On April 26, Iranian and American diplomats are scheduled to meet again in Oman, which should raise hopes that, albeit cautiously, the two nations will be moving closer to a fresh nuclear agreement.
The planned talks follow the two preceding rounds of indirect conversations that have taken place under the new Trump presidency. Those conversations were deemed to have produced sufficient progress for sending nuclear specialists from both sides to initiate elaborating the specifics of a possible model for a deal.
Given that Trump unilaterally withdrawn the US from a bilateral agreement with Iran in 2018, the growth is particularly noteworthy. That package, negotiated during the Obama administration, place restrictions on Tehran’s atomic programme in return for sanctions relief. Trump rather pursued a plan that involved putting more pressure on Iran’s finances through increased punishment and making inherent military threats.
However, that strategy failed to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
Then, rather than resurrect the maximum pressure policy of his first term, Trump – always good to be seen as a dealmaker – has given his team the natural light for the renewed diplomacy and yet apparently rebuffed, for then, Israel’s desire to launch defense strikes against Tehran.
Jaw-jaw over a war-war
Iran-US ties are back to where they were under the Obama administration thanks to efforts to spur Iran on to curtail or ban uranium enrichment.
Only this time, with the US having left the previous offer in 2018, Iran has had seven years to improve on its enrichment capacity and hoard considerably more plutonium than had been allowed under the abandoned authority.
As a long-time analyst on US international policy and nuclear disarmament, I believe Trump has a unique chance to build a more comprehensive agreement and improve relationships with the Islamic Republic in the process.
It is true that Trump enjoys the optics of dealmaking, but there are also actual indications that a potential deal might be in the works.
But an agreement is by no means certain. Any progress toward a deal will be hampered by a number of factors, not the least of which are internal divisions and opposition within the Trump administration, skepticism among some in the Islamic Republic, and uncertainty over a succession plan for the ailing Ayatollah Khamenei.
Conservative hawks are still present in both nations, which could yet dampen any efforts to lower diplomatic tensions.
A checkered diplomatic past
There are also decades of untrust to be overcome.
Since the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the subsequent retakeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, it is understated to say that the US and Iran have had a tense relationship.
Many Iranians would say relations have been strained since 1953, when the US and the United Kingdom orchestrated the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran.
Since 1979, Washington and Tehran haven’t established diplomatic relations, and their rival countries have waged decades-long conflicts over Middle Eastern influence. Concerning Iranian support for a so-called axis of resistance against the West and, specifically, US interests in the Middle East, tensions continue to rise today. That axis includes Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Tehran, for its part, has long balked at American dominance in the area, noting its unwavering support for Israel and its history of military action. In recent years, US action has included direct assaults on Iranian property and personnel. In particular, Tehran is still angry about the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions have remained a constant source of conflict for the United States and Israel, who are the only nuclear power in the area, despite these various disputes.
During the Obama administration, there was a chance for warmer relations between the two countries, despite the Bush administration’s rejection of Iran in 2003.
US diplomats began making contact with Iranian counterparts in 2009 when Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns met with an Iranian negotiator in Geneva. In 2013, the so-called P5 1 started direct negotiations with Iran. This made possible the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA ), or atomic deal, between Iran and the United States.
In that agreement – concluded by the US, Iran, China, Russia and a slew of European nations – Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program, including limits on the level to which it could enrich uranium, which was capped well short of what would be necessary for a nuclear weapon. In exchange, US sanctions would be lifted from both bilateral and multilateral.
With the restraints on a growing nuclear power and hopes for greater economic cohesion with the international community that might lessen some of Iran’s more provocative foreign policy behavior, many observers saw it as a win-win situation.
Yet Israel and Saudi Arabia worried the deal did not entirely eliminate Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, and right-wing critics in the US complained it did not address Iran’s ballistic missile programs or support for militant groups in the region.
Trump and his team of experts in foreign policy pledged to reverse Obama’s course and close any diplomatic doors when he first took office in 2016. Trump unilaterally withdrew US support for the JCPOA despite Iran’s continued adhering to the terms of the deal and lifting sanctions.
Donald the dealmaker?
So what has changed? There are many things, I suppose.
While Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was welcomed by Republicans, it did nothing to stop Iran from enhancing its ability to enrich uranium.
Saudi Arabia, in turn, is now supporting a deal it opposed during the Obama administration because it wants to change its image and diversify its economy.
Trump still harbors anti-Iran feelings in this second term. But despite his rhetoric of a military option should a deal not be struck, Trump has on numerous occasions stated his opposition to US involvement in another war in the Middle East.
Iran has also experienced a number of blows in recent years that have made it more isolated in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah, which are affiliated with Israel, have been severely weakened as a result of Israel’s military action. Meanwhile, strikes within Iran by Israel have shown the potential reach of Israeli missiles– and the apparent willingness of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use them. Additionally, Iran has lost a regional ally as a result of President Bashar al-Assad’s removal from Syria.
Tehran also has to deal with a domestic economy that was more fragile during the JCPOA negotiations.
With Iran weakened regionally and Trump’s main global focus being China, a diplomatic avenue with Iran seems entirely in line with Trump’s view of himself as a dealmaker.
A deal is not a predetermined fact.
There appears to be a real window of opportunity for diplomacy now that two rounds of meetings have been completed and the move has been made to more technical aspects of a potential agreement has been negotiated by experts.
This could mean a new agreement that retains the core aspects of the deal Trump previously abandoned. In terms of the enrichment aspect, I’m not convinced that a new agreement will look any different from the one that was.
However, there are still a number of potential roadblocks standing in the way of any potential agreement.
The president appears to be less interested in details than spectacle, as was the case with Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his first term. Even though meeting with an American leader’s counterpart in North Korea was amazing, it ultimately did not make a significant difference in the direction of policy.
On Iran and other issues, the president displays little patience for complicated policy details. The US administration is complicated by intense factionalism, with many Iran hawks who appear to be opposed to a deal, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz. They could clash with newly appointed Vice President JD Vance and Undersecretary of Defense for policy Elbridge Colby, both of whom have previously pushed for a more diplomatic line toward Iran.
As has become a common theme in Trump administration foreign policy– even with its own allies on issues like trade – it’s unclear what a Trump administration policy on Iran actually is, and whether a political commitment exists to carry through any ultimate deal.
Steve Witkoff, the top Trump foreign policy negotiator without any prior experience, demonstrates this tension. Witkoff has already been forced to refute his claim that the US was only attempting to cap the level of uranium enrichment rather than to end the program entirely. He has already been given the task of leading negotiations with Iran.
For its part, Iran has proved that it is serious about diplomacy, previously having accepted Barack Obama’s “extended hand“.
Tehran, however, is unlikely to give in to its own interests or allow itself to suffer the consequences of any agreement.
In the end, the key question is whether pragmatists will reach an agreement with Iran and whether it will be narrow or expansive or stifled by hawks in the administration.
Jeffrey Fields is an associate professor of the practice of international relations at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the article’s introduction.