The nuclear deal with Iran is showing signs of life.

The prospects for a revival of the nuclear deal with Iran, which seemed bleak until a week ago, now look brighter all of a sudden. Hope is not the healthiest attitude to bring to world politics – it is crushed so often and cruelly – but there are reasons for some optimism.

The biggest one is that senior diplomats from countries still part of the deal – Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran – will meet in Vienna on Tuesday to discuss ways to get back to the deal. This would include the terms under which Iran would dismantle its nuclear activities and other countries to withdraw their sanctions.

No one from the Biden government will participate directly in this meeting, as the United States under President Trump has withdrawn from the deal. But “separate contacts” will be made with the United States, according to a statement released by diplomats from other countries – including those in Iran – after a meeting held on Friday.

The statement noted that “participants recognized the prospect of a full US return to JCPOA” – meaning the Joint Global Action Plan, the formal name for the nuclear deal with Iran – “and emphasized their commitment to preserve the JCPOA .. and… Ensure the return to its full and effective implementation. ”

Following the release of the statement, State Department spokesman Ned Price confirmed that the United States would participate in indirect negotiations with a view to returning to the agreement.

All of this may seem provisional, at best, but it is still a big step forward. In mid-February, after France’s foreign minister announced the date of a similar meeting, Iran declared that it would not appear – and the session was canceled. Since that time, Iran’s top diplomats have met with their Chinese counterparts to reach an agreement that would allow investment and trade, especially oil exports, outside the dollar-dominated global financial system. Some observers fear that Biden’s refusal to restore the nuclear deal unilaterally, lifting sanctions, has left a loophole for China to exploit, possibly killing all chances of the deal’s revival. However, the China meeting has gone nowhere, producing only the vaguest statements of future cooperation. That may explain why Iran will come to Tuesday’s meeting in Vienna, after all.

As a presidential candidate, Biden expressed a strong desire to resume the nuclear deal. After all, he was vice president when he was signed in 2014, and many of his top advisers – notably Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns – played important roles in negotiations with the Iran when they worked under President Obama.

As the United States withdrew from the agreement, even while Iran fulfilled its terms, Iranian authorities demanded that Biden suspend sanctions (which Trump had reimposed) before suspending its nuclear activities (which they resumed in response to Trump’s withdrawal). But Biden insisted that Iran take the first step – a position that has baffled many supporters of the deal.

It seemed that the summons of France’s foreign minister to a meeting in February could lead to a formula in which the United States and Iran – under the supervision of Europe – could take their steps simultaneously. But then Iran escaped the meeting.

Now Tuesday’s meeting in Vienna could offer a second chance. Biden wants to restart the business. All other signatories want to restart the business. Even Iran, which urgently needs to lift economic sanctions, wants to restart the business – or at least the Iranians currently in charge do. This is where some urgency comes into play. Iran is holding presidential elections in June. The current president, Hassan Rouhani, and his foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, took a gamble when they started negotiations with the United States – that Tehran had officially compared him to Satan since the 1979 revolution. Trump’s withdrawal, for no good reason besides that he didn’t like Iran and didn’t like anything negotiated by Obama, strengthened Tehran’s hardline political factions, as well as the resounding rhetoric – worth appeals for regime change – by Trump’s last secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

If a formula is not agreed next week in Vienna, then the deal could go to the trash can after all, increasing tensions in the region that Biden prefers to minimize. Given the desire and the clear possibilities for a way out of the impasse, this would be worse than a tragedy; it would be a mistake