The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed earlier this month in Vienna is the culmination of a longstanding Obama administration effort to resolve the international community’s nuclear standoff with Iran through diplomatic means. A host of serious questions surround the agreement, including the complexities of international law and politics necessary to enact its provisions, and the strategic calculations that Iran’s regional rivals will make in its aftermath. But the key question remains the most practical one: Will the JCPOA, advanced by its proponents as a far-reaching and robust arms agreement, actually prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon?
Can the JCPOA’s inspection and verification regime, which allows Iran a 24-day window to prepare – or “sanitize”—any suspected site for on-site review, provide an effective guarantee against violations? What will it mean when the JCPOA expires in 15 years under the “sunset clause” and Iran becomes a “normal” nuclear power? And how, in the meantime, will the deal’s removal of existing sanctions against currently designated terrorists and terror-connected entities – like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Qassem Suleimani, commander of IRGC’s expeditionary unit, the Quds Force – complicate efforts to constrain Sunni Arab states from pursuing nuclear arms programs of their own?
On July 28, Hudson Institute hosted a timely conversation on the Iran nuclear deal with Senator Tom Cotton and a panel of leading experts including William Tobey of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Hudson Senior Fellows Michael Doran, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith.
Join Senior Fellow Dr. Rebeccah Heinrichs and Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) for a fireside discussion on how Congress can guide American strategy, the need to modernize the defense industrial base, and the vital role of allies and partners in an unstable international environment.
Join Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Robert McDowell for a discussion of the book and communications law with the authors, Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Kirk Arner, and Arielle Roth.
Please join Congressman Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) and Senior Fellow Ken Moriyasu for a discussion on Central Asia’s economic and strategic significance and why updating US trade policy is key to unlocking the region’s potential in an era of renewed great power competition.
