The parties can revive the JCPOA

Ali Vaez

While Iranian officials publicly maintained that the outcome of the U.S. elections was immaterial as far as they were concerned, the two candidates clearly offered diagonally opposed prospects for the JCPOA and the future of Washington’s Iran policy: if Trump were to win a second term, the U.S. would persist in its “maximum pressure” strategy; if Biden were to prevail, the U.S. would shift toward some measure of diplomatic re-engagement. In either case, the implications for the nuclear deal’s fate would be profound, portending either the greater likelihood of its final collapse or its possible reinvigoration.
Biden’s pre-election views on the Trump administration’s Iran policy were decidedly unfavorable. He attributed the increase in Iranian nuclear activity and the rise in regional tensions to the U.S. decision to quit the JCPOA. He was also displeased by Washington’s diplomatic isolation at the UN. Instead, Biden suggested “a credible path back to diplomacy” in the form of the U.S.’s re-entry into the deal in exchange for Iran’s resumption of its JCPOA obligations.
Trump administration officials, on the other hand, maintained that “maximum pressure” was succeeding, citing the financial toll sanctions had inflicted and dismissing the notion of reversing such policies as “tragic and foolish”.  U.S. and Israeli officials also cited the normalization agreements struck between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as evidence of diplomatic dividends from maintaining a hard line against Tehran.  To stress their resolve, Trump administration officials stuck with their “maximum pressure” talk even after Biden emerged as winner of the election.
Yet no negotiations have come about, and no one could compellingly argue that the Trump administration achieved any of the demands it laid out as goals upon exiting the JCPOA.  As detailed above, Iranian breaches of the JCPOA have resulted in expansion of nuclear activities, not curtailment. Tehran has continued to develop its missile program.  The wider Middle East picture remains fraught, with little indication of the Iranian retrenchment that the Trump administration predicted.  Although the economic impact of “maximum pressure” showed the strength of unilateral U.S. capabilities, nearly unanimous international opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts to upend the nuclear deal and revive pre-JCPOA multilateral sanctions showed the limits of U.S. might.
Iran and the U.S. have a strategic imperative to restore the JCPOA as a fully functional agreement that could serve as a foundation for discussing issues outside the nuclear file. The U.S. should swiftly re-enter the agreement and lift Trump-era sanctions on Iran, and Iran should reciprocate by returning to full compliance with its nuclear obligations. The two sides should move in tandem, quickly and in a coordinated and carefully plotted series of steps, consistent with the JCPOA’s original terms. Subjecting diplomacy to leverage-focused one-upmanship and additional demands by either side would cause discord as predictable as it is avoidable. The parties can revive the JCPOA by:
- The Biden administration committing to a reversal of Trump’s 2018 decision to exit the JCPOA, accompanied by approval for Iran receiving a $5 billion International Monetary Fund loan to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic and action ensuring that humanitarian exemptions to U.S. sanctions are honoured.
- Iran developing a timetable, in consultation with the JCPOA’s Joint Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to completely reverse its breaches of the nuclear deal within two to three months. Tehran will need to dismantle excess centrifuges and blend down or ship out the enriched uranium stockpiles that go beyond what the deal allows.
- The U.S. preparing to rescind Trump-era sanctions pending IAEA confirmation that Iran’s nuclear activity is fully compliant with its JCPOA obligations. The parties could stagger these steps in parallel.
- All parties laying the groundwork for follow-up negotiations that identify opportunities for cooperative, rather than adversarial engagement on issues of mutual concern. A regional dialogue, supported by the U.S., UN and a core group of European states, could focus first on the conflict in Yemen, where all sides have an interest in ending a costly war and a humanitarian disaster.

Iran and the U.S. have a strategic imperative to restore the JCPOA as a fully functional agreement that could serve as a foundation for discussing issues outside the nuclear file