What are the main challenges of negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran?
The Hundred #8: May 10, 2022
Three experts explain why it’s so difficult to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. If you aren’t signed up to the newsletter yet, you can subscribe for free below.
“The main challenge is the sorry fate of the original nuclear deal. The Trump administration’s unwarranted withdrawal from an agreement that Iran was fully complying with in 2018 proved to Tehran that the U.S. is an unreliable negotiating partner. It now has seen Biden dither on delivering on the promise of rectifying his predecessor’s strategic mistake nearly eighteen months into his presidency. With Democrats set to lose their congressional majority in the upcoming mid-term elections, if the deal is not revived by then, Iran is likely to wait Biden out to face his potential Republican successor with its leverage intact.”
"There are manifold challenges: deep distrust between the US and Iran, the difficulty of insulating the negotiations from other aspects of their conflict, and divisions in both Washington and Tehran, to name a few. One is often overlooked: the vast power imbalance, which provides each a disincentive to accept a limited deal – the US because it may feel it need not compromise, and Iran because it fears compromise is a slippery slope. This makes negotiations harder than those between superpowers, and it is why they become harder yet when they become bilateral, rather than multilateral, as they effectively have today."
"The biggest challenge to restoring compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal is that politics, not effective nonproliferation policy, is driving decision-making in Washington and Tehran. Negotiators have an agreement on the steps necessary to return to the deal, but both sides have staked out maximalist positions on a largely symbolic sanction—the designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. While Biden and Raisi will face criticism for showing flexibility on this issue, they will pay a far greater price if talks collapse. That is a lose-lose scenario that significantly increases the risk of the nuclear crisis escalating into broader conflict."
That’s it for The Hundred #8. Please share this post with friends and colleagues if you found it interesting. If you want to learn more about this topic, here’s a list of further reading.