weapons capabilities. 1.1 Inspections The matter of verification is one of the most critical factors for any deal of this nature. In many respects, the agreement is only valid if international powers can be sure that it is being implemented. A number of the provisions in the agreement, such as those relating to the lifting of sanctions and embargos, are themselves stipulated as being dependent upon Iran’s implementation of the terms of the agreement. Furthermore, given that the agreement envisages 3 ! !