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How to use “maximum pressure” to stop an Iranian bomb – The Economist – 30.01.25

Writer's picture: Michael JulienMichael Julien

The Islamic Republic is closer than ever to obtaining nukes.


At home and  abroad, Iran is in trouble. In the space of less than a year, the country has lost one president, three allies (the leaders of Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah), several missile-production sites and all its best air-defence systems. It has a moribund economy, a growing energy crisis and a restive population. Small wonder the regime is relying on one of the few arrows left in its quiver—its nuclear programme.


The Islamic Republic is closer to a bomb than ever before, as our interview with the world’s nuclear watchdog explains. Since President Donald Trump in 2018 pulled America out of a multilateral nuclear deal, the JCPOA, Iran has accumulated uranium and centrifuges that can enrich it to weapons-grade. Last October it could enrich uranium for five bombs in about a week, if it chose to do so. Its capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, near weapons-grade, has risen five-fold since then. To have a usable weapon, it would still need to make an explosive warhead that could fit onto a missile. That could take 12-18 months.


What is to be done? Hawks in Israel’s government want to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. They have already smashed Hamas and Hizbullah, Iran’s proxies, whose capacity to retaliate against Israel on Iran’s behalf is hugely diminished. Direct Israeli strikes against Iran in April and October were devastatingly effective, destroying a good part of its air-defence systems. Israeli spies have turned Iran’s circles of power inside out. All Israel needs, they argue, is for America to supply some bunker-busting bombs and to help parry the inevitable Iranian retaliation. Why not settle the issue once and for all?


Strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities should not be ruled out. But Mr Trump should reject entreaties for action now. An attack would be highly risky: it could cause regional mayhem, sucking in America for years. And even a sustained campaign of bombing by America would not be able to destroy Iran’s nuclear know-how. Meanwhile, there is an opportunity for diplomacy. To his credit, Mr Trump seems keen to take it.


One element of this is to make a credible threat of increased sanctions and the reinstatement of the “maximum pressure” policy of his first term. This makes sense. The Biden administration foolishly turned a blind eye to Iranian oil-smuggling, emboldening the regime.


Helpfully, under what remains of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), over the next eight months the remaining Western signatories, Britain, France and Germany, can choose to trigger a reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran, turning up the heat further.


But if Mr Trump’s tougher approach is to bear fruit it must have a coherent objective. Some hardliners would like to try to use economic pressure to topple the Iranian regime. That is understandable—it is a decaying theocracy, hated by many of its people and facing a looming succession crisis. But if it is pushed into a corner, it may lash out. Right now, its leaders have not decided to make a final dash for a bomb. Mr Trump’s aim should be to keep it that way.


Even as he raises the pressure, he should make clear that he will offer Iran a deal that includes sanctions relief and support for its ongoing normalisation of ties with Saudi Arabia, providing the regime meets two tests. First, a major curtailment of the nuclear programme. Any new deal would not be as comprehensive as the one signed in 2015—the International Atomic Energy Agency now has gaps in its knowledge of how Iran has produced components for its centrifuges, for instance—but it would be better than the status quo, in which the path to a bomb is shortening every day.


Second, Mr Trump should demand that Iran permanently stops stirring up so much trouble across the region. With its one formal ally overthrown (Syria’s tyrant Bashar al-Assad), and its extremist friends in Gaza and Lebanon mauled, the Islamic Republic’s “axis of resistance” is severely weakened. Iran will not abandon its foreign allies entirely. It has huge political sway in Iraq, and will not sever ties with its clients there. But any deal should require it to end military support for Hamas, Hizbullah and Yemen’s Houthis.


This would be an ambitious agenda—a “more for more” deal, requiring each side to make more concessions than they did for the JCPOA in 2015. Iran distrusts Mr Trump, who in his first term tore up the old nuclear deal and assassinated the general who masterminded Iran’s regional meddling. Mr Trump has cause to loathe Iran’s rulers, who plotted to murder him in 2024, according to federal prosecutors. Still, America’s president has bargaining power. The uranium is piling up. Israel is straining at the leash. And the clock is ticking. ■



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For an explanation by Wikipedia of the  JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), please click on the line below for the pdf version:



This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “More for more”.




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