The difficult nuclear agreement with Iran

In 2016 the US, China, Russia, the EU, the UK, France and Germany signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Nuclear Deal, with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which in exchange for lifting Western sanctions obliged Iran to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by 98% by 2031, to shut down its most advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges for five years, to shut down a heavy water reactor capable of producing plutonium, to limit its nuclear research to the Natanz plant until 2024, to respect the UN arms embargo and not to import missile technology until 2025. 

The US Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly confirmed that Iran complied with its obligations until Donald Trump unilaterally denounced the deal in May 2018, and imposed a policy of "maximum pressure" with a tough sanctions regime that has brought the Iranian economy to its knees by preventing it from selling oil, its only source of income, shutting off access to the international financial system, causing 30 per cent inflation and massive unemployment. 

Iran waited to see how the other signatories to the agreement would react, but they merely expressed their disagreement with the US decision and were unable to alleviate the impact of the sanctions. And in July 2019 Iran began to breach the limits imposed on it by the agreement, and its degree of non-compliance increased after the assassination of General Qassem Suleinani by a US drone. Today Iran is enriching uranium to 20 per cent and according to the IAEA its stockpile is twelve times the permitted amount, again getting dangerously close to the dreaded bomb that would provoke an Israeli reaction and an arms race in the region. 

Iran knew that with Donald Trump it had nothing to do and therefore awaited the election to the US presidency of Joseph Biden, who has written that "if Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the US will rejoin the agreement as a starting point for further negotiations", which is what the other signatories want it to do. It's just that it's not that easy. And it is not for several reasons. 

Firstly because although Supreme Leader Khamenei has been open to the possibility of talking to the Americans if they lift sanctions, positions within Iran have become more radicalised, the US is not seen as a negotiator and a reliable partner, the Iranian parliament has just passed a resolution calling for an end to UN inspections, and there are elections in June and no one wants to appear weak in the face of a country that is unfairly blamed for all its current ills. Mohamed Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic, has just written a long article in which he says that if Biden "ends the policy of 'maximum pressure' and returns to the agreement that his predecessor abandoned... Iran will also return to full compliance with all our obligations". So far so good, but then he adds "If Washington, on the other hand, insists on further concessions, then this opportunity will be lost". In other words, Iran refuses to link the nuclear issue to other issues because the regional security issues of concern to the US and Europeans should only be resolved "by the people of the region and not by outsiders". To this end, Javad Zarif recalls that Iran offered the Hormuz Peace Initiative to the UN Assembly in 2019, to which all the countries of the Persian Gulf were invited by letter from President Rohani, because "the future of the region can and should be decided only by its peoples". Not only that, but according to the Iranian minister, the return of the US to the agreement should not be automatic but something to be decided by the other signatories because "international agreements are not revolving doors... it is not an automatic right to return to a negotiated agreement - and enjoy its privileges - after having abandoned it on a whim". So much for that. 

Secondly, the Iranians do not make it easy either if we consider that it is not just a matter of returning to what was signed in 2016, as if time had not passed, given that some of the provisions of the Nuclear Agreement, such as the arms embargo, have already expired simply because of the passage of time, and that others have little time left, as they expire between 2022 and 2025. And because Europeans and Americans share concerns about Iran's Middle East policy and its missiles, which are getting longer and longer in range and could already reach as far as Italy. And Israel and the Gulf states will also press for these issues to be taken into account before the US lifts its sanctions on Iran, which has made too many enemies in the region. 

Does this mean that understanding will not be possible? It means it will not be easy. John McLaughlin, former deputy director of the CIA, has proposed a gradualist approach, a middle way that he believes could resolve the impasse: an interim agreement that would bring the deal back into force as signed in 2016 in exchange for lifting some humanitarian sanctions, and making the rest contingent on a commitment to continue talking later to extend the deadlines for those provisions of the deal that have already expired or will expire very soon... and other issues such as missiles.  The idea is not a bad one but I fear it is neither what Iran expects nor what it is willing to accept in the run-up to the June presidential elections. 

Intransigence may lead Tehran astray because while the Nuclear Deal is highly desirable and Trump was wrong to withdraw, it is not something the US needs in the same way that Iran needs the sanctions that stifle its economy to be lifted. That is why he will be wrong if he tightens the noose too much and does not take advantage of the Biden administration's initial willingness, because windows of opportunity do not last forever and if you don't catch the train when it passes you are left at the station not knowing when the next one will pass. 

It is when two people want something but neither wants to lose face that diplomats looking for imaginative formulas and attractive packaging are most needed. That it is not easy does not mean it is impossible, but it is worth the effort, especially when what is being pursued is something that will contribute to the overall security of the Middle East. 

Jorge Dezcallar Ambassador of Spain