Dollars for Dust

Trump's deal with Iran looks a whole lot like Obama's deal with Iran

This article was originally published in The New Republic on May 27. It is slightly edited and expanded for this newsletter.

Are we close to a deal with Iran? A sentence away from an agreement to end the war, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims? Who knows? But what we do know from credible reporting is that the deal being negotiated looks a whole lot like the deal that Barack Obama’s team struck with Iran in 2014 and 2015.

I told CNN on Tuesday that Donald Trump is a salesman trying to convince us that this used car is actually brand new (watch the clip, below). What he is trying to get is a deal that trades dollars for “dust,” his term for the enriched uranium held by Iran. Trump would give Iran billions of dollars by unfreezing Iranian assets in US-linked banks and ending U.S. sanctions. In exchange, Iran would get rid of its stockpile of enriched uranium that it could enrich further to make the cores of nuclear bombs.

Most likely, Iran would give up not just its 440 kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent, but the more than 10 tons of uranium that it has enriched to various levels.

This is what the Obama negotiations accomplished in 2015. Iran took its then-eight tons of uranium and downblended it with natural uranium, which has less than 1 percent of the U-235 isotope needed for fission. That brought the uranium down to very low levels of enrichment, potentially usable for fuel but not for a rapid sprint to weapons-grade of 90 percent U-235.

Then, in a belt and suspenders approach, Iran shipped all of that uranium to Russia. It was allowed to keep only 300 kg of uranium at the low 3.67 percent level used for fuel. All of this meant that the 2015 deal moved Iran from being able to produce the cores for bombs in a few weeks to a full year.

In exchange, the United States released Iranian funds frozen in foreign banks by US sanctions. Critics of the deal harshly criticized this it as shipping “pallets of dollars” to Iran. But this is precisely what Trump is proposing as part of his deal.

That’s because there really isn’t any other way to do this. Either you trade something Iran wants for something you want, or you go to war.

Trump could have gotten this deal without going to war. In late February, the Iranians agreed to get rid of their uranium stockpile. Plus, they agreed to suspend all enrichment for three to five years — something they were not willing to do in 2015.

That was such a good deal that the Omani foreign minister mediating the talks flew to Washington on February 27 to brief Vice President JD Vance on the deal. Britain’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell said that he was surprised at how good the offer was — and added that he didn’t think it was their final offer.

But Trump got greedy. He listened to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and attacked. Trump thought there was no need to negotiate, he could overthrow the entire regime. He failed. Now, he is back at the table trying to get the same deal he could have gotten without the war.

This is nowhere near the original goals of Trump’s illegal war. It is not regime change, or liberation for the Iranian people, or unconditional surrender, or weakening Iran, or eliminating their entire nuclear program. But it could still be a good deal. It would put Iran back to where they were under the 2015 JCPOA, before Trump ripped it up in 2018.

Plus, if it actually includes a multi-year enrichment suspension, it would be a major barrier to Iran building a bomb. It would not secure an absolute end to the program, but it buys time to build on the agreement with other agreements that could further restrict the program and address other areas of concern, like Iran’s missile program.

That was the path laid out by Obama. It is the path Netanyahu campaigned against; the path that Trump mocked.

It is the path that Trump may now take, while trying to convince everyone that it is a brand new deal.