Introduction

In Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2015, negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 countries (the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia, and China), along with the EU, announced completion of a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran—otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The product of nearly two years of intense international negotiations, and 13 years after Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities were initially exposed, the JCPOA is a lengthy and complicated document, including the main agreement and five annexes.1 To endorse and operationalize the JCPOA, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2231 on July 20, 2015, which contains two annexes.2 Several documents relevant to the overall agreement are not public, including a side agreement among the P5+1 on future UN action in 10 years and the contents of Iran’s “enrichment and enrichment R&D plan,” which Iran will eventually submit to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

On July 14, 2015, the same day that the JCPOA was announced, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, signed a “Roadmap for Clarification of Past and Present Outstanding Issues” to resolve issues associated with the IAEA’s investigation of past and possible ongoing weaponization activity. However, the specific measures required by the Roadmap are not public.

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School has produced this briefing book on the Iran deal in the interest of contributing to informed Congressional review and public discourse on the agreement. First, we have provided a concise description of the complex agreement and the accompanying UN Security Council Resolution 2231, including areas that appear ambiguous. Second, we have tried to provide a balanced assessment of the agreement’s strengths and weaknesses with respect to its central objective to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. We have not tried to address larger political questions, such as the implications of the agreement on Iran’s behavior in the region and domestic politics, implications of the agreement on regional dynamics in the Middle East and the larger non-proliferation regime, or the relationship between the nuclear issue and other areas of dispute between the U.S. and Iran.

Our focus is on the merits and drawbacks within the four corners of the agreement itself. The team of experts who prepared this report includes Democrats, Republicans, independents, and internationals. Noting areas of disagreements among themselves, they ultimately agreed that this report provides an accurate description and balanced assessment of the agreement.

Of course, we recognize that members of Congress and the public will form an overall judgment of the agreement based on broader considerations and factors beyond the elements of the

agreement itself. The Belfer Center as an institution does not take positions on public policy issues and thus does not take a position on whether Congress should accept, reject, or modify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Individuals at the Center are free to make such recommendations in their personal capacity. In this case, some of us would advise Congress to accept the agreement as the best option among possible alternatives to address the Iranian nuclear threat, while others would urge Congress to reject the agreement and seek to intensify sanctions in order to negotiate better terms. We hope that our assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the JCPOA will assist Congress as it makes that decision.

We invite readers who disagree with our presentation or who have additional questions or points to send their comments to iran_matters@hks.harvard.edu. If suitable, we will post these contributions with attribution on our website Iran Matters.