Iranian Nuclear Deal: Either Imminent or Impossible

Over the past few months, there have been various indications of progress in the negotiations toward the United States’ re-entry into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), often referred to as the “Iran nuclear agreement.” However, more recently, such negotiations have faced significant hurdles due to Russian demands related to the war in Ukraine and US stances on certain sanctions. As the JCPOA stands at the nexus of larger regional and global strategic questions, understanding it is crucial. 

Brief Historical Context

The JCPOA, originally adopted in 2015, is an agreement between Iran and the five permanent UN Security Council members – China, France, United Kingdom, the US, and Russia – along with Germany (the “P5+1”), seeking to ensure that Iran ceases its nuclear weapons development program in exchange for an end to the extensive international sanctions regime. The deal specifies that Iran may only use its nuclear facilities for civilian purposes and that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would independently verify compliance. Crucially, the agreement also included a termination date that would conclusively end the nuclear-related sanctions and monitoring regime.

At the time, the Obama administration, along with several other observers in the signatory states and the counter-proliferation community, celebrated the deal as a major diplomatic achievement. However, Iran’s regional rivals, especially Israel and the Gulf states, questioned the JCPOA’s effectiveness. They complained that Iran would use the billions of dollars from sanctions relief to pursue a foreign policy that would threaten their security. 

For the first few years after its adoption, the JCPOA did successfully suspend Iranian nuclear development, with the IAEA confirming the state’s compliance until May of 2019. Nevertheless, opposition in what was arguable the JCPOA’s most important party proved fatal to its mission. In the United States, the Republican party had criticized the deal from its inception, later leading to President Trump’s 2018 unilateral withdrawal and subsequent reimposition of US sanctions. In response to this move, as well as US-directed assassinations and attacks directed against its interests, Iran began to break with the treaty’s stipulations, threatening its legitimacy. 

As part of his declared mission to compensate for what he viewed as his predecessor’s greatest diplomatic mistakes, President Biden started talks with Iran to negotiate the re-entry of the US to the JCPOA under modified conditions in 2021. Such conditions would necessarily include a wide rollback of the extensive progress that Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities had made in the meantime.

The Current State of Negotiations

Currently, the US and Iran, along with all other parties to the JCPOA are engaged in the eighth round of talks in Vienna. In mid-February, multiple participants in the negotiations indicated that an agreement appeared imminent. The Russian invasion of Ukraine complicated these assessments: After initially attempting to keep the events in Ukraine separate from the negotiations, the Russian delegation demanded that progress on the JCPOA would be conditioned on the noninterference of Ukraine-related sanctions with Moscow-Tehran relations. This was particularly problematic due to Iran’s complicated and somewhat contradictory relationship with Russia and the invasion itself. Participants and observers, who were generally frustrated over this impasse, took it to be the reason for Josep Borrell’s announcement of a pause to the negotiations in early March. 

Aside from these “external factors,” as Borrell referred to them, there are some disagreements between the US and Iran over specific sanctions that present hurdles to a successful reinstatement of the JCPOA. For example, US diplomats have so far not shown any willingness to lift the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) designation as a foreign terrorist organization. Most recently, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called Washington’s demands “excessive.” 

At the same time, Iran appears to be rapidly nearing the completion of its nuclear development, perhaps also in an effort to increase its leverage over the P5+1. The prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons would however destroy the current JCPOA negotiations’ premise of a reset in both nuclear material and sanctions. While this ought to inject a renewed sense of urgency into the negotiations and both sides have assured reporters that the agreement is being finalized, a potential failure of the JCPOA certainly becomes more likely as Iran continues to enrich uranium. 

Regional Complications

While they certainly do not prefer Iran to exit negotiations to acquire nuclear weapons, Iran’s regional rivals – Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – have rarely looked favorably on the JCPOA’s sanctions relief. Israel specifically objected to the agreement in 2015 and argued that sanction relief would allow Iran to increase its funding for militia groups like Hezbollah. In an effort to curb Iran’s influence through proxies, Israel has engaged in a so-called “shadow war,” repeatedly attacking Iran-backed forces in Syria and Iraq. As part of this war, Israel has also targeted Iranian nuclear facilities to stymie development efforts, although, given recent developments, the effectiveness of such strikes is in doubt. Due to Israel’s fear of Iran increasing its funding for proxies, there is reason to believe that Israeli attacks might actually increase if the JCPOA is reactivated. 

That being said, the narrative of Iran immediately using any revenues from sanction relief to fund Islamist Shiite militias is flawed. One could reasonably assume that domestic pressures would push the Iranian regime to first spend newfound resources on its own population. 

Recent developments also complicate the perception of the GCC states’ stance on Iran regardless  of progress in the JCPOA. On one hand, there are early signs that the tightening bonds between some Arab states and Israel might develop into a strategic military alliance directed against Iran and its militia groups. On the other hand, the GCC members have arguably initiated a diplomatic rapprochement with Tehran, as Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia expanded diplomatic relationships over the past few years. Given the ambiguity of these developments, further engagement with Iran might be implicitly conditioned on the future of the JCPOA and Tehran’s subsequent interaction with the region. 

The US and Iran may very well still be successful in their renegotiations of the JCPOA, in spite of the Russian roadblock regarding Ukraine and the regional actors that are still only tentatively supportive. Then again, the potential payoffs of a reinvigorated agreement are immense. Both the US and Europe stand to benefit, given the potential drops in fuel prices if sanctions on Iranian oil are lifted. Of course, the JCPOA will most positively affect the Iranian state and its people, whose quality of life stands to increase under a much lighter sanctions regime.