Why Isn't Iran at the Nuclear Security Summit?

Navid Hassibi

Security, Middle East

Excluding Iran was a missed opportunity for nonproliferation.

As the final Nuclear Security Summit begins in Washington this week, a country whose nuclear program has come in from the cold—Iran—is missing from the guest list, raising questions as to whether it should have been invited. What the United States and others once perceived as a sophisticated, controversial and illegitimate nuclear program has now been brought in line with international norms through last year’s historic deal, which turned the one-time nuclear outlier into a legitimate player whose presence at the summit could have strengthen international nuclear security.

The summit is the fourth of its kind; the United States hosted the inaugural 2010 summit in Washington, while the second and third summits were held in Seoul and The Hague in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Although the purpose of the summit is to prevent nuclear terrorism and to secure loose nuclear materials that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, its intentions and goals are within the spirit of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that is currently being implemented. The historic deal is directly improving international nuclear security by bringing a sophisticated nuclear program out of the shadows.

As an example, the interim agreement (the precursor to the deal) had Iran reduce its amount of dangerous nuclear materials by eliminating or converting its entire stockpile of 20 percent medium-enriched uranium. Under the JCPOA, Iran went further and reduced its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to fewer than three hundred kilograms, 2 percent of what it had been prior to the agreement. Relatedly, Iran has removed two-thirds of its centrifuges from its nuclear facilities. The JCPOA also blocked the plutonium path to nuclear weapons; Iran has removed the reactor core at the Arak facility and filled it with cement. The JCPOA keeps Iran from covertly pursuing enough fissile material for a weapon, by adopting the Additional Protocol and other transparency measures. These enhance the monitoring and verification of nuclear facilities, including through snap inspections, as well as enhancing oversight and accountability of the entire nuclear supply chain.