June 3, 2025 - 8:15pm
A deal restricting Iran’s production of enriched uranium to limited amounts of low-purity nuclear material would be uncomfortable but acceptable for American, Israeli, and Sunni Arab security interests. The critical measurement of whether any new agreement improves on the flawed 2015 JCPOA Iran nuclear deal would not rest on the presence or absence of enrichment activities at any purity levels. Instead, it would depend on restricting Iranian enrichment activity to low purity levels. Additionally, it requires the enforcement of a robust inspections regime that offers near-immediate access to sites of concern.
This bears note in light of Barak Ravid’s report on Monday, according to which the US gave Iran a new proposal that “would allow limited low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil for a to-be-determined period of time”. Ravid further reported that this proposal would require Iran to suspend operations at its underground nuclear facilities, dismantle enrichment conversion facilities (designed to turn low-purity enriched uranium into higher-purity forms), reduce its now significant stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium to lower purity levels, and agree to a robust inspections regime.
Trump has since denied Ravid’s report, demanding that Iran halt all uranium enrichment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and more hawkish Republicans on Capitol Hill will likely be pleased by this development. They had pushed the Trump administration and its chief diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff to demand the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, and its total suspension of uranium enrichment at all purity levels. In making these maximalist demands, some of these officials plainly hope Iran will reject a diplomatic accord and thus precipitate US and Israeli military action.
Nevertheless, if Ravid’s reporting is accurate — and his past record suggests it is — Trump would be wise to take this path.
The key point here is that Iran was almost certain never to agree to a full suspension of enrichment activities, even at the highly credible threat of US military action. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei regards his nuclear programme as a critical test of the Islamic Revolution’s strategic purpose and power, and, he perceives, its destiny to expand the Khomeinist ideology across the Middle East.
It is crucial to recognise the deep emotive quality that the Iranian regime attaches to its nuclear programme. After all, while some commentators suggest that ever more stringent sanctions could compel Tehran to surrender its nuclear ambitions entirely, the joint theological-emotional underpinnings of Iran’s nuclear programme make it far more likely that Khamenei would endure immense threats of foreign attack and associated concerns over domestic stability in order to maintain it.
From the regime’s perspective, a total surrender of all enrichment activities would be tantamount to surrendering the cause of the Islamic Revolution. The regime would also view that surrender as an invitation to its Israeli nemesis and ideological adversaries in the Sunni Arab monarchies to escalate their pressure against Iran. The question for the US, then, is whether a messy but functional deal to ensure Iran’s suspension of high-purity enrichment activities, and more robust checks on its other nuclear activities is preferable to the use of military force.
The challenges of even the highest-intensity, multi-day US military strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme are far more significant than commonly understood. US military planners are also less than certain that they could fully destroy Iran’s nuclear programme without large-scale special forces ground operations. In addition, military strikes and necessary defensive action against Iranian retaliation would expend extremely limited stocks of weapons that would be in very short supply in the likely coming war with China over Taiwan. As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth observed last weekend, that threat is “imminent”. These weapons stocks, particularly air defence munitions, cannot be replenished at speed, so trade-offs must be made to prioritise America’s critical strategic interest in defending its posture in the Western Pacific.
Iran may reject this deal, and will certainly attempt to play games with its parameters. But if the Trump administration has the resolve to hold Iran to account (a big “if”), this would be an agreement worth its muster. Were, in the future, Iran seen to be “breaking out” towards a nuclear weapons capability, the US would still have months to take decisive action against that threat.
A flawed but enforceable deal that reins in Iran’s enrichment and tightens inspections is a better bet than a risky war that might not even stop Tehran’s nuclear programme. Real security demands strategic discipline, not ideological purity.
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