Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
- Date:
- 2015
- Participants:
- Iran
- United States
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as “the Iran nuclear deal,” is a 2015 agreement between Iran and several world powers to restrict Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief of international sanctions on Iran. The deal was negotiated by the Democratic administration of U.S. Pres. Barack Obama (2009–17) but rejected by Republicans as too conciliatory. It was opposed by Obama’s successor U.S. Pres. Donald Trump (2017–21), who pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. In 2019 Iran began reneging on its own commitments in the JCPOA.
Historic deal
“The possibility of the mutual destruction of each country…prompted [the world] to undertake increasingly serious negotiations to limit [nuclear proliferation worldwide].”
Read more from Britannica’s article on arms control.
Nuclear proliferation has been a global concern since the first atomic bomb was produced in 1945. Since 1968 the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has forbidden the development of nuclear weapons by nonnuclear states and all but four countries are signatories to the treaty. (India, Israel, and Pakistan have never signed the pact; North Korea was a signatory but withdrew in 2003.) Iran is a signatory to the treaty, but in 2002 it came under suspicion of aiming to build nuclear weaponry after it had secretly constructed a uranium-enrichment facility and a heavy-water reactor. Beginning in 2006 the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iran following additional suspicious activity and its testing of medium- and long-range ballistic missiles.
After Iranian Pres. Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated in 2013, he sought to improve relations with the West, and he told the United Nations General Assembly that Iran was open to a compromise over his country’s nuclear program. That led to a phone call with U.S. Pres. Barack Obama—the first direct conversation between leaders of the two countries since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Negotiations, led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, took place over the next two years. Negotiating alongside the United States were China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany (collectively called the P5+1, in reference to the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany).
In early April 2015 both sides agreed to a framework that outlined some aspects of a final agreement. Under the framework, in exchange for the reduction of sanctions, Iran would give up 98 percent of its highly enriched uranium, and its uranium enrichment and nuclear research would be restricted and monitored. In a major concession, the deal would exclude restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missiles program and other conventional arms, though the United States would not be obligated to lift its sanctions on aspects not covered by the deal.
In July 2015 Obama announced an agreement that largely followed the terms of the framework, saying it provided “an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.” U.S. officials argued that the agreement could help improve relations between Iran and the West. In Iran, Rouhani made a similarly rosy assessment, predicting, “If this deal is implemented correctly, we can gradually eliminate distrust.” But in the U.S. Congress, Republicans immediately opposed the deal, calling it appeasement.
Content of the JCPOA
Key provisions of the agreement included:
“If this deal is implemented correctly, we can gradually eliminate distrust.”
—Iranian Pres. Hassan Rouhani (2015)
- Reduction in Iran’s use of centrifuges
- Iranian enrichment of uranium capped at 3.67 percent purity and restricted to one facility in Natanz
- Reduction in Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium to 300 kg (roughly 660 pounds)
- Monitoring of mining, production, and other activities related to Iran’s nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
- Lifting of international sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program, while other sanctions related to missile development, terrorism, and human rights remained in place
- Snap back of sanctions if Iran was found to be non-compliant
Most experts agreed that the deal’s provisions would have delayed Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by at least a decade. However, the restrictions included sunset clauses that would have lifted most limitations on Iran’s nuclear program after a set amount of time. Some limits on testing advanced centrifuges would have been lifted after 8 and a half years, for example. The limits on Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and the level on enrichment would have expired after 15 years.
Trump pulls plug
“The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable. If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs.”
—U.S. Pres. Donald Trump (2018)
During the U.S. presidential election of 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump’s aides initially convinced him not to scrap the deal after he became president in 2017. But in his second year in office, in 2018, he announced the withdrawal of the United States from the agreement, while the signatories, including Iran, committed at first to upholding the deal. Despite attempts to salvage the agreement in the run up to Trump’s announcement, he concluded that the agreement was not worth saving. “This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Trump said in announcing the news. “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.” He argued that exerting maximalist pressure would force Iran to negotiate a deal more to his liking.
Iran steps up enrichment
Despite efforts by the international community to mitigate the effect of U.S. sanctions on Iran as long as it abided by the treaty, the far reach of U.S. sanctions managed to devastate Iran’s economy. In response, Rouhani announced in May 2019 that Iran would gradually pull back on its commitments, but he promised to reverse those measures in exchange for sanctions relief. By early July Iran had breached limits on its stockpile of enriched uranium as well as the level of enrichment; by the beginning of 2021 its stockpile was more than 12 times the level permitted under the JCPOA, and its enrichment had reached 20 percent purity (against a JCPOA cap of 3.67 percent); and by early 2023 it had stockpiled enough enriched material to produce a nuclear weapon in just 12 days’ time and just months later it began barring international inspectors from monitoring of its nuclear program. By early 2024 it had enough material for three nuclear weapons.
“The withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA a year later, accompanied by the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran, left [hard-liners like Ebrahim] Raisi vindicated in the eyes of many Iranians.”
Read more from Britannica’s biography of Ebrahim Raisi.
Trump’s successor as president, Joe Biden (who had been Obama’s vice president) entered negotiations with Iran in April 2021 to return to the nuclear agreement. Although the hard-line Ebrahim Raisi, who was inaugurated as Iran’s president in August, engaged with the United States to reach a renewed deal, he prioritized strengthening Iran’s ties with its neighbors and with China. By the time a new agreement appeared close in 2022, Iran had become destabilized by frustrations over prolonged economic hardship, which culminated in widespread demonstrations sparked by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in September.