According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Iran is seeking legal guarantees from the Biden administration that the US won’t withdraw from the nuclear deal again if the agreement is restored.
The report cited unnamed diplomats involved in the nuclear deal negotiations that are ongoing in Vienna who said the guarantee “appears to be a paramount political objective” for the government of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
The issue for Iran is that the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, is not a treaty, so future administrations won’t be bound by the agreement. A treaty with Iran would need two-thirds approval from the Senate, which would never happen since just about every Republican would be against it.
A guarantee that the US wouldn’t leave the deal was also a sticking point during negotiations with the previous Iranian government of Hassan Rouhani. During those talks, Rouhani’s government was willing to settle for a deal that gave a guarantee the US wouldn’t withdraw during President Biden’s term in office. But Biden rejected the plan and wasted the opportunity to revive the JCPOA.
If the US lifts sanctions on Iran without any legal guarantees, Iran might not enjoy the economic benefits that the JCPOA was supposed to give. With the looming threat of the US pulling out of the deal again, international companies and financial institutions might not even bother doing business with Iran.
With Biden’s approval ratings at a new low, the chances of a Republican winning in 2024 look higher, making the future of the JCPOA all the more uncertain.
And this is why it’s called an “unresolvable impasse.” The US isn’t even participating in the negotiations, except as an extra party, yet the entire deal hinges on two things the US won’t do – lift sanctions and guarantee it will stay in the deal. This is a total joke. Maybe Russia should add this to the list of things it wants from the US and NATO.
The only phrase that comes to my mind if “half-assed deal”, when the deal can be so easily abrogated.
The deal itself wasn’t half-assed, it was the NPT on steroids. The problem is there is no way our congress would ever agree to a treaty since both parties are equally anti-Iran.
Logical. In January 2025 our president may immediately yank us out of an agreement with Iran.
Does not matter who is President.
We have broken thousands of treaties. Thousands. It is what we do. We are the white house on the hill, you know.
“With Biden’s approval ratings at a new low, the chances of a Republican winning in 2024 look higher, making the future of the JCPOA all the more uncertain.”___ All waste of time as the next US administration being D or R can desert the JCPOA again, and Iran is aware of this fact…! One thing Iran can do is make a deal with current US administration and use its economic benefits until it is potentially abandoned again and hoping by then there would be a new SWIFT system established by China, Russia and other sanctioned countries that they can join for normal trade…!
I still say the way to end all of this turmoil over a new JCPOA is to tell Israel to write the new agreement to their satisfaction and then demand that Israel sign the deal as well as Iran. “What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”
Just default to the NPT. Iran will follow it. Will the US and the West? They haven’t bothered to so far, have they?
Even with a ‘legal guarantee’ the US won’t leave the agreement again, what mechanism does Iran have to impose any sort of punishment on the US if it does leave again? Is the US supposed to put up some sort of collateral- say, a few trillion dollars in gold, delivered to Iran as security- for the US to honor its word this time?
There are additional parties to the JCPOA which could come up with legal guarantees that they might be able to pass into their own binding domestic laws. Something along the lines of “snapback” sanctions laws — for example, the EU could set up a 200% tariff on all US goods, embargo of US LNG, etc., that automatically kicks in on a specific finding of US violation.