Arguments: Most Active
Sanctions have put Iran's economy on life support and forced them to the negotiating table. Giving up these valuable tools now for the current deal would be a mistake when the P5+1 partners could use them instead to compel Iran to adopt other needed measures including restrictions on their development of ballistic missiles, funding for terrorist proxies, and their ability to enrich uranium.
- Claiming the only alternative is war ignores that more pressure could have been applied with sanctions
- Political and economic pressure on Iran is forcing them to reassess their nuclear program
- Iran has acted rationally and changed behavior before but only when confronted with overwhelming force
- Obama administration never negotiated the agreement in a way that would achieve the best result
- U.S. should press its advantage in the negotiations to get stronger concessions from Iran
Opponents of the nuclear deal with Iran argue that the simple alternative is to reject the deal and increase sanctions pressure or the threat of military force to compel Iran to return to the negotiations table and agree to terms more favorable to the U.S. However, this approach fails to consider that for negotiations to succeed, they have to have a balance of incentives and compromises and the deal reached in Vienna reflected the best that both sides could bear.
- Punitive strategies and sanctions against Iran have failed every single time and are counterproductive at worst
- On balance, strategy of engagement and cooperation with Iran more likely to be successful
- Western punitive strategy of pressuring Iran is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy
- Iran consistently responds to pressure with more pressure and denial in an effort to save face
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If the current nuclear deal fails, the only alternative will be a return to the conflict and sanctions that existed before the nuclear negotiations began. The U.S. will likely be compelled to impose tougher sanctions and Iran, pushed into a corner, will likely restart its nuclear program putting Iran and the West back on a collision course to a major regional war.
- Failure of the current Iran deal would collapse existing cooperation and ensure war
- Collapse of talks would increase risks of regional war in a number of ways
- Only alternative to nuclear deal is return to conflict and regional war
- Walking away from the existing deal would increase risks of Iranian breakout and war
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Some have claimed that it may be better to try and adapt to a nuclear Iran through a policy of containment or deterrence rather than trying to prevent their becoming a nuclear power in the first place. This overly optimistic scenario overlooks Iran's history and the irrational rhetoric of its messianic regime.
The United States also has non-kinetic options to slow Iranian nuclear progress. These include sabotage, cyberwarfare, and other intelligence operations designed to degrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities and deny Iran the resources necessary to produce a weapon. Like kinetic military options, these measures will likely only delay Iran. However, because their use entails lower costs and risks, they are more attractive policy tools.
- Multiple examples of successful covert operations against Iran's nuclear program
- Sustained covert operations campaign by U.S. agencies and its allies have delayed Iranian program
- Covert operations have had a clear effect on slowing Iran's nuclear weapons program
- Covert action against Iran's nuclear program unlikely to stop it altogether but they carry less risk than overt strikes
- Iran's problems maintaining operational centrifuges could be a result of covert sabotage by Western intelligence agencies
- Iran's nuclear program has been beset by a number of covert attacks including the Stuxnet virus
Covert operations at best can only delay Iran's nuclear weapons program and at worst provoke Iran to retaliate either by escalating their own covert operations or by other more overt military responses.
The U.S. could gain more in negotiations with Iran if it made efforts to make the threat of force credible. Empirically, Iran has backed down when they were made to believe that an attack was imminent.
- Many recent examples to give confidence that credible military threat would compel Iran to back down
- Recent showdown over the Strait of Hormuz shows that credible threat of force is necessary complement to sanctions and diplomacy
- U.S. must make its redlines in Iran absolutely clear to restore military credibility
- U.S. could demonstrate military credibility by bolstering fifth fleet defenses and capabilities in region
- Must make military threat credible to encourage Iran to come to the negotiation table
- U.S. offer of security guarantees and deployment of theater-based missile defense would be more credible than extending its "nuclear umbrella"
- U.S. should increase Israel's tolerance for diplomacy by providing nuclear security guarantees and missile defense capability
- Building up U.S. missile defense capabilities could deter Iranian aggression and dissuade them from further improvements
- Without more effective defenses, U.S. will be constrained in dealing with nuclear-armed regional adversaries
- U.S. needs more effective defensive capabilities to deal with regional nuclear-armed adversaries
- Renewed commitment to deploying missile defense would remove efficacy of Iran's nuclear weapons program
- Growing consensus that U.S. missile defense program is not meeting it's expected goals
- Confidence in existing missile defense systems is not supported by valid empirical test data
- Missile defense won't fully negate deterrent value of rogue nuclear weapons as we can never be sure it will stop all missiles
- U.S. Missile Defense Agency Concedes a Two-Missile Attack would Overwhelm Proposed European Missile Defense System
Since the advent of nuclear weapons, 29 states have pursued nuclear weapons programs but 18 have been convinced by the international community to abandon them, establishing that nuclear proliferation is not inevitable and that states can be convinced to "rollback" their programs if the incentives are right.
- Empirically, many examples of states giving up nuclear weapons programs, even with rational security needs for them
- Nuclear Rollback Empirically Feasible if Correct Conditions Exist
- Experience with previous nuclear rollbacks show that engagement with Iran can convince them to rollback their nuclear program
- History shows nations can be convinced to forgo nuclear weapons
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