Iran is located in a very strategic
place in the Middle East. It borders on
the Persian Gulf, through which much of the
global oil travels. It is majority
Shi'i, so in that sense it stands as a
member of a minority faith in the Middle East
itself, which is dominated by the Sunni.
It has a population of about 85
million people and like most places in
the Middle East, it's a young population,
the majority being under 35 years old.
Religion and politics are fused, they're intermingled.
The clerical community is
actively involved in political and
national administration. Iran's nuclear
program began in the 1950s. There's
always been attraction to both nuclear
energy and nuclear arms. Nuclear energy
can be transformed for weapons purposes,
as well as civilian purposes. Under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
countries agreed to forgo the
possibility of nuclear weapons and Iran
is a member of that particular treaty.
Therefore its nuclear program always has
to be monitored by the IAEA--
International Atomic Energy Agency.
IAEA has not always been satisfied with the
level of access that it has been granted to
Iran, and real evidence has come forward
to suggest Iran has engaged in research
about how to harness nuclear energy for weapons purposes.
When it comes to the
relationship between the United States
and Iran, a series of events have been
very instrumental. In August of 1953 of
course, there was a coup in Iran and the
United States was complicit in that
change of power. And that has become a
source of tension. And then came the 1979
revolution, which bought in a
government that was identifying itself
as antagonistic to the United States, and
the hostage crisis of 1980, where
the Iranian government held American
diplomats hostage for 444 days. The roots
of the current crisis is in August of
2002, when there were revelations that Iran
was developing a massive plutonium
enrichment facility that it had not
declared to the IAEA. The United States
and the international community had what
they called a two-track policy. One track
was increased pressure on Iran: economic
sanctions, which became more intense as
time went along. The second track was the
idea of negotiations with Iran
as a means of solving this issue.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the
compromise agreement that was finally
reached in July of 2015. The whole series
of international sanctions that were put
on Iran were largely lifted. Iran agrees
to a number of limitations on its
nuclear program. It imposed some serious
restraints on Iran, but it is an interim
agreement where restrictions fade after year 10.
The United States has overlapping
interests in Iran today. First of all
are the issues of proliferation
and whether Iran's nuclear program can be
ensured to be for peaceful purposes.
There's Iranian sponsorship of groups such as
Hezbollah and Hamas that are identified
as terrorist organizations. There is the
issue of Iranian regional activities.
There are issues of human rights within
Iran itself. In the recent decade or so the
issue of proliferation in many ways has
eclipsed all the other concerns.
The JCPOA, like every other arms control
agreement, has within it a committee that
deals with non-compliance. So the first
step in any prospective violation is to
go to that committee with evidence about
Iranian non-compliance. If that process
becomes deadlocked, then the issue can be
transferred to the United Nations for
deliberation and imposition of economic
sanctions. You have a military option as
well. The Israelis also have the option
of taking unilateral military action.
America's allies are very concerned
about Iranian ambitions and that
creates another push on the United States
to be more robust in terms of
resistance to Iran. So it's likely to be a
period of continued tension and underlying difficulties.