6 years SINCE THE US
left the nuclear deal,
Iran is months away
from a working bomb
May 11, 2024
For the busiest:
The Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) is an agreement signed in 2015 between Iran and major global powers which limits its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
The sanctions relief from the JCPOA beginning in 2015 positively impacted Iran's economic growth and inflation rate.
In May 2018, President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the deal and reimpose sanctions against Iran.
Israel and Saudi Arabia’s allies had a favourable view of the US withdrawal, seeing JCPOA as an ineffective agreement, especially in failing to counter Iranian proxy militias and ballistic missles program.
Sanctions successfully damaged Iran's oil industry which accounts for about 80% of the country's total exports.
Beijing and Tehran have created a system for trading oil without using Western banks or shipping services, thus avoiding the US sanctions.
Since 2018, Iran has breached the majority of JCPOA restrictions. Tehran has now enriched uranium to almost 84%, exceeding the limit set by the deal at 3.67%.
Iran is capable of creating a basic nuclear bomb within less than six months, while creating an arsenal of nuclear ballistic missiles would likely take a few years.
If Iran gets a nuclear weapons stockpile, its national security and military capabilities will undoubtedly increase, but its leaders will lose a valuable bargaining chip for future sanctions relief.
Resources and further reading are at the bottom of the text.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an agreement reached between Iran and global powers in 2015.
With this deal, Iran promised to limit its nuclear activities to civilian scopes and allowed investigations from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In exchange, it obtained relief from sanctions.
Tehran started its nuclear program in the 1950s with the help of the United States. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution carried out by Ayatollah Khomeini established the Islamic Republic in Iran. The new regime resumed nuclear efforts with the cooperation of China, Russia and Pakistan after the 9-year war with neighbouring Iraq ended in 1988.
Iran signed the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which banned countries other than China, Russia, France, Britain, and the United States from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In 2002, a secret uranium enrichment site was found in Iran, believed to have military purposes. The international community reacted by imposing sanctions against Tehran.
The United Nations Security Council approved three resolutions between 2006 and 2008 that called on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities.
The election of Barack Obama as US president in 2008 was a turning point in the Iranian nuclear issue. His administration pushed for the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.
The deal aimed to strengthen the US diplomatic role in the region, prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and improve Middle Eastern security architecture in cooperation with other global powers.
Why did US leave the nuclear deal?
In February 2017, the IAEA issued a report stating Iran complied with the deal’s restrictions.
In April 2018, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country had intelligence proving that Iran continues work on a nuclear weapons program which supposedly stopped in 2003.
In May 2018, President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the JCPOA and reimpose sanctions against Iran.
The Trump administration highlighted some crucial shortcomings of the deal:
The deal's constraints were limited in time. In October 2025, the resolution endorsing the JCPOA would expire, and the Security Council would close Iran's nuclear file.
Iran was using money from sanctions relief to sponsor terror groups in the region, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
The deal did not contain Iranian ballistic missile development. The UN Security Councils’s resolution adopted weak language regarding this issue, "[calling] upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles." Previous resolutions on this issue stated, "Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles."
Trump's Middle Eastern policy aimed to (1) exert maximum pressure on Iran through economic isolation and (2) improve Arab-Israeli relations.
The first goal was pursued by reintroducing the secondary sanctions against Iran. These sanctions target everyone who engages in transactions with designated Iranian entities, mainly impacting country’s oil and gas sector.
The second goal was pursued by promoting the Abraham Accords in 2020. This US-sponsored agreement established diplomatic ties between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, aiming to include other Gulf Arab countries in the future to counter Iranian influence in the region.
This diplomatic milestone was followed by the Israeli-Morocco normalization deal in December of the same year.
The US withdrawal did not formally end the agreement, and Iran could have continued to fulfil its commitments. The other signatories (the five United Nations Security Council members, the US excluded, plus Germany) remained within the deal and criticized Trump's decision.
However, as tensions in the region increased, Iran resumed using nuclear development as a tool of political retaliation against Israel and the US.
After Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike in 2020, Tehran resumed enriching uranium without limits. Iran also restricted IAEA inspections and withdrew many of the agency's inspectors.
After his election, President Joe Biden attempted to negotiate a return to the JCPOA if Tehran was willing to abide by its limits, but no agreement was reached since negotiations started in 2021.
Diplomatic reactions to the withdrawal
In 2018, in the Middle East, there were high tensions between Sunni-majority countries led by Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority allies of Iran.
When the US withdrew from the JCPOA, Middle Eastern countries took a stance according to their system of alliances.
Israel and many of the Sunni-majority countries had a favourable view of the US withdrawal, seeing JCPOA as an ineffective agreement, especially in failing to counter the Iranian proxy network militias.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has always been an agreement's fierce opponent, thanked Trump for this "historic move" and praised his "courageous leadership". Netanyahu long feared that Iran would breach the deal’s constraints or wait ten years for their expiration and then get a nuclear weapon.
Iranian leadership took a negative stance on US withdrawal as it did not welcome the reintroduction of economic sanctions and was likely content with waiting until 2025 before developing nuclear weapons.
Other countries where Shiite Islam has a considerable influence over politics, like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, also had a negative view of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA as they were also targeted by sanctions and often resonate Iran’s position.
Turkey has criticized the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the JCPOA.
Under President Erdoğan, Turkey sought strategic independence from external powers, especially the US, and carried out a "zero troubles with neighbours" policy — Turkey and Iran share a 534-kilometre border.
Turkey sees a nuclear Iran as a threat to the bilateral power balance and Turkey’s domestic stability.
The sanctions relief from the JCPOA beginning in 2015 positively impacted Iran's economic growth and inflation rate.
In 2016 and 2017, Iran's GDP grew by 8.8% and 2.8% respectively, up from -1.5% in 2015. After the withdrawal, it dropped to -1.8% in 2018 and -3.1% in 2019.
Iran's inflation fell from 16.6% in 2014 to 7.2% in 2016, but increased again to 18% in 2018 as the deal broke down and escalated further to 39.9% in 2019.
Sanctions successfully damaged Iran's oil industry which accounts for about 80% of the country's total exports.
Iran's oil exports were falling sharply before the JCPOA was signed in 2015, from almost 2.2 million barrels per day in 2011 to under a million barrels in 2014.
Exports of oil from Iran rapidly recovered while the deal was active reaching 1.8 million barrels/day
Reintroduction of sanctions in 2018 reversed this trend, oil exports dropped to a record low 440,000 barrels per day in 2020.
Since then, global economic recovery from the pandemic and closer ties with China again boosted Iran’s oil exports, which recovered to 1.4 million barrels/day by 2023.
In 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year economic agreement to boost trade and transport cooperation.
Beijing and Tehran have created a system for trading oil without using Western banks or shipping services, thus avoiding the US sanctions.
This system relies on a "shadow fleet" of oil tankers that conceals the oil’s destination and operates outside maritime rules.
Data on transactions between China and Iran is not publicly accessible, as China likely buys Iranian oil with the Chinese currency renminbi (measured in yuan).
Since this currency is not freely tradeable worldwide, Iran can only use it to buy back goods from China or to build up foreign exchange reserves.
China's leverage over Iran significantly increased after the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.
The US sanctions succeeded in exerting maximum pressure on Iranian leadership but had the side effect of pushing Iran into China's sphere of influence.
Since 2018, Iran has breached the majority of JCPOA restrictions. Tehran has now enriched uranium to almost 84%, exceeding the limit set by the deal at 3.67%.
On January 5, 2020, Iran publicly declared it would no longer respect the deal’s limits. Tehran further increased the pace of its nuclear developments following the assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh by Israeli intelligence in November 2020.
By October 2023, the IAEA estimated that Iran had 4,486.8 kilograms of enriched uranium stockpiled, far above the limit of 202.8 kilograms set by the JCPOA.
As of April 2024, Iran's breakout time, which is the time required to enrich uranium to weapons-grade 90%, dropped to approximately one week.
Iran's breakout time was estimated to be one year at the time the JCPOA was signed in 2015.
However, Iran needs further enriched uranium processing capabilities and other components to obtain a functioning nuclear weapon.
Analysis by Institute for Science and International Security concludes that Iran is capable of creating a basic nuclear bomb within less than six months.
However, developing a small arsenal of nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles, rather than a simple detonation device, would likely require Iran up to a few years.
What would a nuclear Iran mean for the region and the world?
The balance of power between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel determines the majority of Middle Eastern conflicts and crises in recent decades.
In 2023 China brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia that was supposed to normalise their diplomatic relationship.
However, when Iran launched a mass drone-and-missile strike on Israel in April 2024, Saudi Arabia allegedly participated in intercepting them by sharing military intelligence with the US.
Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons for deterrence or use as a last resort in case of a deadly attack against its territory. The first Israeli nuclear explosive device was likely developed between 1966 and 1967.
The Israeli leadership has historically avoided directly confirming or denying having nuclear weapons — a strategy known as 'deliberate nuclear ambiguity' and deemed by the Israeli leadership as a pillar of its national security policy.
This was one of the reasons for Iran to launch a nuclear weapons program, which Israel has been actively countering since.
While Iran is now extremely close to obtaining an atomic weapon, there is no clear indication that it would finalise the process and produce a nuclear device.
If Iran gets a nuclear weapons stockpile, its national security and military capabilities will undoubtedly increase, but its leaders will lose a valuable bargaining chip for future sanctions relief.
A nuclear Iran will likely experience growing diplomatic isolation and the risk that other regional countries like Saudi Arabia will start developing nuclear weapons too.
Author Elia Preto Martini
Editor Anton Kutuzov
Resources and further reading:
What is the Iran nuclear deal (Council on Foreign Relations)
How quickly can Iran make nuclear weapons in 2024? (Institute for Science and International Security
The Impact of Sanctions Two Years After US Withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal (FDD)
Behind China’s Oil Trade with Iran and Russia (The Atlantic Council)
Conflict trends in the Middle East (Peace Research Institute Oslo)