US Prepares for Nuclear Compliance Return Without Iran Deal

Mutual return to compliance with no deal now seen as possible scenario

Returning to the Iran nuclear deal was seen as mutually beneficial for all sides throughout the Vienna talks, and everyone seemed set to ultimately do that, with the deal all but finalized before a seven-week pause in progress, and reports that the US has decided that they likely won’t be making a deal but also don’t want to declare the talks dead either.

State Department officials are now saying that the are preparing for a scenario in which everyone just returns to compliance with the existing deal, despite never agreeing to do so in Vienna.

State Dept spokesman Ned Price said that the return to compliance is “very much an uncertain proposition,” but that the US is preparing for that possibly happening.

Exactly what this would look like isn’t very clear from the comments made. In particular, since the US struggled to comply with its obligations when they hadn’t dishonored the deal, it is difficult to imagine the US coming back in to compliance on sanctions relief without a formal agreement to that effect.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.