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Is it “now or never” for the Iran nuclear deal?
It’s been hard to keep track of the latest developments surrounding the turbulent Iran nuclear talks in recent months.
Mostly, the talks – which resumed in April 2021 – have appeared to be on the verge of collapse, though there have been recent indications of a breakthrough. This week, Iran’s nuclear negotiator said that a deal with the Europeans and Americans is “closer” than ever, but we’ve watched this movie before. Is it different this time?
What’s the Iran nuclear deal again? Brokered by the Obama administration in 2015, the deal aims to give Iran some economic sanction relief – freeing up billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue – in exchange for Tehran agreeing to place temporary curbs on its nuclear enrichment program, which Washington says is being developed for nefarious reasons.
The agreement remained intact until 2018 when former President Trump ditched the deal that he called “laughable.” Iran said that it was doing its part to honor the deal’s terms, but Israeli spies revealed additional uranium enrichment at several undeclared sites in Iran, giving rise to a still ongoing probe by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
So, what are the deal’s remaining sticking points? The hurdles are high ones. The Iranians want the IAEA to close the years-long UN probe as a precondition to getting the deal back on track. But that isn’t Washington's concession to make because the IAEA is an independent body.
The Iranians also want guarantees that the US will make good on its promise of economic relief, and wants guarantees that Iran will be provided with financial compensation for any flip-flops in US policy. Moreover, in the absence of full guarantees, Iran wants to leave its centrifuge levels intact so that it can return to its current activities if the US walks away again.
Washington, for its part, wants Tehran to stop making demands that go beyond the original deal, and to sign the existing offer on the dotted line.
What’s at stake for both sides?
For Iran, the deal would be a game-changer. Lifting sanctions on its oil exports could allow the energy behemoth to reap an additional $80 million per day, according to some estimates. Access to international markets and foreign financial reserves would allow Tehran to prop up its ailing currency and better tackle chronic inflation.
What’s more, a revival of the nuclear deal could allow Tehran, long deemed an international pariah, to slowly reintegrate itself into the international community.
For the US, it’s more of a mixed bag. A return to the 2015 deal would freeze Iran’s already-advanced nuclear program and prevent Tehran from changing the global nuclear balance of power – for now.
Crucially, it would prevent Iran from launching a nuclear attack on Israel, a US ally, in the near term, and dramatically reduce the likelihood of Washington and Tehran fighting it out. In short: it buys the US more time.
But time is of the essence, says Henry Rome, Eurasia Group’s deputy director of research and Iran analyst. “The longer Iran exceeds the deal’s limits, the greater nuclear knowledge and experience it can gain — which not only presents immediate risks but also whittles away the nonproliferation benefits of a future agreement.”
For President Biden, meanwhile, the politics are complex. Reviving the nuclear deal would allow him to follow through on a key foreign policy promise. It would also enable his administration to divert attention away from Iran to areas of greater priority – like China and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Also, American voters love a “winner,” and Biden would certainly spin this as a show of American strength and resolve.
However, if Biden is perceived as caving to Iranian demands – a narrative Republicans will run wild with – that might not bode well for Democrats ahead of midterm elections this November.
Finally, there’s the oil of it all. Since Russia’s war in Ukraine sent energy prices surging, the US has been looking for additional supplies wherever it can find them. Global oil prices have already eased this week as the prospect of a draft nuclear agreement began to loom large.
“A deal would trigger the return of sizable volumes of Iranian crude to the market, which would be a bearish factor for prices,” Rome says, referring to the estimated one million barrels a day of Iranian petroleum exports that could be on the market within a few months of a nuclear deal. Still, Rome does not believe that “that concerns over oil prices will drive the Biden administration to make further concessions.”
So, what happens now? “I don’t think it’s ‘now or never,’ only because it’s been ‘now or never’ for a long time – and yet negotiations continue,” Rome says, adding that “as long as Iran continues to remain engaged, there is a low likelihood that the West would put its foot down and end the talks.”
An image of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting displayed at a House hearing on gun violence on Capitol Hill.
What We’re Watching: United States of Guns, Ukrainian strategy, Iran censured
The United States of Guns
The US House of Representatives kicked off a grueling two-day hearing on gun violence in America on Wednesday, just two weeks after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. Miah Cerrillo, 11, whose classroom was attacked, recounted how she painted herself with a classmate’s blood and played dead. Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi was killed, recalled how she ran miles barefoot looking for her daughter that fateful day. The hearing is part of the Congressional debate on how to respond to a spate of recent deadly shootings, most notably in Uvalde, as well as at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, where Black Americans were targeted by a white supremacist. Senate Democrats, in coordination with the White House, are working on narrow legislation that could get the support of at least 10 Republicans needed to pass. Proposals center on addressing mental health issues in young males and incentivizing states to introduce their own “red-flag laws” to remove guns from dangerous owners. The Democrat-controlled House, meanwhile, has advanced a bill with eight gun-control measures – including banning large-capacity magazines – but it's unlikely to pass the Senate, where Dems hold a razor-thin majority. It’s a busy week for the House, which will also launch hearings on the Jan. 6 riots on Thursday. Check out what Eurasia Group's lead US analyst, Jon Lieber, has to say about how the Dems hope to use these hearings to gain an edge in the midterms here.
What are the Ukrainians up to?
Western media coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has focused mainly on the Russian side of the fight. We see plenty of estimates of Russian casualties and reports on Russian tactics. Invaluable coverage from the Institute for the Study of War more often quotes Russian military bloggers, aka “milbloggers,” on Russia’s wins and losses than analysts who can estimate Ukraine’s strengths, losses, and changes of plan. The New York Times reports that even the Pentagon remains partially in the dark on what the Ukrainians are doing and how well they’re doing it. Why the secrecy? Ukraine’s leaders want to control the war’s narrative for multiple audiences. The news shared by President Volodymyr Zelensky and others is sometimes designed to persuade both Ukrainian and foreign audiences that Ukraine can win the war, and at other times to emphasize the need for immediate help. Ukraine’s US and European backers, who want their help to have maximum impact, also have an interest in keeping Ukraine’s secrets, and Russian sources on the war are tightly controlled by a government that doesn’t produce credible info. We must keep these realities and limitations in mind as daily updates inform our understanding of this war and where it’s headed.
📸 Iran turns off nuclear surveillance cameras 📸
Iranian authorities turned off two cameras monitoring one of its nuclear sites, obstructing the International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN body, from surveilling some of its ongoing uranium-enrichment activities. Tehran removed the cameras on Wednesday in response to a group of Western IAEA member states calling for Iran to be censured for failing to comply with the ongoing investigation into its nuclear program – a core condition to getting the now-stalled Iran nuclear deal back on track. The vote passed with 30 voting in favor, two against and three abstentions. The IAEA could now technically refer the matter to the UN Security Council which could enforce more hard-hitting measures against Iran. (That’s unlikely, however, because two permanent UNSC members, China and Russia, both voted against the resolution and would never go for it.) Indeed, the latest tit-for-tat is a sign of how much the Iran-US relationship, in particular, has deteriorated under both former President Donald Trump as well as the Biden administration. This game of brinkmanship is particularly dangerous right now because, as the IAEA chief warned this week, it could be “a matter of just a few weeks” before Iran gets sufficient material needed for a nuclear weapon if it continues nuclear enrichment at its current clip. Iran, for its part, said it might respond to the censure by taking new nuclear steps.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
The US can’t let Iran get any closer to nuclear weapons, says Iran expert Ali Vaez
Even if the US rejoins the Iran nuclear deal, many Republicans are fiercely opposed to it — and could withdraw again in 2025 if they win the White House in two years.
Why do it at all then? Ali Vaez, Iran program director at the International Crisis Group, has some thoughts.
For one thing, it'll buy us nine years before the Iranians can enrich enough uranium for a nuke. For another, now we know the real effect of pulling out: it boosted Iran's nuclear program.
What's more, if the US withdraws for a second time, Vaez says the terms of the deal will leave Tehran where it is today: "uncomfortably close to nuclear weapons."
How close? Well, he says, in a matter of four weeks the Iranians could enrich enough uranium to be 99% of the way to weapons-grade.
A single weapon is not an arsenal, but Vaez thinks that's still "too much of a risk and ... too uncomfortable for Israel and the US."
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iran nuclear deal 2.0, or war?
Iran nuclear deal now a toss-up, says International Crisis Group expert
So, is the Iran nuclear deal 2.0 finally happening, or not?
Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says he stopped making predictions months ago. Still, he puts the odds now at 50/50.
Failure is not an option for the Iranians, Vaez tells Ian Bremmer in a GZERO World interview, because they've survived crippling US economic sanctions but will never thrive under them. Also, if the crisis escalated, additional UN sanctions will snap back.
The Iran nuclear deal has also become too big to fail for the Americans, he says. Why? Iran is closer to the verge of acquiring nukes than it's been in 20 years.Vaez explains that Iran's breakout time — how long it'll take the Iranians to enrich enough uranium for a single nuclear weapon — is now less than two weeks. It was more than 12 months when former US President Donald Trump took office.
Biden, he thinks, could pay a political price for restoring the agreement in the November midterm elections — but allowing Iran to become a nuclear-armed state on his watch could hurt the president even more.
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Iran's presidential race: A choiceless choice
The field has narrowed in Iran's highly-anticipated presidential elections set for next month. The powerful Guardian Council has given a handful of candidates the go-ahead to compete for the presidency. But critics of the regime say it's barely a competition at all. What's happened so far, and what does this tell us about the state of Iran's domestic politics?
The process. Iran's electoral process is tightly controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989 and calls all the shots in Iran. (Though Iran's president is head of the executive branch, he still answers directly to the supreme leader, who has the final say on foreign and domestic policy.)
The Guardian Council — made up of 12 appointees, half of whom are clerics handpicked by Khamenei himself, while the other six are judges or lawyers tapped by the head of Iran's judiciary — ultimately decides who can run for president. Of the 592 Iranians who put their hats in the ring this cycle, the Guardian Council narrowed the list down to just seven.
Analysts say this list is the least ideologically diverse in history. Most of those on the ballot are deemed "hardliners" — a faction that asserts Islamic law over personal freedom inside Iran and opposes engagement with the West.
"Raisi vs Raisi." Since former parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani — a candidate with significant name recognition — didn't make the cut, it's all but certain that Ebraim Raisi, a conservative cleric and the country's top judge, will secure the presidency. (Since 2019, Raisi has led the judiciary that selects Guardian Council members who… select presidential candidates.)
For months, the supreme leader and relevant government institutions have been tacitly pushing Raisi's candidacy, leading observers to muse that the race can be summed up as "Raisi vs Raisi." The other candidates are no-hopers, they say, several of whom have run for the presidency in previous years and barely made an electoral dent.
There are several discernible takeaways from the Iranian leadership's brazen attempt to fix the outcome of the race.
Risk vs reward. It's clear that Khamenei wants to remove any hurdles that could stand in the way of Raisi clinching the job. Many say that's because Raisi — an uncompromising hardliner who, as Deputy Tehran prosecutor in the 1980s, signed off on the execution of thousands of political prisoners after the Iran-Iraq War — is being groomed to replace the all-powerful supreme leader.
Raisi already lost one presidential race in 2017, and losing a second time would undermine Khamenei's attempt to market him as a successor with popular appeal. With the stakes this high (after all, Khamenei is 82) that's not a risk the supreme leader seems willing to take.
But the strategy could backfire. Disillusionment with a perceived rigged election is likely to depress voter turnout. Low participation would be extremely embarrassing for Khamenei, whose regime's domestic credibility has suffered significantly in recent years amid a spiraling economic downturn imposed by crippling US sanctions. Popular boycott of the election would give hardliners full control of government but little mandate to govern.
And from the regime's perspective, the only thing worse than voter apathy is voter anger. Iranians have a tradition of mass mobilizations to express discontent with economic stagnation and lack of political representation. (After a disputed election in 2009, for example, the Green Movement took the streets in massive numbers, posing the biggest threat to the regime since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.) This sort of upheaval would be disastrous for Khamenei and his cronies — and even Raisi has called for more candidates to be allowed to run, saying he hoped this year's race would be more "competitive and participatory."
Nuclear deal in limbo. Less clear, however, is how this all might affect the recently-resumed talks in Vienna with six world powers. It surely doesn't make them any easier. The Biden administration, for its part, says that it will only lift economic sanctions if Iran stops enriching uranium in compliance with the accord, but hardliners say that after former president Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, Washington can't be trusted. Indeed, reviving the deal will be harder if Iran's current President Hassan Rouhani is replaced with an ideologically intransigent hardliner who campaigns actively against compromise.
What can we expect now? A Raisi triumph. But as Ahmad Zeidabadi, an Iranian journalist and former political prisoner told the Financial Times:"A victory of Raisi after the elimination of his rivals would be nothing but winning a running race with turtles."
Getting to ‘yes’ on a new Iran deal
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hieverybody.IanBremmerhere.WelcometoyourweekandI'vegotyour QuickTakeandthoughtIwouldtalkalittlebitaboutwherewearewithIran.OneoftheBidenadministration'spromisesuponelectionwastogettheAmericansbackintotheJCPOA,theIraniannucleardeal.Asoflastweek,negotiationsareformallyrestarted,andprettyquickly,inVienna,they'renotdirect.TheAmericansandIraniansareboththere,butthey'rebeingintermediatedbytheEuropeansbecausethey'renotyetreadytoshowthattheycantalkdirectlytoeachother.That'sIranbeingcautiousintherun-uptotheirpresidentialelectioncomingthissummer.Butthemovementisthere.SofarthetalkhaslargelybeenaboutsequencingtheIraniangovernment,sayingthatall ofthesanctionsneedtoberemovedbeforethey'rewillingtogobackintothedeal,becausetheAmericansafterall,unilaterallywithdrewfromadealthattheIranianswereindeedadheringto,andtheinspectionsdidconfirmthat.
The Americans are saying, we don't care. We're much larger than you are. You have now taken steps Iran, to enrich uranium beyond the levels that they had committed to in the deal. They've stockpiled that enriched uranium, they've kicked inspectors out, so they have to show that they are actually back in the confines of the deal. And once they do that, which will take a few months, then you can in lock step bring the American sanctions off. And the Iranians are not prepared to say that they'll accept that, they will get there. And so, if this were just about the United States and Iran finding a way to get back to yes, especially because the people that are actually in the room, the negotiators working level from Iran and the United States include many of the same people that actually put together this deal to begin with, back in 2015, 2016, under the Obama administration. That makes it a lot easier.
Everybody wants to get to yes. But not everybody outside the room wants to get to yes. And we've seen, in quite spectacular fashion over the last several days, a major cyberattack. Looks like it destroyed the independent power source for Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz. One of the most important assessments are that this is taking their nuclear capabilities to develop enrich uranium off some nine months potentially, which makes it a lot harder for the Iranians to push the Americans and say, here's what we're going to do with our program if you don't come back to the deals. So, it undermines their leverage. But it also makes the hardliners in Iran say, why do we want to do this deal at all? Because we've got a big fight with the West. Here we are trying to be somewhat more accountable and they're going to hit us no matter what. The attack from Israeli sources, Iranian sources and American sources, the attack came from Israel.
Why would Israel engage in strikes to undermine the effort by its principal ally, the United States, to get back into the deal? Well, to answer that question we need to go back to 2013, 2015, and ask why then prime minister Bibi Netanyahu, in charge, just as he is right now, sort of, get to that in a second, was willing to do everything he could to individually lobby lawmakers in the United States, and even make a trip to have a speech in front of Congress, to undermine the coming nuclear deal. While Obama, the president of the United States was doing everything possible to get that deal done. So, the fact that the United States and Israel are allies does not mean that they see eye to eye on this. The fact that America is vastly more powerful than Israel and is an enormous supporter of Israel intelligence and defense, does not mean that the Israelis will align with the United States on an issue that is seen to be vastly more important to their own national security, that of a potential Iranian nuclear program, and the enrichment of the Iranian government.
And so, back in 2013, 15, Netanyahu was doing everything possible to see if they could screw up the deal on the American side. They know they can't do that now, because the Biden administration and Congress is completely supportive on the democratic side of getting this deal done. So, what they're trying to do is see if they can undermine the Iranian position. Get the Iranians so angry that they escalate and blow up the prospects of getting this deal done. We've seen some of that with some Israeli strikes against Iranian militias in Syria. We've seen some of that with Israel engaged in what looks to be mining of Iranian ships most recently in The Red Sea. And now, certainly not a coincidence, this massive cyberattack against an Iranian nuclear facility. Clearly the Biden administration is going to be very upset about this. I am sure there is no love lost between Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and their counterparts in Israel right now.
But having said that, it's not going to kill the deal. The Iranian government isn't going to take the bait. If they engage in strikes, they will take their time and they will be targeted against Israeli targets, they will not hit the United States. It was very interesting that the foreign minister of Iran, Javad Zarif, was focused on the Little Satan, as they referred to Israel, as opposed to Great Satan, the United States. They're differentiating Satan's which is certainly an important message from Iran. So, I think this is significant. I think it's worth watching. But I also think that by the end of the year, there will be an agreement for the Americans and Iranians to get back into the deal. Keep in mind that the window for the number of years this deal applies is pretty narrow now. I mean, before the Iranians would be able to restart their production, and again the sanctions would snap back, I suspect at the very least, they're going to want to extend the number of years for which the deal applies by five, for example, that seems smart.
They won't be able to get further agreements on things like ballistic missiles and Iran's support for organizations across the region that the US considers to be terrorists. What that also means is that the United States is not going to remove all of the sanctions against Iran. This deal is important in so far as it allows Iran to produce an export, another million barrels of oil a day, that brings the price down. It's important in so far as it prevents verifiably, the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons capabilities, at least for as long as the deal is in place.
But beyond that, it does very little. It doesn't stop them from developing ballistic missiles. Doesn't stop them from engaging in attacks against the United States and its allies in the region. It doesn't end American sanctions against Iran. It doesn't open the Iranian economy for business with American financial organizations or those of other countries that want to do business with those American firms. So, that's where we are right now. It's fascinating geopolitical stuff. We are still very much on track for a deal that does matter, but not everybody is happy about it, and it's going to be pretty controversial. So, that's a little bit from me. Hope everyone is safe and avoid fewer people. We are getting there. Talk to you soon.
Is the US misjudging the Middle East’s power shifts? Vali Nasr's view
"Pivot to Asia." It was the catchphrase floating around Washington DC's foreign policy circles in 2009 when President Obama first took office. And yet twelve years later, the Middle East continues to consume the attention of the United States' military and diplomatic efforts. Now President Biden is determined to change that, and to turn Washington's attention to Asia once and for all as he moves to confront a growing China. But according to Johns Hopkins University Middle East scholar Vali Nasr, President Biden's approach to the Middle East will have to adapt to the once-in-a-generation power grab occurring between Iran, Israel, and Turkey while Arab nations in the region increasingly lose influence.
Podcast: Is the US misjudging the Middle East’s power shifts? Vali Nasr's view
Listen: "Pivot to Asia." It was the catchphrase floating around Washington DC's foreign policy circles in 2009 when President Obama first took office. And yet twelve years later, the Middle East continues to consume the attention of the United States' military and diplomatic efforts. Now President Biden is determined to change that, and to turn Washington's attention to Asia once and for all as he moves to confront a growing China. But according to Johns Hopkins University Middle East Scholar Vali Nasr, President Biden's approach to the Middle East will have to adapt to the once-in-a-generation power grab occurring between Iran, Israel, and Turkey while Arab nations in the region increasingly lose influence.
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