Uncertain Future

In July 2015, eight parties - France, Germany and the United Kingdom, together with the European Union and China, Russia and the United States on the one side, and Iran on the other - adopted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. Under the agreement, Iran accepted limits to its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Hailed by some as a diplomatic achievement, detractors - both in the US and the Middle East - saw the deal as overly lenient. In May 2018, US President Donald Trump announced that the US would cease waiving sanctions and withdraw from the agreement.
This Adelphi book assesses that Trump's decision was a grave error. Like any multilateral agreement, the deal was not perfect, but Iran had been honouring its commitments. Drawing on a deep understanding of the non-proliferation regime and technical expertise, the authors trace the emergence of antipathy to the JCPOA and set out how many of the politicised criticisms of the accord are demonstrably incorrect. They argue that the little-known Procurement Channel - established by the JCPOA to give Iran a legitimate route to procure goods and services for its now-limited nuclear programme - has been an effective check on Iran's illicit procurement of nuclear-related goods. Moreover, this book demonstrates that Iran's nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes are not intrinsically linked, as not all Iranian missiles are designed to be nuclear-capable. While the deal endures for now, its survival will ultimately depend on Iran.

Mark Fitzpatrick is a teacher, writer, and scholar, specialising in the Weird and the Wonderful. He has a PhD in Literature from the Université de Paris - Sorbonne Nouvelle, and is currently an invited lecturer in several Paris universities. He is working on setting up a small alternative educational project, The Hedge School. Originally from Cork, he spent twenty years in Paris, living in garrets and trying to get his novels published. When this proved to no avail, he began publishing his work online on his website The Hollow Behind the Hearthstone. Unreal City is his first published novel, but there are several others waiting in the wings. He has recently moved to Aquitaine, where he lives in an eerie old house in a village full of mysteries and secrets, with his wife, his two children, a Wicked Uncle, and two and a half cats.

Introduction Mark Fitzpatrick 1. Assessing the JCPOA Mark Fitzpatrick 2.The Procurement Channel Paulina Izewicz 3.Evaluating Design Intent in Iran's Ballistic-missile Programme Mark Fitzpatrick and Michael Elleman Conclusions