President Joe Biden’s team made it clear in the early hours that a quick return to the nuclear deal with Iran is unlikely – potentially prolonging a foreign policy crisis that many in Washington hoped to resolve quickly.
The Trump administration abandoned the agreement in 2018 and imposed strict economic sanctions on Iran, further decimating the country’s already struggling economy and complicating the Islamic Republic’s ability to fight the coronavirus. In defiance, Tehran purposely exceeded the nuclear development limits set out in the agreement as a pressure tactic to scare the United States back into the agreement. The regime’s message, in effect, was that the United States could engage diplomatically or witness Iran’s drive towards a nuclear weapon.
Tehran has never officially said it seeks a nuclear bomb, but its actions have made clear its intentions to at least get close to having one, and some estimates indicate that it would take only three months to get a viable bomb, if it really decides to do so. .
In the campaign, Biden said he would re-join the 2015 pact with Iran and other world powers, with a key condition: “If Iran strictly complies with the nuclear agreement again, the United States would re-join the agreement as a departure to go – in negotiations, ”Biden wrote in a September essay for CNN.
But just in the past few days, hopes of an imminent return by the Americans to the deal have subsided, with three senior members of Biden’s team signaling that this may not happen immediately.
During her confirmation hearing on Tuesday to be director of national intelligence, Avril Haines answered a question from Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) about Haines’ views on the US’s return to the nuclear deal. His response was somewhat surprising.
“I think, frankly, that we are a long way from that,” she said. She then added that Biden and his team “would also have to look at ballistic missile issues” – referring to Iran’s continued development of an advanced ballistic missile arsenal – as well as other “destabilizing activities” in Iran before returning to Iran. nuclear agreement.
Two Senate Democratic advisers sent me a message almost immediately after their comments to share their discontent. “It’s not a good answer from Haines,” said one. (The Senate confirmed Haines for his post on Wednesday.)
Late in the afternoon, designated Secretary of State Antony Blinken made similar comments. “We are a long way from that,” he said of returning to the business, speaking at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. “We would then have to assess whether they were really making it up if they said they are doing their duty again, and then we would go from there.”
And during her first briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki echoed those two remarks. “The president has made it clear that he believes that, through subsequent diplomacy, the United States should seek to extend and strengthen nuclear restrictions on Iran and address other issues of concern,” she said. “Iran must resume compliance with significant nuclear restrictions under the agreement if this is to continue.”
“The president has made it clear that he believes that, through diplomacy, the United States should seek to extend and strengthen nuclear restrictions on Iran and address other issues of concern,” said the White House press secretary. Psaki talks about the administrator’s plan to deal with Iran pic.twitter.com/vWEtdQxo2c
– NBC Policy (@NBCPolitics) January 21, 2021
Clearly, Biden’s officials are on the same page when it comes to Iran, and they all indicate that the new team is not pushing for a quick re-entry into the nuclear deal. “That would be my interpretation of the comments by Haines, Blinken and Psaki,” Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, told me.
It is possible that all of this is a negotiation tactic, establishing a hard line position at the beginning to build room for maneuver to commit later. But it is also possible that this stance could delay – or even condemn – the prospect of a return to the diplomatic path between two tough opponents.
The road to a reformed deal with Iran is full of pitfalls
The Biden government may not want to act quickly, but the time to do something significant is running out.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke on Wednesday about how the nuclear deal could be saved. His main message during the cabinet meeting was that the United States – not Iran – should act first. “If Washington returns to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, we will also fully respect our commitments under the pact,” he said. The ball is “in the US field now,” he said.
Specifically, the regime wants the US to lift sanctions and thaw Iran’s foreign financial assets before agreeing to reverse its latest nuclear developments.
This is a potentially significant complication and will take some negotiation for both sides to agree on a palatable sequence of events for both. The problem is that Iran has a presidential election this summer, and Rouhani, who was president when the nuclear deal was signed and bet a lot on his political future to make the deal happen, will step down after his second and final term ends. .
The next Iranian president may not be as receptive to saving the nuclear pact, which means that Biden may have only a few months before the re-entry window closes.
“The expectation of the Rouhani government is a quick return” to the agreement, Nasser Hadian, from the University of Tehran, who is close to key figures in the regime, told the New Yorker earlier this month. “If Biden does not act, all of Iran’s major factions will put pressure on Iran to increase all aspects of its nuclear program.”
But even if the United States wanted to return to the agreement and Iran complied with its terms, it would take a while to see if Tehran has indeed reversed its path towards a weapon, experts say. The UN nuclear watchdog, for example, would need to gain access to several facilities to see if the Islamic Republic had ended its uranium enrichment. This alone could delay any return to the business.
Opinions differ on how bumpy the road to reentering the Iran deal will be. Some, like Behnam Ben Taleblu, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, say: “It would be wise [for the Biden administration] wait ”to get back to the deal, especially since“ there may not be much of a domestic constituency [in the US] compared to other subjects. “
Others, like Brookings’ Maloney, believe the United States will eventually join the original deal with Iran – not a renewed one – because Biden’s team prefers to focus on other global problems, like the pandemic or China. “It wouldn’t be shocking if the government chose to take what they can and park this issue,” she told me.
How the United States proceeds soon will depend heavily on Robert Malley, a former Obama administration official who is supposed to be Biden’s envoy to Iran. Experts tell me he is likely to seek a quick solution to the Iran deal issue. , potentially putting you in conflict with other team leaders.
Which means that the future of the United States’ return to the Iran deal is not defined and could become a contentious point within the government. What once seemed a foregone conclusion, then, can be anything but.