President Trump Must Reverse John Kerry’s Worst Concession to Iran Trump was right to ditch the Iran deal—Kerry’s uranium concession let Tehran sprint toward the bomb under cover of diplomacy. By Fred Fleitz
On May 8, 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from what he called “the worst deal ever”—the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known as the JCPOA.
For many reasons, President Trump was exactly right. The most crucial reason was an unforgivable concession made to Iran by then-Senator John Kerry in 2011: conceding to Iran the “right” to enrich uranium.
The JCPOA was a bad deal for several reasons, including provisions that allowed Iran to do nuclear weapons-related work while the agreement was in effect, a weak inspection regime that Iran cheated on, and secret side deals that helped Iran evade IAEA inspections. The agreement also wasn’t permanent—it had “sunset provisions” that limited its duration.
In addition, the JCPOA gave Iran $150 billion in sanctions relief. This included $1.7 billion in “pallets of cash” that the U.S. secretly flew to Iran in small planes as ransom to release five innocent Americans being held hostage in Iranian prisons.
But the worst U.S. concession in the JCPOA was the Obama administration’s decision to concede to Iran the “right” to enrich uranium.
Uranium enrichment is the process of concentrating the rare uranium isotope uranium-235 (U-235) so it can be used for either nuclear reactor fuel (3 to 5% U-235) or nuclear weapons fuel (90% U-235).
Prior to the Obama administration, Republican and Democratic administrations were concerned that the spread of uranium enrichment would lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons because it is very easy for a nation to use uranium enrichment centrifuges initially constructed for peaceful purposes to produce nuclear bomb fuel.
The U.S. was also especially opposed before 2009 to letting Iran enrich uranium because of clear and convincing evidence it had engaged in a broad, covert program to produce nuclear weapons that violated Tehran’s treaty obligations.
John Kerry believed differently. As a senator, he argued in 2009 that he agreed with Iranian officials that because Iran had the right to peaceful nuclear technology under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it had a right to enrich uranium. While he was still in the Senate in 2011, Kerry informed Iran (through Oman) on behalf of the Obama administration that the United States would acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich uranium at the start of new nuclear talks.
Kerry acted on this secret offer when he became Obama’s Secretary of State in 2013 and head U.S. negotiator in the nuclear talks, which led to the JCPOA. Although Kerry publicly insisted that the Obama administration did not recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium, he immediately offered to let Iran enrich to reactor grade with 1,500 first-generation centrifuges. Iran was finally permitted to have 6,104 first-generation centrifuges in the JCPOA, 5,060 of which could be active. By comparison, Pakistan enriched enough weapons-grade nuclear fuel for its first nuclear weapons with only about 3,000 centrifuges.
Although Iran agreed in the JCPOA not to enrich uranium with advanced, more efficient centrifuges, it was permitted to research and develop new centrifuge models. This restriction was to expire in 10 years.
The Obama administration’s decision to let Iran enrich uranium was a significant and controversial U.S. policy change. Obama officials worked hard to justify this decision through deception and intimidation.
Secretary of State Kerry and other Obama officials defended this new policy mainly by asserting that Iranian enrichment to reactor grade was not a threat because this level (3-5%) is much lower numerically than the higher, weapons-grade level (90%).
This claim was deceptive because, due to a peculiarity of nuclear science, most of the time and energy required to produce weapons-grade uranium occurs when enriching from unenriched uranium to reactor-grade. For example, using the centrifuges Iran had in 2015, this would have taken about six to nine months. The jump from reactor-grade to weapons-grade requires fewer centrifuges and less time. Iran could have done this in about 4 to 6 weeks in 2015.
The above time estimates would be much shorter today because Iran now has a large number of advanced centrifuges that are faster and more efficient.
France objected to the Obama administration’s first offers to Iran during nuclear talks—including on uranium enrichment—as a “con game.” Obama officials successfully pressured the French to drop their objections. The administration also used intimidation to discredit or silence members of Congress who objected to its JCPOA concessions, including several Democrats.
Despite the Obama administration’s strong-arm and deceptive tactics to defend the JCPOA and its dangerous concessions, the American public and most members of Congress opposed the deal when it was announced in mid-2015. Congressional JCPOA opponents attempted to kill the JCPOA in September 2015 using a “resolution of disapproval” that would have blocked it if the House and Senate voted no. When it was clear that the Senate would join the House in voting down the nuclear deal, Senate Democrats used a filibuster to save it.
Ten years later, the 2015 battle in Congress over the JCPOA has been forgotten. No one remembers the controversy over John Kerry’s dangerous offer to let Iran enrich uranium, pallets of cash to facilitate the nuclear deal, or the agreement’s short sunset provisions.
Instead, the mainstream media and the Left created a powerful false narrative that the JCPOA was a good deal that was succeeding. They ignored and discredited a plethora of evidence about the agreement’s weaknesses and massive Iranian cheating. This is why there was an outcry when President Trump wisely withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.
The Iranian nuclear program is a much more serious threat today, not because Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, but because Iran used the time it gained from the deal to develop and expand its uranium enrichment program. Since 2015, Iran has both openly and secretly developed advanced uranium centrifuges that enabled it to quickly produce large amounts of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium with no peaceful applications.
This is why there was a massive surge in Iran’s uranium enrichment program during the Biden administration when Tehran exploited Biden’s weakness and attempts to appease it.
Two months after Biden’s inauguration, Iran began to enrich to 60% U-235, a level slightly below weapons grade, for the first time.
Even worse, as of February 2025, Iran could enrich enough uranium to fuel one nuclear weapon in less than a week and 14 in about four months, according to a report by the Institute for Science and International Security. By comparison, Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for only two bombs in 5.5 months at the end of the Trump administration. It would take Iran about six months to a year after producing sufficient weapons-grade fuel to construct its first prototype nuclear weapon.
Iran’s years of abusing uranium enrichment to make nuclear bomb fuel are why it cannot be permitted to enrich any uranium in a new nuclear deal. The U.S. and its allies realized this before 2009, but John Kerry foolishly conceded to Iran the “right” to enrich because he and other Obama officials refused to recognize the nuclear proliferation risks of uranium enrichment and were desperate to negotiate a legacy nuclear deal for President Obama.
I agree with the Trump administration’s position on this, conveyed in statements by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization programs. Rubio also made a good offer to Iran by proposing that it can have a peaceful nuclear program if it imports enriched uranium for peaceful purposes, such as radiopharmaceuticals and nuclear reactor fuel rods. Ironically, Iran already imports fuel rods for its one nuclear reactor because it cannot produce them itself.
I am not calling on President Trump to start bombing Iran if the current nuclear talks fail. I would recommend the president first employ non-military measures such as crippling sanctions long before he considers a devastating bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Regardless of what action President Trump takes against Iran’s nuclear program, a central pillar of this policy must be that the president renounces John Kerry’s disastrous concession recognizing Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium. The Trump administration must make clear that Iran cannot be trusted to enrich any uranium and that its enrichment program must be halted and rolled back immediately.
Fred Fleitz previously served as National Security Council chief of staff, CIA analyst, and a House Intelligence Committee staff member. He was a member of the CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center and served as a U.S. delegate to the IAEA Board of Governors.
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