Is Iran honoring the year-old nuclear accord?

In the year since the signing of the seven-nation nuclear accord, Iran appears to have pulled back its nuclear program from the brink of weapons-making capacity, as it agreed to do. In return, the lifting of economic sanctions and the release of $100 billion in frozen assets have helped revive the Iranian economy, which is projected to grow 3.7 percent this year.

But many analysts warn the nuclear deal is fragile. Changes in leadership in the U.S. and Iran following upcoming elections could derail the accord. And Iran’s continuing aggressive ballistic missile program threatens stability in the Middle East, raising pressure on the United States to respond with force.

More importantly, experts believe Iran is violating the accord with not-so-secret attempts to buy the weapons technology it’s supposed to be giving up, violations Western nations led by the United States seem unlikely to punish.

On the surface at least, the nuclear pact appears to be holding. Cooperation between Washington and Tehran is expanding beyond anything that might have been imagined when the Iranians were thought to be a month or two away from nuclear weapons capability.

“It really wasn’t long ago that we saw a rapidly expanding nuclear program in Iran, only months away from having enough weapons-grade uranium to build 10 to 12 nuclear weapons,” Secretary of State John Kerry said recently. “We were on the cusp of confrontation.”

Iran has complied with many of the restrictions in the deal. It shuttered thousands of centrifuges needed for enriching uranium to make bombs, and it exported most of its stockpile of bomb-making material. It also disabled a heavy water plant capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. If Iran began today to sprint toward an atomic weapon, the Obama administration and other independent experts estimate it would take at least a year.

But while it jettisons weapons technology with one hand, Iran is trying to acquire it with the other.

“I think [the International Atomic Energy Agency] has verified that Iran has complied with the things that it had to do with regard to things in Iran, but it’s still going around the world trying to buy this illicit material, which was expressly prohibited by the deal,” said James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation.

Two recent reports by German intelligence revealed Iranian front companies are continuing to search for illicit nuclear- and ballistic missile-related dual technology in Germany, Phillips explained. One of the reports concludes there is no reason to think those efforts have stopped.

“As far as I know, these illicit procurement plots have been broken up,” Phillips told me. “But just the fact that Iran tried to do it is against, not just the spirit of the deal, but against the letter of the deal.”

Iran’s illicit procurement activities may not be limited to Europe. The Institute for Science and International Security reports that “many previously sanctioned Iranian entities are now very active in procuring goods in China.” Another report disclosed that Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) “recently made an attempt to purchase tons of controlled carbon fiber” from an unnamed country. Carbon fiber is a key component of advanced centrifuges.

Although the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program expire in eight years, Phillips believes nuclear weapons capability is too important to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guard to wait that long.

“The Revolutionary Guards are extremely reluctant to give up what they see as a trump card in assuring the survival of the revolution,” Phillips told me. “So I think, in the short run, Iran has interests in fulfilling most of the terms of the deal, but it’s already cheating.”

Phillips doesn’t think the Obama administration will push back too hard against Iran because it values the nuclear deal as part of its legacy.

“It’s kind of hostage to that legacy,” he said. “And unfortunately that sends very weak signals to Iran that there will be no repercussions if they’re caught trying to smuggle items like they’ve been doing in Germany.”