AP Photo
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, second from left, meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, second from right, in Tehran, Iran, February 21, 2021.
Last September, Joe Biden proposed a dramatic alternative to Donald Trump’s bellicose Iran policies. As president, he would offer “a credible path back to diplomacy” aiming at return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, if Iran too returned to compliance. While spare on details, the overall thrust was clear: A Biden administration would prioritize the Iran deal as a centerpiece of its approach to the Middle East.
Under the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, Iran’s uranium stockpiles were reduced some 98 percent. Its advanced centrifuges went offline, its nuclear facilities subjected to 24/7 international monitoring. During the JCPOA’s first three years, the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly confirmed Iran’s full compliance.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the deal in May 2018. In its place, it imposed, and reimposed, a comprehensive sanctions regime. According to President Trump, the “maximum pressure” campaign aimed to force Iran into even more restrictive nuclear prohibitions as well as to halt its regional interference, including support for radical organizations like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and an array of militia groups in Iraq.
But Iran did not cry uncle. Maximum pressure produced minimum results.
Nearly two months into the new administration, maximum pressure remains the de facto U.S. policy.
In the three years since, Iran has expanded its uranium stockpiles 14-fold. It has begun enriching uranium to a concentration five times the JCPOA’s limits. Its breakout period—the time needed to acquire one nuclear bomb’s worth of fissile material—is down to three months. The Trump administration failed to deter Iran from continuing to test ballistic missiles, from attacks against U.S. military and diplomatic installations in Iraq, or a series of bombings in the Persian Gulf widely attributed to Iran. U.S. sanctions have caused enormous harm to the Iranian people, but Iran’s domestic repression and human rights abuses have only increased.
In December, there were hopeful signs emanating from the Biden transition team as well as from Europe and Tehran, pointing toward the possibility of a fast-tracked “compliance-for-compliance” re-entry into the JCPOA. Biden’s foreign-policy team included considerable experience in Iranian nuclear diplomacy. As the party that left the agreement, the United States had an opportunity to take the first step toward repairing it.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration has not yet outlined what a “credible path back to diplomacy” will look like.
Instead, recent weeks have seen the United States and Iranian-supported militias exchange missiles and rockets in Iraq and Syria, as well as a mysterious explosion on an Israeli vessel in the Gulf of Oman. Last month, Iran announced that it was scaling back cooperation with nuclear inspectors. In recent discussions, Iranian analysts have noted that while Washington’s rhetoric has changed, its policies have not.
Indeed, nearly two months into the new administration, maximum pressure remains the de facto U.S. policy. The longer the Biden administration waits to acknowledge what the Biden campaign already recognized—that maximum pressure advanced neither U.S. interests nor regional security—the more many Iranians will remain convinced that the United States is committed to regime change.
At best, this tactical gamesmanship wastes precious time, distracts from real priorities, and raises the cost of diplomacy for both sides. At worst, it could lead to an escalatory cycle that risks precisely the nuclear crisis that the 2015 deal was created to alleviate.
In the last few days, there have been glimmers of hope. A row was avoided in Vienna last week when the United States and Europe declined to push a resolution censuring Iran at the IAEA Board of Governors. The details are less important than the atmospherics, and the move may help to create space for both sides. The United States has reportedly released Iranian assets frozen in South Korean, Iraqi, and Omani banks. The Biden administration might also consider tacit consent to Iran’s IMF loan request and support for the European humanitarian trade mechanism with Iran known as INSTEX. For its part, Iran should quickly reciprocate by pulling back the aspects of its current nuclear activity.
Taking a step back, direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran remain likely. Both sides want to preserve the deal. And the basic trade-off that enabled it—trading sanctions for centrifuges in the form of mutual compliance—remains. As during the original negotiations, restoring the agreement will require political capital and diplomatic creativity from both sides.
Either as a nonproliferation tool or as a starting point for regional dialogue, there is no serious alternative to the JCPOA.
Of course, there are legitimate concerns with the JCPOA. Many of its provisions, like the nuclear weapons program prohibition and the comprehensive inspections regime, are permanent. Six years on, though, certain elements, including a conventional arms trade restriction, have begun to expire. Once the United States is back in the accords, the Biden administration should explore renegotiating some of its sunsets. These issues are far more tractable from within a functioning multilateral arrangement than in the middle of an international crisis. But in any negotiation, to get something, you’ve got to give something. After three years of maximum pressure, Iran will surely have its own new demands.
Critics also note that the JCPOA doesn’t address Iran’s regional behavior. In fact, it wasn’t designed to. Nonetheless, the drama of the last six years suggests that the deal is likely to be sustainable only if supplemented by a parallel regional process—or processes—aiming to de-escalate regional tensions. The wars in Yemen and Syria are urgent priorities. So too are human rights, ballistic missiles, nonstate actors, terrorism, non-interference in sovereign affairs, and so on. Last year was a stark reminder that public health, climate change, food and water insecurity are as critical to well-being as missiles and terrorism. Constructing a regional dialogue to consider even some of this agenda is easier said than done. But it is precisely because the regional currents are so dangerous that such a dialogue is so needed.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has signaled a strong desire to avoid becoming entangled in the Middle East, which may explain its slow start out of the gate with Iran. Given the pressing domestic agenda as well as the United States’ abysmal record in the Middle East since 9/11, that desire is understandable. But either as a nonproliferation tool or as a starting point for regional dialogue, there is no serious alternative to the JCPOA.
The biggest obstacles to salvaging it are neither diplomatic nor technical. They are political. Both the U.S. Congress and Iranian Majlis have passed domestic legislation to undermine the agreement. While Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the ultimate arbiter of nuclear policy, Iran will elect a new president in June, which is likely to further slow diplomacy and insert new approaches and new personalities. The Nowruz holiday begins on March 21 and Ramadan is in April, further crowding the calendar.
In Washington, Republican opposition to the Iran deal is nearly unanimous, and some Democrats, too, remain skeptical. But the 2020 Democratic platform contained a full-throated endorsement of the agreement. In December, 150 House Democrats signed a public letter advocating for re-entry. The fight over Iran in Congress is sure to be brutal. But 150 is an important number, because it gives President Biden sufficient support to sustain a veto, should Congress attempt to stay his hand.
America’s turbulent election season is over. President Joe Biden emerged with a public mandate to engage in diplomacy with Iran to restore the nuclear agreement. It is time to use it.
The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund or its trustees.
