These days, as the Biden administration has settled in Washington and the election noise in the United States has subsided, one of the main topics of discussion in the new administration's foreign policies is, of course, Iran, the nuclear deal and its peripheral issues. The fact that Biden and his foreign policy team have not put the issue of Iran at the forefront of their statements, as expected by Iranian observers, has further paved the way for everyone to interpret this silence in favor of their own position: Those in favor of the United States returning to the JCPOA and lifting sanctions believe that this minimal statement can be evaluated in a positive sense, while opponents of the nuclear deal and its trustees (who are seen from various positions at home and abroad and with completely different positions) consider the silence a sign of the death and burial of the JCPOA and the continuation of the Trump-era maximum pressure policy on Iran.
If the truth of the story could be read, it would not be a complicated science and technology policy, and training and expertise would not be required for it. Therefore, what can be said is that these analyses, more than anything else, should be based on the integrity of the news and not on the excerpt that confirms the analyst's intention.
What has been seen in recent weeks by Biden and his administration regarding Iran and the JCPOA, of course, has two levels: the level of positions and the level of actions. At the level of positions, as mentioned, we have mostly witnessed single-minded statements from Biden and his national security and foreign policy team. These statements of positions have been, of course, as cautious as possible, but typically indicate the need for Iran to return to its JCPOA commitments, the implementation of which has been reduced through the five steps and the implementation of the recent law approved by the parliament.
This stance, along with the counter-statement by the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran that the United States requires the effective lifting of sanctions before any return to the JCPOA or JCPOA commitments, has somewhat reduced the level of discussions on the stage. Because it is not difficult for leading diplomats to prepare a schedule and monitor simultaneous actions: something like what was done in the implementation of the JCPOA (December 2015). Therefore, talking more about the priority of actions is like a preface before entering a hall, which, if prolonged, detracts from the essence of the matter. The first step in preparing such a schedule could be an initiative by the European Union to invite the 4+1 and Iran, with the presence of a representative of the United States as a non-member guest, to a meeting to coordinate the implementation process.
But the second level that should not be overlooked in the behavior and actions of the newly established United States administration is the level of action and practice. Contrary to the level of stance, which has not seen much significant action so far, the new US president has presented a more decisive and clear record on the practical level: the appointment of the most pro-JCPOA foreign policy and national security figures close to the Democratic Party, who are often JCPOA negotiators and believe in returning to the US commitments, in contrast to the more right-wing tendencies of the Democrats (such as the tendency close to the Clintons), the official announcement of non-support for the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen war, the halt of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE due to their use in the war against Yemen, the removal of the Houthis from the US terrorism list, the failure to contact Benjamin Netanyahu despite his flattering stance after Biden's victory, the insistence on appointing Robert Milley (despite all the efforts of the Israeli lobbies and other anti-Iran activists) as the person in charge of the Iran issue in the State Department, who clearly has an anti-Israeli perspective and background and is one of the staunchest supporters of engaging with Iran in a way that is close to the JCPOA, as well as the caution in the officials' statements in not making the JCPOA conditional on anything else are signs in the performance of the new team that can serve as a basis for a pragmatic view. Take it.
That is why in recent weeks, with the elimination of substantive threats to the JCPOA from the United States, we have seen the position of Europe, and especially France, somewhat stricter than before. It is understandable for a country to demand other talks after the JCPOA and its implementation with the presence of third countries that are not members of the JCPOA, but at the same time, it may not be agreed to by the Iranian government. At the same time, what is agreed upon by the parties is that the JCPOA and the return of the parties to the implementation of their obligations are subject to and conditioned by negotiations and not another issue. At most, on the one hand, those around the issue may hope that the implementation of the JCPOA will motivate the Islamic Republic to discuss other controversial issues, and on the other hand, the Iranian political system will adopt a strategy that will both solve its problems regarding the economy and sanctions, etc., normalize the nuclear issue as a successful example through the sustainable implementation of the JCPOA, and in the process, convince others who may not want to come to terms with this reality as a normal country and regional power, and ultimately arrange issues such as the region as it wants and reach a mutually acceptable solution with real players.
It is almost certain that the material and tangible interests of all parties in an unconditional return to the JCPOA will be predictable and not too long: both the Biden team can show itself victorious in a scene of Trump's failures, both Europe will be relieved of its declared concerns, and China will be more comfortable with its energy supply and 25-year cooperation agreement with Iran. The only country among them whose interests cannot necessarily be measured in the short term within the framework of the JCPOA is Russia, and in that case, nuclear and possibly military cooperation (of which there are no clear signs so far) could fill the gap.
In the above two-level analysis of the Biden administration's words and actions, it should also be taken into account that he, who is the heir to a government like the Trump administration with all the social faults within the United States, finds himself facing half of the American voters for whom almost any issue is a potential subject of criticism and further division and weakening of his government. Therefore, Biden and his team must speak in a way that, above all, does not appear "coerced" by Trump's seemingly nationalistic discourse and is not accused of needlessly surrendering America's suffrage cards in international equations, while at the same time not losing their posture of authority in the domestic space.
Therefore, the expectation that Biden would return to the JCPOA with an executive order, as he did with the Paris climate agreement, was a far-fetched picture from the beginning because, first, unlike the Paris agreement, the JCPOA emerged from a tension and threat in the eyes of American rightists and even some Democrats, and the cost of returning to it is not the same as a climate agreement. Second, the JCPOA is an extremely sensitive issue due to the shift in various balances at the regional and international levels, and it has fundamental opponents, especially in the region. Therefore, returning to it also requires indirect preconditions such as the new US policy in Yemen.
In any case, if only confrontation and stubbornness or only gentleness were the whole thing and the problem, there would be no need for political science and diplomacy. We do not need to cite a distorted example of the opposite position to justify our position in each of the maximalist strategies: we are not going to choose between dependence like Saudi Arabia on the one hand and isolation like North Korea on the other. There are examples of these political investments, de-escalation in favor of development and speaking from a position of real power in the world: the largest of them are China, which has called its model "peaceful emergence," and Turkey, which, despite all its boasting and the freedom of action it enjoys in interacting with different parties in the world, no one can think of removing it from the international economic equations or its real isolation at any reasonable time.
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