Biden kicks the Iran can down the diplomatic road
Published Tue, Jun 27, 2023
As officials in the Biden administration see it, reviving the JCPOA is a “mission impossible”, politically speaking.
FOR some months now, the expectations in Washington and other world capitals have been that the earlier diplomatic efforts to reach a deal between the United States and Iran aimed at curbing the Islamic republic’s growing nuclear programme would reach a dead end.
The US, under former President Donald Trump, unilaterally pulled out of the accord Tehran signed with world powers in 2018; the accord imposed stringent limits on Iran’s nuclear programmes and included Tehran’s agreement for strict international inspection of its nuclear sites in exchange for the removal of economic sanctions on it.
President Joe Biden took office pledging to revive the pact, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But there have been no formal negotiations on the nuclear deal since last November, when Iran walked away from a proposed deal and US administration officials expressed to reporters pessimism about the chances of reaching a new agreement.
Moreover, since a government crackdown on protests in Tehran as well as reports that Iran was supporting Russia in its war with Ukraine, contacts between the US and Iran have declined.
But all of that seemed to have changed following a discovery by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in January that the uranium in the dust taken from Iran’s nuclear plant in Fordow had been enriched to a purity of 83.7 per cent. That suggested that the Iranians were closer than ever to having the capability to develop nuclear weapons.
Indeed, as General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional hearing in March, Iran “could produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon in approximately 10-15 days and it would only take several months to produce an actual nuclear weapon”.
The main concern in Washington has been that the notion that Iran was on the threshold of becoming a nuclear state would lead Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.
That in turn could ignite a regional war into which the US would eventually be drawn. If that happened, it would be a nightmare scenario considering the US role in the war in Ukraine and the growing military tensions with China over Taiwan. A new war in the Middle East is the last thing the Biden administration needs now.
The growing anxiety over Iran’s nuclear programme has led officials in Washington and from the so-called E3 governments – France, Germany and Britain – to resume discussions on trying to restart negotiations with Tehran.
That resulted in the opening of talks between American and Iranian officials in New York and later in Oman in May aimed at cooling the tensions between the two countries and to reach an understanding on several issues. Those included a potential prisoner exchange and possibly an interim deal under which the US would agree to ease some sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran committing to place some restrictions on its nuclear activities, the emphasis in both cases being on “some”.
As officials in the Biden administration see it, reviving the JCPOA is a “mission impossible”, politically speaking. Any formal US agreement with Iran could force a review by Congress, where Republicans and many Democrats strongly oppose a deal with Iran.
A congressional review could also raise the issue of the US relationship with Iran to the top of the political agenda, and by extension, turn it into an issue in the coming presidential campaign; not to mention the potential for diplomatic tensions with Israel and Saudi Arabia who are opposed to reviving the JCPOA.
Taking all of that into consideration, what the Biden administration is hoping to achieve is a temporary solution in the form of a package deal with Iran under which Iran would agree to limited but reversible steps to curtail its nuclear programme, including a pause in the accumulation of enriched uranium and an agreement not to produce weapons-grade fissile material.
In exchange, while the US is not expected to release all the billions of dollars in Iranian energy revenue, there have been reports that Washington would also provide Iran with access to US$7 billion in Iranian funds held in South Korea. Washington has already agreed to the release of close to US$3 billion held in Iraq for deliveries of Iranian oil and gas.
Such a package deal under which both sides would get less than they would have expected under a revived JCOPA would basically amount to a temporary freeze of Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for some economic relief for Iran.
And the release of the American prisoners held by Iran as part of this less-for-less package would also help the Biden administration to market it as a humanitarian step to the American Congress and public.
But the agreement would probably still ignite criticism by opponents of the JCOPA in Washington as well as by the Israelis and the Saudis who would argue that it would provide Iran with access to new funds. That could help it support its efforts to destabilise the Middle East through its proxies in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.
Yet with much of the focus of the Biden administration trained on Ukraine and China, and against the backdrop of preparations for the 2024 presidential election, officials in Washington are first and foremost interested in kicking a potentially explosive diplomatic can down the road and ensuring that the US relationship with Iran won’t dominate the news headlines.
Whether other important players – in particular the Republican opposition or, for that matter, Israel and Saudi Arabia – would allow them to do that is another question.