Today’s landmark deal between six world powers and Iran, which would limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions, was an important step toward stopping Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

However, the key challenge for the international community will be making sure Iran keeps its part of the bargain, according to Stanford experts.

“Both sides have made a series of compromises that will help Iran’s economy in exchange for constraining its nuclear capabilities – and that’s a deal worth making, in my view,” said Scott Sagan, the Caroline S.G. Munro professor of political science and senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“Iran will still have a technical capability to develop nuclear weapons, given the technology and materials that they have, but under this deal it will both take them a much longer period of time and would require them to take actions that would be easily discerned by the International Atomic Energy Agency, so it constrains their break-out capabilities in important ways.”

[[{"fid":"219719","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Final plenary session at the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria. Photo credit: U.S. State Department","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","pp_lightbox":false,"pp_description":false},"type":"media","attributes":{"title":"Final plenary session at the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria. Photo credit: U.S. State Department","width":"870","style":"width: 400px; height: 266px; float: right; margin-left: 15px","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]The U.S.-led negotiations also included fellow United Nations Security Council members Britain, China, France, and Russia, as well as Germany – a group known collectively as as the "P5+1."

Sig Hecker, former Los Alamos National Laboratory director and senior fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, said the nuclear deal was “hard-won and is better than any other reasonably achievable alternative.”

“Iran agreed to considerably greater restrictions on its program than what I thought was possible before the Joint Plan of Action was signed in November 2013,” said Hecker.

Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford and an affiliate at the Center for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law, called it the “least bad deal” for both Iran and the international community.

“Nobody gets everything they want,” Milani said. “Every side gets some of what they want.”

Under the deal, Iran would be allowed to continue to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes in its energy and health industries.

But it would have to reduce the number of its centrifuges from 19,000 to 6,000, and cut its stockpile of low enriched uranium down from more than 20 thousand pounds to about 660 pounds.

“Reducing that stockpile actually lengthens the breakout time more than any other measure,” said Hecker.

These limits were designed to increase the “breakout time” it would take for Iran to produce enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon from the current two to three months, to one year over a period of the next 10 years.

The agreement still faces a series of political hurdles before it gets implemented, and will face tough scrutiny from a Republican-controlled U.S. Congress, as well as the parliaments of European countries that were parties to the talks.

“I think it’s going to be hard for the U.S. Congress and [European] parliaments to kill the deal and be perceived as the ones who would rather have a war than give diplomacy a chance,” said Thomas Fingar, distinguished fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

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“The key is going to be the effectiveness of the verification procedures and IAEA access,” Fingar said.

“There’s an element of trust, but a far more important part is the rigorous verification protocols.”

As soon as the IAEA confirms that Iran is abiding by the terms of the agreement, economic sanctions can be lifted.

Sagan warned that the international community should not be surprised if Iran pushed the limits of the agreement, and should be ready to reimpose economic sanctions if Iran violated the deal.

“We should anticipate that Iranian opponents to the agreement will try to stretch it and do things that are potential violations and that we have to call them on that, and not treat every problem that we see as unexpected,” said Sagan.

“We should anticipate such problems and be ready, if necessary, to reimpose sanctions. Having the ability to reimpose sanctions is the best way to deter the Iranians from engaging in such violations.”

But Hecker said the international community should focus on incentivizing Iran.

“The best hope is to make the civilian nuclear path so appealing – and then successful – that Tehran will not want to risk the political and economic consequences of that success by pursuing the bomb option,” he said.

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Iran faced the threat of military action if it continued to press forward with its nuclear program.

While Russia and China had both signaled that they were likely to abandon the sanctions regime if talks fell apart.

One of the key challenges to reaching an agreement was “finding a language that would allow both parties to declare victory”, according to Milani.

“Iran has clearly made some very substantive concessions, but Iran has also been allowed to keep enough of its infrastructure so that it can declare at least partial victory for the domestic political audience."

Now the scramble is on in Tehran to claim credit for the deal.

Reformists, led by current Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, hope it will strengthen their hand as they head into the next election.

On the other side of the political spectrum, conservatives believe it could give them the edge in the battle to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s Supreme Leader.

“They understand that whoever gets the credit for this will be in a much better position to determine the future leadership and future direction of Iran’s foreign policy,” said Milani.

It’s too early to tell what impact the agreement might have on Iran’s foreign policy, which is often at odds with U.S. interests in hot spots like Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan. But Sagan said today’s deal was an important step in making sure that future conflicts with Iran don’t go nuclear.

“Hopefully those disagreements will be played out without the shadow of nuclear weapons hanging over the future, and that’s a good thing.”

Generations of political scientists, philosophers, policymakers and historians have studied myriad aspects of war, but there are some things about war that only art and artists can express.

“To understand how changes in war, technology and politics influence the foot soldiers, victims, and civilians and our overall memory, we don’t need political scientists and historians, we need pilots and poets, we need warriors and writers,” CISAC Senior Fellow Scott Sagan told a Stanford audience gathered at Bing Concert Hall.

Joining Sagan were National Book Award winner Phil Klay and U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. A Stanford Live event, the talk was part of a three-day workshop on “New Dilemmas of Ethics, Technology and War” sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Trethewey, a professor of English at Emory University, was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, a region steeped in Civil War mythology. She read poems from her 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poetry, “Native Guard,” which was inspired by a real diary of a black Union Army officer. The book takes its title from the Louisiana Native Guards, one of the first all-black Union Army regiments. In addition to seeing battle, the Native Guards were tasked with guarding a fort housing Confederate prisoners of war.

Klay, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, read from his 2014 National Book Award-winning “Redeployment,” a collection of short stories that portray war and its aftermath through the memories of ordinary soldiers and officers fighting in Iraq. Klay started writing the book just a few months after he came back from Iraq, where he served as a public affairs officer.

“I came back with a sort of sense that a lot of people feel like, ‘What the hell was that?’” he said.

“I also came back to a country that didn’t feel engaged in a serious way with the wars that it was fighting, which was very disturbing to me since the political decisions we make here have huge impacts.”

Both writers conducted deep research while working on their respective books. Trethewey told of time spent in the Library of Congress poring over original letters from civil war soldiers as well as historical monographs. Klay pulled from personal memory as well as interviews with other veterans. While both maintained some fidelity to historical details, facts alone were not sufficient to fulfill their purposes.

“[I went] through research materials like Dr. Frankenstein going through a graveyard looking for spare parts – anything that might be useful to advance some of the ideas, questions, and troubles that I had,” Klay said.

“What you are aiming for does not necessarily lie with facts.”

For Trethewey it was as much the case that some facts were simply unaccounted for. The acts of black soldiers have, for the most part, been whitewashed out of history.

“I’ve always been interested in cultural memory and historical amnesia,” she said.

“I’m a native Mississippian and I grew up between Mississippi and Georgia so I grew up in the land of the ‘Lost Cause’ ideology, the land of the Confederate flag. I grew up in a place where if you were visiting from somewhere else and didn’t know the outcome [of the Civil War], based on all the monuments you might think the South won the war. And that creates a kind of psychological exile because it’s only telling one part of a larger, important American story.”

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Trethewey read excerpts that dealt directly with the theme of competing histories. In one of her poems, she writes from the perspective of one of the Native Guards who is writing his words inside the used pages of a Confederate soldier’s journal, “on every page, his story intersecting with my own.”

Klay read excerpts from his book that were often funny and bitterly dark. In the story “Ten Kliks South”, an artillery crew fantasizes and debates the outcome of a recently executed fire mission. They wonder who they killed and whether any moral culpability should be borne and by whom (the shell loaders, or the trigger puller, or the commanding officer, or the bomb makers, or the entire American public?).

“There’s sometimes an expectation that a war book shouldn’t be funny, which is odd,” Klay said.

“Soldiers are really funny and one of the ways you make sense of absurd situations, which proliferate in any institution, and certainly the military is a good one for absurd situations to be in, you make sense of it through jokes. I think of Kurt Vonnegut saying, ‘I think a joke is a perfectly valid form of literature’.”

Making some sense of what war is and what it means to people is what Klay and Trethewey’s works aimed to do.

“It almost goes without saying but I always feel the need to remind people that in difficult times and in times of some of our greatest joy, we turn to poetry,” said Trethewey.

“People do turn to poetry because there is still a belief that most of us have, no matter how far buried down it is, that poetry is a language that speaks things that are unspeakable, which is why so many people turn to it in those moments.”

The writers’ efforts were welcomed by CISAC senior research scholar and U.S. Army veteran Joe Felter.

“In today's all volunteer military we have a much less diverse segment of the American public that has served in the armed forces or has a close friend or family member that has served,” said Felter.

“Fiction and poetry that give us a glimpse of the many faces of battle help make the experience of war, and the challenges faced by those directly involved in it, more accessible to a largely insulated public. As a policy researcher, I think it’s critical that the human dimension and costs of war are appreciated by our political decision makers. As a combat veteran, I hope that the sacrifices of those who served are not forgotten. Fiction and poetry like the extraordinary readings showcased in this event can help do both.”

By recording and embodying war’s horrors, ironies, and absurdities, Klay and Trethewey demonstrated what artists have to offer to Americans, the majority of whom are extraordinarily distanced from the very real and consequential human drama of war: to express the inexpressible, and the unexpressed.

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is launching a U.S.-Asia Security Initiative spearheaded by a former top American diplomat to deepen dialogue on contemporary Asia-Pacific security issues and to further bridge American and Asian academics, government officials and industry leaders.

A new and uncertain multipolar system is emerging in Asia. The United States is and will remain a global power, but it is evident the post-Cold War international order is increasingly under strain. There is a pressing need for research about how developments in the Asia-Pacific region impact U.S. interests, and what the optimal strategies are to respond. Led by Karl Eikenberry, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011, the initiative will look beyond simplistic notions of nations engaging harmoniously or competing against each other and explore a range of policy options.

Combining expertise from across Stanford University, the initiative will gather faculty and researchers from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and take place under the auspices of Shorenstein APARC, a center focused on interdisciplinary research on contemporary issues of international cooperation, governance and security in the Asia-Pacific region.

Eikenberry, an Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at Shorenstein APARC, retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant general after 35 years of service before taking the role as ambassador. At Stanford, he has returned to an early and longstanding interest in Asia, contributing to an urgent discussion about how the United States should respond regionally and globally to an increasingly strong China. The initiative is founded on the premise that there is a role for an institution that not only fosters groundbreaking research, but also serves to convene academic and governmental expertise from across the Asia-Pacific region in a dialogue aiming to inform policy and strategy.

“As China rises and Japan seeks a greater defense role in Asia, a number of questions are raised over the United States’ role in the region. This creates a great impetus for stakeholders to gather and develop an understanding of today’s perplexing security issues,” Eikenberry said.

“It’s an honor to lead this Stanford initiative and make possible opportunities for students, scholars, peers and leaders across the world.”

Before arriving at Stanford, Eikenberry’s Asia-related postings included assistant army, and later, defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy Beijing, operational assignments in the Republic of Korea and Hawaii, Director for Strategic Plans and Policy at U.S. Pacific Command, Senior Country Director for China at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and two senior command tours in Afghanistan. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, holds master’s degrees from Harvard University and Stanford University, and has an advanced degree in Chinese history from Nanjing University.

The three-year initiative will build synergies with existing activities at Stanford, drawing scholars, government officials and industry leaders to engage at conferences and public seminars on important U.S.-Asia security themes. Understanding that inquiry is enlivened through interdisciplinary dialogue, participants will share best practices across multiple fields including diplomacy, military strategy and environmental risk.

“I can’t think of a better person to drive this initiative – Karl has a profound understanding of the economic, diplomatic and military complexities in the region. I have every confidence that it will develop into a robust, established project under his leadership,” said Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC.

Launching July 1, 2015, the initiative aims to bolster local, national and global networks through several foundational components, including a core working group of experts from Stanford and peer institutions to provide new perspectives on U.S. policies in Asia; educational opportunities for Stanford students; and public programs that will bring intellectual and strategic leaders to Stanford to enrich the conversation on Asia-Pacific security.

The initiative seeks to operate as a focal point for academic scholarship on the west coast of the United States and offer practical steps that stakeholders can take to strengthen the security architecture and U.S. alliance commitments in the region. Outcomes from the initiative’s activities will include publications and policy reports, many of which will be offered open access online.

“As the Asia-Pacific region continues to rise, we see new threats but also greater opportunity to work together,” said Michael McFaul, director of FSI. “Stanford and FSI excel in offering practical solutions to policy challenges and can play a role in identifying strategies aimed at maintaining peace and stability in the region.”

Initiative inquires: Charlotte Lee, Shorenstein APARC, cplee@stanford.edu, (650) 725-6445

Media inquires: Lisa Griswold, Communications and Outreach Coordinator, Shorenstein APARC, lisagris@stanford.edu, (650) 736-0656