Biden Contemplates New Iran Deal

A Return to Iran Deal?
Regional Opposition to Biden Approach
Iranian Demands
A Sign of Weakness?
No Surprises
First Steps
Will Congress Have A Say?
Ignoring the Critics?
Reversing Sanctions
Iran’s New President
Responding to Iranian-Backed Militias
More Violations
Commitment to Bennett
A Limited Deal
Sanctions Relief Without Concessions

A Return to Iran Deal?

During Joe Biden’s campaign, and then when he was elected president, the greatest concern of Israel and many its supporters was Biden’s desire to return to the nuclear deal with Iran. Biden will be pressured by the other signatories to rejoin the agreement, however, he laid out stringent requirements Iran must meet. Moreover, he has made clear he is not interested in the same deal; he wants a stronger one.

Specifically, he wants to return to negotiations “to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal’s provisions” while making “an unshakable commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” He will rejoin the agreement “if Iran returns to strict compliance” and will “push back against Iran’s destabilizing activities.” He said his administration will impose “targeted sanctions against Iranian support for terrorism and Iran’s ballistic missile program” and promised “ironclad support for Israel.”

In an interview with Tom Friedman, Biden said, “the best way to achieve getting some stability in the region” is to deal “with the nuclear program.” He added, “in consultation with our allies and partners, we’re going to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints, as well as address the missile program.” He also said the U.S. could snap back sanctions if necessary, but that was President Barack Obama’s promise as well and the other signatories refused to implement them after Iran violated the agreement.

Regional Opposition to Biden Approach

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left no doubt about his government’s position. “There must be no return to the previous nuclear agreement. We must stick to an uncompromising policy to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. In the past, however, before President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, he had said he favored negotiation of a better deal.

The Gulf states that objected to the deal are also vehemently against the United States reversing Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign and rejoining the agreement. Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud, the former head of Saudi Intelligence and chairman of the Saudi King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, said, “Mr. President-elect, do not repeat the mistakes and shortcomings of the first deal. Any non-comprehensive deal will not achieve lasting peace and security in our region.” He added, “Iranian disruptive regional behavior in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, by attacking, directly and indirectly, the oil installations, is as much of a threat as is its nuclear program.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan has said the Gulf states expect to be consulted before any new agreement is negotiated. “I think we’ve seen as a result of the after-effects of the JCPOA that not involving the regional countries results in a buildup of mistrust and neglect of the issues of real concern and of real effect on regional security.”

The U.K., France, and Germany are anxious for the U.S. to rejoin the deal so they can pursue commercial interests in Iran. They, too, however, realize there is no going back to the original agreement and that a new one must be negotiated that addresses Iran’s missile development, sponsorship of terror, and malign activities in the region. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, for example, said:

He added, “The decisive factor will be whether the U.S. relaxes the economic sanctions against Iran.”

Iranian Demands

The Iranians, meanwhile, have said they will not change their policy and are demanding the United States pay them as much as $200 billion to compensate for the economic losses caused by sanctions. “We once tried the path of having the sanctions lifted and negotiated several years, but this got us nowhere,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. “They interfere in regional affairs; they tell us not to intervene. And while Britain and France have nuclear missiles, they tell us not to have missiles. What does it have to do with you? You should first correct yourselves.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has said he is not opposed to renewed talks, but will not “renegotiate what we already negotiated.”

Analysts believe it will be difficult to renegotiate the agreement for several other reasons. Iran, for example, is likely to demand the end of sanctions related to human rights violations, ballistic missile development, and support for terrorism in addition to lifting those related to the nuclear program. At a minimum, Iran expects to be allowed to sell its oil. Meanwhile, the elements the U.S. wants included in a new deal, such as Iran’s missile program, are red lines for the Iranians.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made clear he would not agree to any expansion of the JCPOA to cover the malign activities left out of the agreement. “The missiles program and regional issues have nothing to do with the nuclear issue,” Rouhani said.

Some Iranians don’t trust the U.S. now to stick to any new agreement. Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, also has a strong disincentive not to offer any compromises because he is running for reelection in June 2021 and hardliners would expect him to deliver serious U.S. concessions to win their support.

According to Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, there have been too many breaches to return to the original agreement. “I cannot imagine that they are going simply to say, ‘We are back to square one’ because square one is no longer there,” he said.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken said on February 16, 2021, “If Iran returns to compliance and we do the same, we need to work on an agreement that's longer and stronger than the original one. And we also need to engage other issues that were not part of the original negotiation that are deeply problematic for us and for other countries around the world: Iran's ballistic missile program, its destabilizing actions in country after country. All of that needs to be engaged.” He added, “The first step would be Iran returning to compliance. And President Biden has been clear that if they do, we would do the same. The path to diplomacy is open right now. Iran is still a ways away from being in compliance. So we'll have to see what it does.”

Blinken claimed the JCPOA “was very effective in cutting off all of the pathways that Iran then had to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon. And we know that that agreement was working.”

The evidence suggests otherwise, and it is difficult to see how he can say Iran’s pathways to a bomb were cutoff and in the same breadth declare they are closer now to a bomb. First, they were not supposed to be able violate the deal with impunity as they have. Snapback sanctions were supposed to be applied but the Europeans rejected them. Second, because the JCPOA allowed them to keep their centrifuges rather than destroy them, they have been able to enrich uranium to a higher level of purity. Third, the deal’s sunset clauses allow Iran to pursue a bomb unhindered, with Obama admitting the breakout time would be reduced to almost zero within 15 years of having signed it.

Meanwhile, Khamenei set his own conditions for returning to compliance on February 7, 2021: “If they want Iran to return to its JCPOA commitments, America should lift the sanctions entirely, in practice not in words. Then we verify it and see if sanctions are properly lifted before we return to the JCPOA’s commitments...This is the Islamic Republic’s irrevocable and definitive policy, and a matter of consensus between the country’s officials.”

A Sign of Weakness?

After threatening to prevent any inspections, Iran softened its position in what was viewed as a response to President Biden’s announcement of plans to resume diplomatic negotiations. Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, said his inspectors would have “less access,” but that they could still monitor key production sites where Iran has declared that it is making nuclear material. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said, however, inspectors could not demand access to sites where they suspect nuclear activity may have taken place and would be blocked from obtaining footage from security cameras that keep some of the sites under surveillance.

Even as Iran continue to violate the JCPOA, the Biden administration made its first concessions – announcing the intention to resume talks and rescinding the Trump administration’s imposition of snapback sanctions. The State Department also eased travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats coming to the United Nations.

In what some in the region were interpreting initally as a sign of weakness, Secretary of State Blinken said the U.S. was “outraged,” but failed to respond to a rocket attack on a U.S. base in Iraq that killed a contractor and wounded nine others, including a member of the military that was likely launched by an Iranian-supported militia.

Michael Knights told the Washington Post Biden’s team does not want to acknowledge the Iranian role in the attack because it would complicate their interest in negotiations. “It’s about keeping the conditions there for a nuclear deal,” said Knights. “You don’t negotiate with people who are nudge, nudge, wink, wink, trying to kill you at the same time.”

Biden subsequently ordered a military strike on targets in Syria near the Iraqi border used by an Iranian-backed militia. The president said, he was sending a message to Iran, “You can’t act with impunity – be careful.”

A few days later, Iran rejected an offer to begin negotiations with the United States.

No Concessions

In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 10, 2021,, Blinken said the administration was not going to make any concessions to Iran to rejoin the nuclear deal. The administration insists that Iran return to full compliance with the agreement and hopes to use that as a “platform” for negotiating a “longer and stronger” deal.

“We have fundamental problems with Iran’s actions across a whole series of things, whether it is support for terrorism, whether it is a ballistic missile program,” said Blinken. “An Iran with a nuclear weapon or with the threshold capacity to have one is an Iran that is likely to act with even greater impunity when it comes to those things.”

Blinken assured the committee the administration will consult on its Iran policy. “Congress is the first stop,” he said, “but also allies, partners, including allies and partners in the region, who have their own concerns and own interests at stake.” Blinken said the U.S. has already had discussion with China, Russia and the European signatories to the Iran deal.

Meanwhile, 140 members of the House, split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, sent a letter to Blinken insisting that any agreements with Iranaddress the full range of threats that Iran poses to the region.

No Surprises

State Department Iran envoy Rob Malley told Axios that the U.S. and Israel want to avoid a repetition of the public confrontation over Iran that took place during the Obama administration. “We don’t always agree, but the talks are extremely open and positive. While we may have different interpretations and views as to what happened in 2015–2016, neither of us wishes to repeat it," Malley said.

Toward that end, the Biden administration plans to consult with Israel and officials agreed to a “no surprises policy.”  

Biden met without going Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on June 28, 2021. According to the White House, “The President emphasized that under his administration, Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. He also assured President Rivlin that the United States remains determined to counter Iran’s malign activity and support for terrorist proxies, which have destabilizing consequences for the region.”

First Steps

Critics of the nuclear agreement have feared the Biden administration would capitulate to Iranian demands to ease sanctions and agree to return to the JCPOA without either Iranian concessions or any commitment to renegotiate a stronger agreement. The first indication the administration may be heading in that direction occurred during a meeting of the P5+1 China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany.) minus the United States in early April. They agreed to convene a meeting in Vienna on April 6, 2021, to discuss how to bring both the United States and Iran back into compliance.

A U.S. official said that intermediaries would seek an agreement on how to synchronize steps to return to their commitments, including the lifting of economic sanctions. Meanwhile, Iranian negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, said no negotiation are required; the U.S. must unilaterally return to the deal and end all sanctions.

During the Vienna talks, the United States and Iran agreed through intermediaries to establish a working group to discuss the lifting of sanctions imposed by President Trump. A second working group will focus on how to get Iran back into compliance with the JCPOA.

Prime Minister Netanyahu reacted to the news by noting that “history has taught us that agreements like this with extremist regimes are worth as much as garlic peel.” He also warned the negotiators that Israel would not be bound by “an agreement with Iran which paves its way to nuclear weapons that threaten us with destruction.”

He added, “Today we have a state, we have the power to defend ourselves and we have the natural and full right as the sovereign state of the Jewish people to protect ourselves from our enemies.”

David Pollock of the Washington Institute observed that the good news is that “unlike the Obama administration that most of them were previously part of,” Biden’s team “seems focused almost as much on Iran’s non-nuclear activities as on its nuclear ones.” He said, the bad new is “their actual policy toward those non-nuclear challenges are mostly carrots with few sticks. “The result, no doubt unwittingly, is that the U.S. is emboldening and empowering Iran on the Mideast regional level, rather than containing it.”

Former Lt.-Gen. H.R. McMaster told the Jerusalem Post Iran is focused on its election scheduled for June 2021 and the post-Khamenei period and would not make any new agreements at least until a president is elected. He also said the Biden administration could stop the Chinese, or at least inhibit their economic relations with Iran by imposing “secondary sanctions on Chinese banks.”

Though originally opposed to Trump’s decision to leave the deal, he now believes it is a mistake to return to the agreement. He said, adding a few years to the restrictions due to expire in 2025 and 2030 would not be sufficient. In his book Battlegrounds, he had also noted the JCPOA’s verification regime was a farce because “before the ink was dry, Iran was announcing which inspections it would not allow.”

He warned the U.S. should not “underestimate the ideology of the revolution, of Iran’s forward defense strategy and desire to restore Iran as an empire.”

Meanwhile, following the sabotage of Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility, which has been widely attributed to Israel, Iran announced it would enrich uranium to 60%. Blinken said the move was “provocative” and “calls into question Iran’s seriousness with regard [to] the nuclear talks” in Vienna. America’s European partners also criticized Iran for its “regrettable” decision and said it had no “credible” civilian use, referring to Iran’s frequent claim its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.

In an effort to counter concerns the administration is contemplating easing sanctions before Iran returns to compliance with the JCPOA, Brett McGurk, the National Security Council’s coordinator for the Middle East, told Jewish American leaders on April 23, 2021, “Until we get somewhere and until we have a firm commitment, and it’s very clear that Iran’s nuclear program is going to be capped, the problematic aspects reversed and back in a box, we are not going to take any of the pressure off.” He said the administration is “not going to pay anything upfront just to get a process going. We have to see from the Iranians a fundamental commitment and agreement to put their nuclear program back in a box that we can fully inspect and observe.”

McGurk added: “We have worked with the Israelis every day in the security realm, in terms of their freedom of action - protecting themselves - as something fundamental to us.... There is no disagreement on where we want to go - Iran can never get a nuclear weapon, period. There’s some disagreement about the kind of tactics you might use to get there. But we agree on a lot more than we disagree.”

Officials from both countries have had several discussions regarding Iran. During a visit in April 2021, Mossad director Yossi Cohen met with the president and was reportedly told the United States was far from reaching an agreement with Iran to return to the JCPOA.

Negotiations in Vienna reportedly stalled over, among other issues, the Iranian insistance that the U.S. eliminate all sanctions and disagreement over what will happen to the newer, more sophisticated centrifuges Iran has installed to enrich uranium. The failure to require that Iran destroy all centrifuges and not install new ones was a major problem with the JCPOA and allowed Iran to continue to enrich uranium and now increase the level of purity closer to weapons-grade.

Will Congress Have A Say?

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 (INARA) gave Congress the right to review any nuclear agreement. Because the deal was reviewed, the administration will argue Congress does not have a say if Biden rejoins the existing deal. If, however, a new deal is negotiated, INARA would be triggered. A simple majority in both houses can block the agreement, but 2/3 majority in each house is required to override a presidential veto (opponents did not have enough votes in 2015). 

Some Republicans are seeking to pass legislation that would require the president to submit any Iran nuclear agreement — including rejoining the 2015 deal — for Senate consideration as a treaty rather than as an executive agreement as occurred under Obama. Because the JCPOA was not a treaty, President Trump could revoke the executive order without any congressional approval. The law is unsettled as to whether a president can unilaterally terminate a treaty.

If a new agreement was a treaty, it would require the approval of two-thirds of the Senate, which also has the power to attach conditions or reservations to the treaty. Given the present 50-50 partisan split, it would likely require the president to negotiate a far stronger agreement than the JCPOA to be ratified.

Several other pieces of legislation related to Iran have been introduced, but have minimal support and are not likely to come to a vote.

Ignoring the Critics?

In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on June 7, 2021, Blinken said, “We’re not even at the stage of returning to ‘compliance for compliance,’” adding, “It remains unclear if Iran is willing and prepared to do what it needs to do to come back into compliance” with the JCPOA.

Signaling the administration is not interested in expanding the nuclear agreement to include issues left out of the JCPOA, Blinken said, the priority was Iran’s nuclear program because “each and every one [of Iran’s malign activities] would be even worse if Iran had a nuclear weapon or was on the threshold of being able to have one.”

He seemed to indicate those issues, and lengthening the terms of the agreement, would only be discussed after a return to the deal, which would serve “as a platform both to look at whether the agreement itself can be lengthened and, if necessary, strengthened and also to capture these other issues.”

Meanwhile, nuclear weapons expert David Albright published a book in 2021 that revealed new details about Iran’s pursuit of a bomb that were discovered in the archive stolen by Israel. In Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons, Albright said the archive revealed critical facts that were previously unknown. These include that Iran knew much more about making nuclear weapons and could make them quicker, that Iran had almost two dozen sites related to its nuclear weapons program and that the IAEA had visited only three, that Iran had designed its own weapon, that Iran can or is close to having the capability to arm a medium-range missile with a nuclear warhead, and that it continued its program after the signing the JCPOA.

Reversing Sanctions

In what was viewed as an effort to encourage Iranian cooperation in nuclear talks in Vienna, the U.S. Treasury Department repealed sanctions on former senior National Iranian Oil Co. officials and several companies involved in shipping and trading petrochemical products on June 10, 2021. The administration denied there was any connection to the negotiations. “These actions demonstrate our commitment to lifting sanctions in the event of a change in status or behavior by sanctioned persons,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement accompanying the notice of the action.

Nevertheless, opponents of the nuclear deal were critical. “Lifting sanctions during negotiations shows weakness to Iran and tells Tehran to continue its nefarious activities, including nuclear extortion and sending conventional arms to U.S. adversaries,” said Anthony Ruggiero, a former top national security adviser to President Trump. Likewise, Senator Ted Cruz criticized the move to dismantle sanctions “before even the pretense of a deal.”

Iranian sources claimed Biden negotiators had agreed to lift all sanctions imposed by President Trump, including those related to insrurance, oil, and shipping. Officials in the administration did not directly deny the claim; instead, they said only that negotiations were continuing. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said there was still “a fair distance to travel” in the talks, including the lifting of sanctions.

Still, in early June 2021, the administration unfroze Iranian money in a Korean bank that had been frozen by U.S. sanctions to allow Iran to pay $16.2 million in delinquent dues owed to the United Nations, which had suspended its voting rights at the world body.

Meanwhile, on June 22, 2021, the Justice Department seized 33 of Iran’s state-linked news website domains which it said were “disguised as news organizations or media outlets, targeted the United States with disinformation campaigns and malign influence operations.”

Iran’s New President

In June 2021, Iran elected a new president with close ties to Khamenei. Ebrahim Raisi wasted no time rejecting the administration position that a future agreement should cover Iran’s regional malign activities or ballistic missile development. In his first news conference, Raisi said “regional issues and missiles are not negotiable.” He expressed an interest in restoring the JCPOA, but only after all sanctions were removed. “We believe that the oppressive sanctions must be lifted and no effort should be spared,” he said.

Prior to his election, Raisi was the head of the judiciary. Early in his legal career he was a member of one of the “death commissions” accused of killing as many as 5,000 prisoners in 1988 on orders from Ayatollah Khomeini. Witnesses told The Times of London that “as a young prosecutor during the 1980s, Raisi presided over beatings, stonings and rape, as well as ordering the mass executions of prisoners by hanging or throwing them off cliffs.”

The United States imposed sanctions on Raisi in 2019 over his human rights record, which included “administrative oversight over the executions of individuals who were juveniles at the time of their crime and the torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners in Iran, including amputations.”

The sanctions could complicate U.S. relations with Iran as they prohibit any dealings with him.

Iran indicated it would not be making any decisions before Raisi is sworn in on August 5. Even then, the ultimate decision of whether or not to reenter the JCPOA and under what conditions will be made by Ayatollah Khameini.

Meanwhile, Iran continued to engage in activities that angered the United States and its allies:

• Several attacks on U.S. bases were launched by Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
• The IAEA reported additional violations of the JCPOA.
• Iranian intelligence officials were indicted on kidnapping conspiracy charges for allegedly plotting to kidnap Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist from New York City, for rendition to Iran because of her efforts to mobilize public opinion in Iran and around the world to bring about changes to the regime’s laws and practices.

Responding to Iranian-Backed Militias

In April 2021, the State Department announced that U.S. and coalition forces “has now transitioned to one focused on training and advisory tasks, thereby allowing for the redeployment of any remaining combat forces from Iraq.” The United States at that time had only 2,500 troops in the country. The withdrawal of U.S. forces by President Obama reduced Iranian fears of an American attack and allowed Iran to strengthen its position in Iraq. Critics expressed concern a force reduction by Biden would have a similar impact.

Biden showed that he was still prepared to take military action after Iranian-backed militias used drones to attack Iraqi bases used by the CIA and U.S. Special Operations Units. On June 28, 2021, the United States launched airstrikes on two targets in eastern Syria and a third just across the border in Iraq. “This action should send a message to Iran that it cannot hide behind its proxy forces to attack the United States and our Iraqi partners,” said one former CIA and Pentagon official.

More Violations

In July 2021, the IAEA said Iran had begun the process of producing enriched uranium metal to help it develop a weapon. Britain, France and Germany expressed “grave concern” about Iran’s actions.

“Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon,” they said in a joint statement.

Similarly, the United States found it “worrying” that Iran was continuing to violate the agreement. “It’s another unfortunate step backwards for Iran,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

In August 2021, the IAEA reported Iran has made progress in its work on enriched uranium metal despite Western warnings that such work threatens talks on reviving the Iran nuclear deal. More ominous was the finding that Iran has increased the purity to which it is refining uranium from 20% in April to 60%. Weapons-grade is around 90% purity.

In September 2021, the IAEA said Iran still was not cooperating with the agency. Iranian officials would not explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites or provide access to monitoring equipment. “Without such monitoring and so-called continuity of knowledge,” Reuters noted, “Iran could produce and hide unknown quantities of this equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons or reactor fuel.”

Blinken said time was running out for Iran to return to the nuclear accord. “I’m not going to put a date on it, but we are getting closer to the point at which a strict return to compliance with the JCPOA does not reproduce the benefits that that agreement achieved.”

In September 2021, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi went to Iran to seek compliance with the JCPOA. The only agreement, however, was to allow the agency to replace memory cards in its surveillance cameras. According to a report by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), “Even with a new commitment by Iran to permit the IAEA to service its equipment, the verification process may now face serious gaps, possibly irreversibly breaking the IAEA’s continuity of knowledge of Iran’s nuclear activities, which is so vital to verification.”

More concerning was the finding by ISIS that Iran has enough enriched uranium to produce weapons-grade uranium for at least two nuclear weapons and that the breakout time for producing enough for one bomb is as short as one month. 

Commitment to Bennett

President Biden met Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in August 2021 and said the United States would not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. Biden made clear his preference for negotiating a return to the JCPOA with Iran but said if diplomacy failed he was “ready to turn to other options.” 

Bennett reportedly suggested a strategy of “death by a thousand cuts” which would involve conducting a variety of small operations against Iran that would obviate the need for a largescale military attack and ensure that Iran would require no less than a year to acquire nuclear breakout capability. “The immediate follow-up was to form a joint team based on the joint objectives of rolling Iran back into their box and preventing Iran from ever being able to break out a nuclear weapon,” Bennett said later in a call with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “We set up a joint team with our national security advisor and America’s, and we’re working very hard, and the cooperation is great.”

Israeli Defense Secretary Benny Gantz later told Foreign Policy, “The current U.S. approach of putting the Iran nuclear program back in a box, I’d accept that.” He said he hoped to see a “viable” plan B, which would require the United States to convince Europe, Russia, and China to apply political, diplomatic, and economic pressure on Iran  if negotiations fail. As a last resort, Israel had a “plan C,” which he intimated would be a military option.

Meanwhile, under its new hardline president, Iran has made clear it has no intention of returning to the JCPOA without the removal of sanctions. New Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also declared that Tehran will not sign the “longer and stronger” deal Biden has said he wants.

Amir-Abdollahian also said that when the United States tried to restart negotiations in September 2021, he insisted that Washington first release $10 billion of Tehran’s frozen funds as a sign of good will. The Biden administration rejected the demand. Meanwhile, analysts suggest that Iran is stalling to gain leverage to extract more concessions in talks by accelerating its weapons program.

A Limited Deal

Prior to resuming negotiations over a return to the JCPOA, Iran’s top negotiator, Ali Baqeri-Kani, said on Nov. 11, 2021, that the upcoming talks will not be about the nuclear issue, which has already been resolved, but will rather focus on removing all sanctions imposed by the U.S. Tehran insists that all sanctions must first be removed in a verifiable manner before the Islamic Republic reverses the “remedial measures” that Tehran took in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA.

Baqeri-Kani also said he had spoken to officials from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Iran is hoping to keeping them from supporting the United States. “What is important for these European countries is to pursue their own interests rather than those of anyone else,” Baqeri-Kani said. In an interview with Bloomberg, Baqeri-Kani said the Europeans could use ‘blocking statutes” to protect European companies doing business with Tehran from any future American sanctions.

Meanwhile, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan raised with his Israeli counterpart, Eyal Hulata, the idea of an interim agreement with Iran. The idea was that in exchange for a freeze from Iran (for example, on enriching uranium to 60%), the U.S. and its allies could release some frozen Iranian funds or provide sanctions waivers on humanitarian goods. Hulata opposed the idea and said Israel feared such a deal would become a permanent and allow Iran to maintain its nuclear infrastructure and uranium stockpile.

According to Lahav Harkov, Israel opposes any deal that would allow Iran to receive “massive funds to do what it did last time it got economic relief – ignite proxy warfare throughout the region – and remain closer to the threshold of a nuclear weapon than ever before. It is relieving pressure on Iran without receiving almost anything in return.”

Negotiations resumed in Vienna at the end of November 2021, but the Iranians continued to refuse to meet with American officials. Instead, the parties exchanged positions through the other signatories to the nuclear agreement. Iranian officials insisted at the outset that all U.S. sanctions on Iran be lifted and that the United States and its allies promise never to impose sanctions on Iran again.

Meanwhile, the IAEA reported that Iran was enriching uranium with advanced centrifuges at its Fordo plant, violating the JCPOA prohibition on enrichment at Fordo. Israel reportedly shared intelligence with the United States that Iran is preparing to enrich uranium to 90 percent – the level needed to produce a bomb. According to the Institute for Science and International Security, Iran already has enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon in three weeks. Within six months it could have enough for four weapons.

The State Department said the United States would consider enrichment to 90 percent a “provocative act.” Similarly, European diplomats said this could lead to terminating negotiations. “You cannot enrich to weapons grade and say that you are seeking a return to an agreement whose goal is to ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” a diplomat told the Wall Street Journal. Another senior diplomat added, “If they don’t show us that they are serious this week, then we have a problem.”

A seventh round of talks in Vienna adjourned on December 3, 2021. “What we’ve seen in the last couple of days is that Iran right now does not seem to be serious about doing what’s necessary to return to compliance, which is why we ended this round of talks in Vienna,” said Secretary of State Blinken. European diplomats were also discouraged by Iran backtracking on compromises they had made in earlier rounds of talks.

“What is not acceptable and what we will not allow to happen is for Iran to try to drag out this process while continuing to move forward inexorably in building up its program,” Blinken said. “Iran has some very important decisions to make in the days ahead,” he added. “We’re either going to get back into compliance with the agreement, or we’re going to have to look at dealing with this problem in other ways.”

While critics fear the administration will ultimately agree to ease or remove sanctions to convince Iran to return to the nuclear deal – even as Iran insists on a complete reversal of sanctions without complying with the original deal or agreeing to a tougher new one – additional sanctions continue to be imposed on Iranian officials and entities. In addition, the administration is seeking to tighten existing sanctions. A delegation was sent to the UAE, Iran’s second-largest trade partner and a conduit for Iran’s trade and financial transactions with other countries, with the message that petrochemical companies and banks circumventing sanctions will “face extreme risk if this continues.” Similar messages may be forthcoming for companies violating sanctions in Malaysia, Turkey, and China.

Just before the resumption of negotiations in Vienna in January, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, “Israel isn’t automatically opposed to every agreement with Iran, just to an agreement that isn’t good.” He added, “We are sitting at the table with the world powers and are holding discussions about what a good agreement would be. The world is attentive to the Israeli position. We are currently engaged in trench warfare to secure small achievements to improve the agreement.”

Russia reportedly discussed a possible interim agreement with Iran in January 2022 that would have offered limited sanctions relief in return for reimposing some restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program, Iran rejected the offer.

Sanctions Relief Without Concessions

Negotiations for the U.S. to return to the nuclear deal continued into February 2022 without any indication Iran was prepared to comply with the terms of the agreement. Nevertheless, on February 4, the Biden administration agreed to restore waivers that will exempt Chinese, Russian, and European companies that work on civilian projects at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, its Arak heavy water plant, and the Tehran Research Reactor from American penalties. The Trump administration originally approved the waivers but rescinded them in May 2020.

State Department spokesman Ned Price claimed this was not “sanctions relief.” He tweeted the U.S. will not provide relief “until/unless Tehran returns to its commitments under the JCPOA.” He added, “We did precisely what the last administration did: permit our international partners to address growing nuclear nonproliferation and safety risks in Iran.”

In a phone call two days later Biden sought to reassure Prime Minister Bennett that he was committed to Israel’s security and recognized the regional threat posed by Iran and its proxies. While Bennett thanked the president for his support, he later told the Israeli cabinet the agreement being negotiated in Vienna, “will damage the ability to deal with the nuclear program. Whoever thinks that an agreement will increase stability – is mistaken. It will temporarily delay enrichment but all of us in the region will pay a heavy, disproportionate price for it.”

Meanwhile, while negotiations continued in Vienna, Iran unveiled its “Khaybar Sheikan” (Khaybar Buster) missile, which has a purported range of more than 900 miles, sufficient to reach Israel.

As reports of an imminent agreement surfaced, Russia thew a wrench into the negotiations. Russia said that Western sanctions imposed on it over its invasion of Ukraine had become an obstacle to completing the deal. Moscow insists that the U.S. and Europe carve out an exception from Ukraine-related sanctions so that Russia can trade with Iran.

"These things are totally different and just are not, in any way, linked together. So, I think that's irrelevant," Blinken responded.

Meanwhile, the head of Russia’s delegation, Mikhail Ulyanov, said Iran “got much more than it could expect, much more.” He added, Iran fought for its interests “like lions… for every comma, every word and as a rule quite successfully.”

One unresolved issue has been Iran’s demand for the closure of the IAEA investigation into uranium particles found at three undeclared sites. Iran has never explained the evidence of nuclear activity at those sites but has now reportedly agreed to supply answers. The IAEA will report on its conclusions before “Re-Implementation Day” when most U.S. sanctions will be lifted if an agreement on a return to the nuclear deal is reached.

In a further ominous sign that the administration abandoned its commitment to a “longer and stronger” agreement, CIA Director William Burns told the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, “we are mindful of the fact that the Iranian regime poses not only a nuclear or missile issue but also a threat across the Middle East and to our partners in the Middle East. Regardless of how negotiations go, those threats will continue.”

To punctuate the warning, Iran launched a military satellite operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on March 2, 2022). The concern is that this launch is part of the development of long-range ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons.

Also, as a deal was reportedly imminent, it was disclosed that Iran plotted to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton. An official told the Washington Examiner, the administration did not want to indict the Iranians to avoid jeopardizing the Vienna talks. Threats also have been directed at former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other former Trump administration officials involved in Iran issues, which may have prompted national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s January 9, 2022, to Iran that the U.S. would protect officials “serving the United States now and those who formerly served.”

A final text for a new agreement was “essentially ready and on the table,” according to the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell when the talks were suspended on March 11, 2022, due to Russian demands that U.S. sanctions relief be applied to its future dealings with Iran. It was not clear if a deal could be made without the Russians, which Iran objects to, or if the new demand would prevent an agreement.

In what was seen as part of the effort to entice the Iranians to agree to a deal, Britain paid roughly $530 million to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British dual citizen who was detained in Iran from April 2016 to March 16, 2022, on charges of espionage for the British government. Former Secretary of State Pompeo accused the UK of paying “blood money” tweeting: “The UK priced taking & holding its citizens hostage at $530 million. We prevented paying blood money— not rewarding hostage-takers. That cash will terrorize Israel, UK & US. Sadly, Iran, w/Russia & China, is rolling the West. Appeasement feels good until it fails— it always does.”

The British government said the payment was to repay a debt for the cancellation of an order of Chieftain tanks following the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.

Renewal of the JCPOA remained stuck as of April 2022 over the issue of delisting the IRGC from the U.S. terrorism list. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said if a new deal is signed Israel won’t face any American restrictions if it wishes to act against Iran. “We’ve been very clear about this. If we have a deal, the Israelis’ hands are not tied. If we don’t have a deal, the Israelis’ hands are certainly not tied....Israel can do and take whatever actions they need to take to protect the state of Israel.”

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