What the Trump administration is looking for in a new nuclear deal with Iran is still hazy, but based on envoy Steve Witkoff’s interview with FOX News, it seems that the focus is on limiting uranium enrichment and broader International Atomic Energy Agency verification.
It is possible that this broader verification could include first-time access to the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile arsenal.
If Trump can achieve these two goals, they would be potentially sizable wins, and in some ways would potentially be improvements on the Obama era 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal.
At the same time, they would likely fall far short of ending the nuclear threat from Tehran.
More than that, given the progress that Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made with his nuclear program since 2018, they might still leave a far more dangerous Iranian nuclear threat than existed post-Obama’s deal.
How does all of that make sense?
The bedrock of the JCPOA was that Iran: 1) cut its centrifuge use for enriching uranium about 75% from close to 20,000 old centrifuges to close to 5,000; 2) shipped out its 20% and above 5% enriched uranium stock to Russia (at the time potentially enough for 10 nuclear weapons); 3) committed to staying at less than one third of a nuclear weapon’s worth of low enriched uranium for 10-15 years (depending on how you calculate matters); and 4) allowed IAEA extensive access to its declared nuclear facilities.
If Iran’s uranium enrichment would be limited to the same levels this time, it would require greater concessions from Tehran because they now possess 13,355 advanced centrifuges of which 1,660 are IR-6 centrifuges installed at Fordow.
Back in 2015, they had not even mastered operating an IR-4 centrifuge, let alone an IR-6, and were still only using IR-1 and IR-2m centrifuges, which according to some are 10 times less efficient.
This means that to get Khamenei back to the same baseline of being at least several months away from a nuclear bomb, let alone one year away as under the JCPOA, Trump will need to convince Iran to give up far more assets.
Likewise, in 2015 Tehran had enough low enriched uranium to eventually try to develop 10 nuclear bombs, but it was farther away from being able to do so than now, and in any case, now the Institute for Science and International Security estimates that the Islamic Republic could weaponize enough uranium for one nuclear weapon in under a week, and enough for around 17 in a few months.
What if Trump can get Khamenei to ship out or dilute all of that highly enriched uranium to 3.67%?
Much of it is currently enriched up to the dangerous 60% level, which Tehran had not come close to yet in 2015.
That would also be significant.
But maybe the most significant piece which Witkoff signaled interest in was to have access to and to put verification measures in place regarding Khamenei’s ballistic missile program.
In 2015, the ballistic missile program was left completely outside of the negotiations based on the disingenuous claim that they were only conventional weapons.
In fact, it is well-known that Iran had at the time, and has continued, working on modifying its “conventional” ballistic missiles to be able to serve as “non-conventional” nuclear weapons tipped with nuclear warheads.
There is no way that the Islamic Republic would give up its ballistic missile program or even shelve it as it might need to do with its nuclear centrifuges (and as it did with most of the centrifuges in 2015.)
Yet, if Trump can get the IAEA access to monitoring the program going forward, it would have a better chance of detecting Iranian attempts to breakout to a nuclear weapon, and it would be the first time that the West would get a close-up view of parts of the nuclear program beyond uranium enrichment.
If Trump can get these wins which Obama did not get, why then would Khamenei still remain a more dangerous nuclear threat than after the 2015 deal?
Because Iran has come so far.
If all of Iran’s nuclear program is not destroyed, including all of the data it has collected for enriching uranium to 60%, for operating advanced IR-6 centrifuges, for various weaponization activities, then it would continue to possess the capability to grab its data off the shelf and run a rapid secret nuclear breakout program in a small unknown facility to achieve the bomb.
With all of the holes in Obama’s JCPOA, it did in fact setback Iran to being 6-12 months away from being able to enrich sufficient uranium for a nuclear weapon, plus additional time for weaponization activities.
Iran has just learned so much more now, both quantitatively and qualitatively, that there is almost no way to let it keep elements of its nuclear program “in storage” that will truly push back its nuclear clock by several months.
Maybe by a few months at most.
And if in 2015 Iran cheated it would be more likely to get caught because it needed many thousands of old centrifuges in large facilities to enrich sufficient uranium for a weapon, now it could suffice with a small clandestine facility with some hundreds of centrifuges which will be harder to catch.
All of this is in the better case scenario where Khamenei had not already ordered significant amounts of 60% enriched uranium concealed from IAEA inspectors.
A mantra of IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi is that Iran is the only country in the world which has enriched uranium to the 60% level, but not yet crossed the threshold.
This means that anything short of a truly ironclad deal will leave Iran as a nuclear threshold threat, no matter the guarantees on paper.
Witkoff tweeted a more demanding statement about negotiations with Iran late Tuesday, but it is hard to see Trump taking a complete hardline while actually hpoing for a deal Iran might agree to at the same time.
Finally, any deal that does not end the Iranian nuclear threat which comes now, does a greater disservice to Israel, which has a much greater capability to strike Iran's nuclear program than it did in 2015.
If in 2015, most top Israeli defense officials said they thought it was possible for the air force to be able to strike Iran's nuclear program, following the air force devastating Iran's air defenses and ballistic missile production in October 2024, it is now known that Israel's air force has the capability to strike Tehran's nuclear program, and that in relative terms, than program has been defenseless for six months running.
