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Reaction to the recently-announced framework for a nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 countries was intensely polarized, ranging from strong support and cautious optimism to skepticism and outright denunciation.  The White House has initiated a full-court press to shore up support for the agreement, while leaders around the world have weighed in.

Here are the highlights:

The Obama administration’s communications strategy has placed Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a nuclear physicist, front and center.  In a White House press briefing, Secretary Moniz said the agreement will block the “four pathways to a bomb in Iran.”  Moniz said the divergent accounts of the framework in the U.S. and Iran reflect different “emphases” but the “same agreement.”

Addressing concerns about the “PMD” issue, Secretary of State John Kerry, in a PBS interview, said Iran must disclose any past nuclear weapon-related efforts as part of a final agreement.

President Obama, in an interview with NPR, perhaps inadvertently drew attention to a potential weakness of the agreement, expressing the “fear” that “in year 13, 14, 15, [Iran has] advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”

On this point, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to have found a rare point of agreement.  In a press statement, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Israel shares the view that upon the expiry of the nuclear agreement with Iran the latter’s breakout time to achieve nuclear weapons will be zero.”

The White House, in turn, repurposed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s infamous “bomb” graphic to argue that under the framework agreement, “Iran’s uranium enrichment pathway to a weapon will be shut down.”  Media outlets described this move as the Obama administration “trolling” the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, in Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remained noncommittal on the deal, saying he is “neither in favor nor against” the nuclear framework.  He did re-affirm his support for Iran’s nuclear negotiators and appeared to issue a red line: all sanctions must be lifted when the final agreement is signed.

Official opinion in Iran has generally been supportive, with the Commander of the IRGC expressing his support for the framework agreement and Iran’s negotiating team.

The cabinet of Iran’s chief rival in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, meanwhile welcomed the framework agreement and drew attention to the larger regional dynamic, expressing hope for a nuclear-free Middle East.

Reaction in the Arab world more broadly ranged from support to skepticism, reports David Pollock of the Washington Institute.

Meanwhile, in the latest example of “dueling fact sheets,” media outlets reported on a French “fact sheet” on the nuclear agreement, which reportedly states that Iran would be allowed to use more advanced centrifuges in a “gradual and precisely defined increase in (enrichment) capacity between the 10th and 13th years with the introduction of advanced IR-2 and IR-4 centrifuges.”

In a Joint Statement on April 2, negotiators announced that Iran and the P5+1 countries have “taken a decisive step” and “reached solutions on key parameters” of a nuclear agreement.  But how “decisive” are the “solutions” announced with such fanfare in Lausanne, Switzerland?

Below are excerpts from the Joint Statement, followed by a description of what they could mean and what the U.S.  government says they mean.  The Joint Statement is vague; a fact sheet released by the U.S. government provides more detail, but that document has been questioned by Iranian officials.

It appears that many of the issues that have been sticking points since negotiations began remain sticking points.  They were papered over in the Joint Statement and will have to be resolved before the June 30 deadline for a final agreement.

1. Iran’s enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specified durations, and there will be no other enrichment facility than Natanz.

Enrichment capacity:  Iran has apparently agreed to limit the number of first-generation centrifuges installed at the Natanz plant to 6,104, and to operate only 5,060.  This is down from about 15,420 installed at Natanz, of which 9,156 are enriching uranium.  So, while the U.S. says Iran has agreed to “reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges,” it is cutting the number of operating centrifuges only by half.  As is currently the case, only first-generation IR-1 centrifuges will be installed or operating.  The 1,008 advanced centrifuges (IR-2m) at Natanz will be removed.

But what happens to all of the removed centrifuges?  According to the United States, they will remain in the country, in storage, and monitored by international inspectors.  This means that if the deal falls apart, Iran will be able to reconstitute its program rather than having to rebuild it.

According to the United States, Iran also would freeze its “centrifuge manufacturing base.”  This most likely means that no new centrifuges would be built during a period of time, though that period is not specified in any of the documents released so far.

Stockpile:  Then there is the question of enriched uranium, both the existing stockpile (about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium) and ongoing production.  According to the United States, Iran has agreed to limit its stockpile to 300 kg for a period of 15 years.  Even if further enriched, this is not enough to fuel a nuclear weapon.

But what happens to the rest of Iran’s stockpile?  Will it be shipped out of the country, as reported previously, or will Iran dilute the material and keep it in the country?  This is a critical question.  The stockpile is sufficient to fuel about seven nuclear weapons, with further enrichment and processing.   If the material remains in the country (especially in diluted gaseous form), it could provide Iran with the building blocks for a small nuclear arsenal.

Enrichment level:  The United States says that Iran has agreed not to enrich above 3.67 percent, “for at least 15 years.”  This is a restriction Iran has been abiding by since early 2014, under the terms of the interim accord.  It is a level that is about 70 percent of the way to weapon grade.

2. Iran’s research and development on centrifuges will be carried out on a scope and schedule that has been mutually agreed.

Iran’s work on more advanced centrifuges is still a sticking point.  The Joint Statement confirms that this work will continue.  The U.S. fact sheet says that Iran will be allowed to “engage in limited research and development with its advanced centrifuges,” based on as-yet-to-be-agreed-upon parameters.  These centrifuges – which are far more efficient than the IR-1 model – would not produce enriched uranium for at least ten years.  Still, the research on advanced centrifuges will continue, which is problematic.  It is important that restrictions be placed on Iran’s work in this domain or Iran will be able to perfect these machines during the period of the deal, and emerge on the other end with more efficient machines.

3.  Fordow will be converted from an enrichment site into a nuclear, physics and technology centre. […] There will not be any fissile material at Fordow.

The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is a hardened uranium enrichment facility that was built in secret by Iran underneath a mountain.  It was designed to hold 2,976 centrifuges, though it currently houses 2,710 first-generation machines, of which 696 are operating.

Iran has agreed to convert Fordow into a nuclear research facility.  According to the U.S. fact sheet, Iran will remove almost two-thirds of Fordow’s centrifuges, leaving about 1,000 in place.  This would be a higher number of centrifuges than are operating at Fordow, but none would be enriching uranium.  Iran has agreed not to enrich uranium at the site for 15 years.

However, Iran will not be required to close Fordow.  After 15 years, Iran could convert the site back into an enrichment plant, at which point concerns about its protected location could reemerge.  Also, as with Natanz, the centrifuges will be dismantled and placed in supervised storage; they will not be removed from the country.

4.  An international joint venture will assist Iran in redesigning and rebuilding a modernized Heavy Water Research Reactor in Arak that will not produce weapons grade plutonium.  There will be no reprocessing and the spent fuel will be exported.

If completed, the reactor under construction at Arak could provide Iran with a source of plutonium for nuclear weapons.  According to the United States, the original core of this reactor will be either destroyed or removed from the country.  Iran will rebuild a reactor based on a design “agreed to by the P5+1.”  And Iran will not build any additional heavy water reactors for 15 years.

In addition, Iran has apparently committed not to reprocess spent fuel from this or any other reactor “indefinitely.”  Spent fuel from the Arak reactor will be shipped out of the country.

Even in modified form, however, it appears that Arak will remain a heavy water reactor, a design that poses proliferation risks and is not needed for Iran’s declared purpose of producing medical isotopes.

5.  A set of measures have been agreed to monitor the provisions of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] including implementation of the modified Code 3.1 and provisional application of the Additional Protocol.

The Additional Protocol allows for wider-ranging nuclear inspections, similar to those Iran has agreed to as part of the interim accord.  However, Iran is not being required to ratify the Protocol.  The Joint Statement describes the Protocol’s “provisional application,” and the U.S. fact sheet only says that Iran has agreed to “implement” the Protocol.  As with the uranium stockpile and the centrifuges, this means the restriction will be reversible by Iran.  Iran could simply decide to end implementation, which it has done before.  In 2003, Iran signed the Protocol and agreed to adhere to it pending ratification.  Ratification never happened and in 2006, Iran announced that it would no longer implement the Protocol.

Under the Additional Protocol, inspectors receive information and have access to all sites related to the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mines and mills.  This is important, as it allows the Agency to track nuclear material at an earlier stage in the fuel cycle, and potentially to detect a diversion.  According to the United States, inspectors will have access to mines and mills for 25 years and to centrifuge production and storage facilities for 20 years.  The Additional Protocol also requires Iran to provide information about nuclear imports and domestic manufacturing, which will be crucial for verification.

However, short-notice access to some sites is limited under the Additional Protocol.  Access to additional buildings at a known nuclear site can still take time to authorize.  And access to an undeclared site is trickier.  In some cases, inspectors would need to get approval from the IAEA’s governing board before taking environmental samples at such a site.

Modified Code 3.1 imposes requirements on providing design information for new nuclear facilities to the IAEA.  Iran agreed to this requirement back in February 2003, but then reneged – a decision the IAEA contests.  The Code merely requires Iran to provide design information about new nuclear facilities “as soon as the decision to construct or to authorize construction has been taken.”  Therefore, Iran’s willingness to implement this Code is neither new nor groundbreaking.  It has little bearing on catching secret work.

Robust inspections and other types of verification are the sole means of providing assurance that Iran cannot “sneakout” and make nuclear weapons in secret.  Any good deal should therefore give international inspectors broad authority to access suspicious sites in Iran – not just declared nuclear sites.  Unfortunately, the information so far suggests that such enhanced authority will not exist.

6.  The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be permitted the use of modern technologies and will have enhanced access through agreed procedures, including to clarify past and present issues.

This is the part of the Joint Statement that relates – obliquely – to allegations that Iran carried out nuclear weapon-related research and experiments.  The IAEA has been investigating questions about “possible military dimensions” to Iran’s nuclear program for years, and has largely failed to make progress because of Iran’s refusal to cooperate.  According to the Joint Statement, the IAEA’s investigation will proceed and Iran will presumably grant the Agency “enhanced access” in order to “clarify” these past “issues.”  But Iran has committed to do so in the past, without following through.

The U.S. government refers to the weapons work more directly but is just as vague about the cooperative measures that Iran will be required to adopt, and their timing.   According to the U.S. fact sheet, “Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program.”

Understanding the status of past work in this area is a key to establishing how close Iran is to being able to make nuclear weapons.  Information about this work would support inspections and inform calculations related to Iran’s breakout potential.

7.  The EU will terminate the implementation of all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions and the US will cease the application of all nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions, simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation by Iran of its key nuclear commitments.

The timing of sanctions relief remains a sticking point in the negotiations, as Secretary Kerry indicated in his press conference on April 2.  Sanctions are the main form of leverage that brought Iran to the negotiating table.  Iran has sought the immediate lifting of sanctions, while the P5+1 has favored the phased removal of sanctions in order to maintain leverage and ensure compliance.   The Joint Statement indicates the European Union will remove its nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, while the United States will stop enforcing its nuclear-related sanctions on third-countries and companies that do business with Iran.

But many questions remain.  When and how will these sanctions be lifted?  When and how will the IAEA verify Iran’s “implementation … of its nuclear commitments,” which is meant to trigger the sanctions relief?   How would sanctions be re-imposed if Iran violates the agreement?

According to the U.S government, sanctions will be “suspended” only “after” the IAEA has verified Iran’s compliance.  So, Iran will receive sanctions relief “if it verifiably abides by its commitments.”  This suggests a staged process that the Iranians have rejected.

The U.S. government also describes a “snap back” mechanism, which would re-impose European and U.S. sanctions “in the event of significant non-performance”— a provision not mentioned in the Joint Statement.

Sanctions relief remains a key issue that could potentially kill a final agreement.

8.  A new UN Security Council Resolution will endorse the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], terminate all previous nuclear-related resolutions and incorporate certain restrictive measures for a mutually agreed period of time.

As expected, a U.N. Security Council resolution of some kind will endorse the deal, lift existing U.N. sanctions, and reimpose some sanctions.  However, nothing will be resolved until the U.N. Security Council hammers out the diplomatic language of a new resolution.

The U.S. government describes some promising provisions for such a resolution.  These include the creation of a dedicated and monitored procurement channel for Iran’s nuclear program and the maintenance of international restrictions on Iran’s conventional arms and ballistic missiles.  A new resolution could also maintain the right to inspect suspicious cargo to and from Iran and an asset freeze on Iranian proliferators.

Yesterday in Washington, the showdown between the White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Iranian nuclear talks came to a head.  In a controversial address before a joint meeting of Congress, Prime Minister Netanyahu criticized the terms of the agreement now taking shape and urged the United States to walk away from “a very bad deal.”  President Barack Obama dismissed the speech as “nothing new,” and said that the Prime Minister “didn’t offer any viable alternatives” to a compromise deal, which the President called “the best way” to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

This contentious back-and-forth has shed more heat than light, with both sides continuing to talk past each other.  Prime Minister Netanyahu raised two main objections to the prospective deal in his speech.  First, he argued that the restrictions under discussion would not roll back Iran’s nuclear program far enough.  Because Iran would still retain “thousands of centrifuges” and other elements of its nuclear infrastructure, Iran’s break-out time—the time needed to produce enough fuel for a nuclear bomb—“would be very short—about a year by U.S. assessment, even shorter by Israel’s.”

Second, the Prime Minister questioned the so-called sunset clause, which would lift these restrictions after a set period of time, reportedly about ten years.   After that, Iran could legally pursue industrial-scale uranium enrichment, which “could make the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal and this in a matter of weeks.”  According to the Prime Minister, the proposed deal “doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”

Even if Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech did not offer much in the way of new arguments, he did grab the world’s headlines and forced the Obama administration to defend its position in public.  The White House dispatched both U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and National Security Advisor Susan Rice to address the AIPAC Policy Conference on March 2.  President Obama, on the same day, discussed the Iran nuclear negotiations in an interview with Reuters, and returned to the topic yesterday, in remarks from the Oval Office.

In her AIPAC speech, Ambassador Rice stated that “a good deal” would extend Iran’s current break-out time from two-to-three months to one year, and maintain restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program for a decade—far longer than any setback that could be dealt to the program by military action.  President Obama, in his Reuters interview, said that an agreement of “double-digit years” would be “far more effective in controlling their nuclear program than any military action we could take, any military action Israel could take and far more effective than sanctions will be.”

The Israeli Prime Minister failed to acknowledge these arguments.  Left unsaid in his address was the risk that if talks collapse, Iran could immediately ramp up its nuclear program and reduce cooperation with inspectors.  That might happen more quickly than new sanctions could be imposed and have any meaningful effect.   A ten-year agreement would at least delay this outcome and buy time, during which the Iranian regime might moderate its behavior.

For its part, the Obama administration has remained vague on two crucial questions: how would the agreement be enforced and what happens after it expires?  In her AIPAC speech, Ambassador Rice said that the administration will rely on inspections: “any deal must last more than a decade—with additional provisions ensuring greater transparency into Iran’s program for an even longer period of time.”  But what, specifically, would this “greater transparency” entail?

In his remarks yesterday, President Obama said that the deal “would subject Iran to the most vigorous inspections and verifications regimes that have ever been put in place.”  To date, the “anywhere, anytime” inspections in Iraq in the 1990s have been the most intrusive.  But these were put in place following Iraq’s defeat in the first Gulf War.  Iran has given no indication that it is prepared to accept a similarly intrusive regime.

For example, will Iran allow inspectors into what it deems non-nuclear sites, such as the Parchin military complex?  Ambassador Rice stated that “any deal must ensure frequent and intrusive inspections at Iran’s nuclear sites.”  Yet this formulation—“Iran’s nuclear sites”—leaves open the possibility that other sites could remain off-limits, or at least subject to time-consuming arguments over access.

During the period of the agreement, inspections will be critical to ensuring that Iran is not operating any secret nuclear sites—as North Korea did after signing the Agreed Framework in 1994.  And once the agreement expires, inspections would be a primary way to detect both secret work and diversion from an expanded uranium enrichment program.

Will inspections be able to accomplish these tasks?  Unlike the administration, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not think so.  “Inspectors,” he observed during his Congressional address, “ document violations; they don’t stop them.”

There was not much news in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report on Iran, which was distributed on February 19:  Iran continues to respect the restrictions of an interim nuclear deal struck with the United States and its partners; Iran also continues to stonewall the Agency’s long-standing investigation of “possible military dimensions” to the country’s nuclear program.  Yet the Agency’s report did highlight two essential elements of any acceptable nuclear agreement: intrusive inspections and genuine cooperation from Iran.

Iran has not offered such cooperation to the IAEA, despite a November 2013 agreement in which Iran promised to provide “timely information […] aimed at ensuring the exclusively peaceful nature” of its nuclear program.  According to the latest report, the Agency has been waiting since last August for Iran to explain “credible” allegations that it experimented with high explosives and conducted studies on neutron initiators – work which is “relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”  Iran’s only response has been to call the Agency’s concerns “mere allegations” that “do not merit consideration.”  These questions remain unanswered to this day.

The reason is that, for Iran, talks with the United States are the center of gravity.  An agreement struck with the United States would dictate the degree to which Iran is required to come clean about any past weapon-related work.  Iran perceives no need to address weaponization questions separately with the IAEA, and has not been required to do so by the terms of the interim accord.

A “good deal” should compel Iran to account for its nuclear history and explain its past weaponization efforts.  This accounting requires genuine cooperation – the opposite of the obstructionist attitude Iran has had vis-à-vis the IAEA.  Such cooperation would be a sign of good faith from the Iranians.  And as a practical matter, the international community must understand the progress Iran has made in weaponization.  This progress is critical to estimating how long it would take Iran to “breakout” of any agreement and build nuclear weapons.  The time for “breakout” is central to the P5+1’s negotiating position.

The IAEA’s report also highlighted the need for intrusive inspections.  Iran is still barring the IAEA from visiting the site at Parchin, which has been linked to high explosives testing.  Also off limits has been Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a military scientist considered an essential source of information about alleged weaponization work.  And Iran is only providing “managed access” to key sites such as plants for producing centrifuges and heavy water.

Such inspections must also provide a way to find any secret sites, ones Iran could use in a “sneakout” attempt to make bomb fuel as well as the components of a nuclear device.  Most analysts believe that an Iranian “sneakout” is a greater threat than an overt “breakout,” which would be detected more quickly.  In its report, the IAEA re-iterated that it “is not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”  In order to provide such a credible assurance, IAEA inspectors must have prompt access to any sites they suspect of forbidden activity and to any Iranian engineers and scientists they wish to question.  This would be a far more intrusive inspections regime than exists now.

Meanwhile, four days of nuclear talks wrapped up in Geneva on February 23 with momentum moving in favor of an agreement on general principles.  The New York Times reported yesterday that the two sides are discussing a “phased agreement,” in which Iran’s “breakout” capacity would be constrained for the first ten years of the deal, with the restrictions relaxed in the deal’s second phase.