After months of deadlock and near death, the Iran nuclear deal has a new chance for revival. On Aug. 8, the European Union, which for the past 16 months has been acting as a broker between Iran and the United States in talks to restore the accord, presented what it called a final text of a compromise package that it hopes meets all parties’ bottom lines.
The EU text would require compromises for both main antagonists. Such is the nature of a negotiation, as was the case with the 2015 deal (which Al-Monitor noted in this week's Takeaway) known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Removing what has been seen as the key impediment to negotiations, Iran apparently has accepted that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will not be removed from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization list, instead agreeing to postpone this issue for a later discussion. Charges filed on Aug. 10 against an IRGC member for a plot to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton underscored why President Joe Biden could show no leniency toward the group.
Iran also seems to have muted its demand for guarantees that the United States would not again withdraw from the accord, as former President Donald Trump did in April 2018 without cause. Since the JCPOA is a political understanding, not a treaty that would require an impossible confirmation vote by a divided US Senate, there is no basis for a legal guarantee. In any case, Iran has an implicit guarantee in the form of its own leverage: If the United States were to again withdraw from the deal, Iran could again quickly ramp up uranium enrichment.
The remaining sticking point concerns Iran’s demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) end its investigation of uranium particles that the agency found at three sites in 2019. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the EU’s latest text offers assurance that if Iran answers the IAEA’s questions “with a view to clarifying them,” the United States and other parties to the agreement would urge the IAEA to close its investigation. This clause is probably what Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to the Iranian negotiating team, meant when he told Al-Monitor that Iran had won key concessions.
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
