With the conditions that have arisen in Washington and the Biden administration’s other policies in the diplomatic arena, of course, some expected the United States’ return to the JCPOA, like the return to the Paris Climate Agreement and the like, to be carried out quickly and with the issuance of appropriate executive orders in the first days. However, as everyone has learned today, the JCPOA, due to the same sensitivities that prolonged the negotiations related to it, is like a ball of fire for all parties to the game that requires other equations. Therefore, the process of this return, which requires not only a signature but also a series of effective actions from the parties, is proceeding slowly today and with many obstacles.
The obstacles that the US government faces in effectively returning to the JCPOA and lifting sanctions are diverse:
Domestic politics: Given the political structure of the US and the need for Congress to approve many people in the top positions of the new government, as well as the sensitivity of the JCPOA in Congress among the vast majority of Republicans and some Democrats, an immediate return to the JCPOA and engagement with Iran could present the Biden administration with a real problem from the very beginning in terms of approving the qualifications of individuals. Therefore, Biden and his inner circle tried to keep the issue suspended until this point was crossed.
On the other hand, by increasing Biden’s political cost in this delay and delay, Iran is increasing the energy of this system and is trying to both increase the speed and dissuade Biden and his team from any new requests to return to the JCPOA and lift sanctions. Two goals that can be said to have been achieved with relative success in the first case, have been fully realized in the second: today we do not hear any new conditions from Biden’s team and him personally.
In any case, what is seen today on the two main sides of this story, Iran and the United States, is that the governments of both sides have similar conditions to some extent: both have sufficient motivation to return to the JCPOA and implement the commitments because they consider this agreement to be an achievement of their political line in addition to the official issues. At the same time, both face internal obstacles on this path from opponents of the agreement, mainly from their opponents. At the same time, both are concerned about the fate of unilateral implementation of the agreement and the reproduction of the issue from the other side, and as a result, their own internal politics will be jeopardized.
But what we have witnessed over the past few weeks, despite some speculation and pessimism, is the political will of both sides to return to an agreement without preconditions. In addition, if we look at the actions of the parties from the statements and positions that sometimes have an internal audience and sometimes an external one, this political will can be found more clearly among their petty actions. In fact, although the US government has addressed the issue of Iran less in its stance and has only spoken for a while about adopting and expressing a position on opening the door to fulfilling its commitments, the indirect actions of the new government in Washington seem more significant than direct statements: meaningful distancing from Israel and prioritizing contact with Netanyahu at the bottom of the list, which was not devoid of meaning, taking a stance on the Yemen war, removing the Houthis from the terrorism list and isolating Saudi Arabia on this issue, avoiding haste on issues such as the Additional Protocol that are emerging in Iran, taking small and more symbolic steps such as withdrawing Masha's failed claim from the United Nations, lifting restrictions on the Iranian delegation in New York, and now trying to bring minds closer together through such means as side negotiations such as the issue of prisoner exchanges and reducing pressure on Iran's debtors - South Korea and Japan - to pay their arrears are examples of this meaning.
On the other side of the story, Iran, the government has so far managed to prevent the level of tension from rising and "destroying what has not yet been built" despite increasing the energy of the system, with some initiatives, the most important of which was Iran's agreement with the Agency on the voluntary cancellation of the Additional Protocol, which prevented Iran from incurring a huge increase in political costs: this agreement was a classic example of an important lesson in diplomacy, namely creating an option instead of choosing between existing options.
What we should do in our political designs is, first, to avoid increasing the level of tension. Second, we should not allow a consensus to form between the United States, Europe, and subsequently China and Russia against the country (in the context of what happened in 2005-2007). For this purpose, symbolic concessions should be designed in return for the less effective concessions that indicate the political will of the United States, such as the examples mentioned, and offered to the opposing parties as flexibility to show goodwill.
The current status of the JCPOA should be considered something in the dimensions of the second half of 2015, when an agreement existed but had not yet been implemented, and therefore negotiations were held only to implement the agreement in January 2016. It is as if, despite the political will of all parties to implement the JCPOA, which is the essence of the agreement today and then, there is more distrust, especially from Iran towards the United States.
But at the same time, today, one of the cases that can be used as flexibility, symbolically and practically, is the acceptance of participation in the 4+1 meeting and Iran, with the presence of the United States as a guest, in order to prepare a timetable for countermeasures, which is not in contradiction with any of the stated principled positions.
Because we should not violate the principles alone, and therefore, any possibility and solution that does not contradict the principled positions and the interests of the country should be used rationally; wanting to wait until the order and equations move in a direction that is desirable for us and then enter into it is far from realistic and can only complicate our situation.
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