Iran Deal Redux?

When Barack Obama ran for U.S. president in 2008, he upended much of American foreign policy conventional wisdom by pledging to enter into real, direct negotiations with Iran if the Islamic Republic was willing to do so. That gamble, which involved serious political risk in the United States, resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral agreement finalized in 2015 that put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief—proving that hard security challenges could be met with diplomacy and not just with force. 

Now current U.S. President Donald Trump, who infamously ripped up the JCPOA out of an impulsive and vengeful hatred of both Obama’s achievements and Iran’s regime, is trying to replicate what Obama did but even better—a tall order under the best of circumstances, which the world certainly does not find itself in today. 

Under the JCPOA, Iran was over twelve months away from being able to achieve “breakout,” the amount of time it would take to enrich enough weapons-grade nuclear material to build a bomb. That time is essential to detecting any attempts to cheat or to circumvent international obligations, and, crucially, to having the space to properly respond before the nuclear threshold is reached. Today, since Trump (who self-proclaims himself a master negotiator) withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, estimates put Iran’s breakout time at having plummeted all the way to one to two weeks—a mere matter of days. 

For decades, the United States and its global partners have been trying to prevent Iran from becoming the tenth country with nuclear weapons—a threat made more acute because of its hardline theocratic anti-Western regime; its position in the middle of a volatile, key region, and located so close to its enemy Israel; and the strategic importance to Tehran of projecting regional power by supporting terrorist organizations Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis (among others). All of that nefarious behavior would be more dangerous if backed up by a nuclear deterrent. 

Setting the Stage for Trump 2.0

Trump has threatened Iran with military action if a new nuclear deal isn’t reached, statements the regime in Tehran should take seriously. We also know Iranian leaders want economic relief from the crippling sanctions placed on them, not just for their nuclear work but also because of support for terrorist organizations and human rights abuses. 

At this moment, in which political developments have changed both countries over the past several years and promise to continue doing so, what are the prospects for a new nuclear deal? And what are the possible outcomes of failure to do so?

One of the pitfalls that has given some of us pause when predicting outcomes of Trump 2.0 policies is that, in his first term, on many issues when we thought the sky would fall if Trump took certain actions—assassinating Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force, or moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, for example—the most dire outcomes did not come to pass. To be fair, the rosy predictions of the Trump administration did not happen either, but the world didn’t end. (Notably, we’ve already seen evidence in domestic, economic, and foreign policy since Trump took office again that, in fact, worse outcomes than many predicted are already occurring, a notable difference under the new regime.)

One significant exception in the first term, however, was the Iran nuclear issue, where the results were incredibly alarming. Iran did not rush for a bomb after Trump withdrew, but it progressed its program substantially and meaningfully. Iran’s nuclear work has moved forward so much since 2018—not just under Trump but also under U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration failed to re-enter into serious, direct negotiations—that the policy options available in the first Trump term simply no longer exist. The conditions on the ground have changed too much. 

While Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy did not result in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it did arguably lay some of the conditions that put Tehran on a trajectory that ended with the reassertion of Israeli deterrence and leverage over Iran in the region. Israel’s aggressive actions towards Tehran’s proxies in the region—most notably, its assassinations of the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas—were no doubt interpreted by Iranian leaders as a demonstration of their own relative weakness, and especially the vulnerability of their nuclear sites. So where does that leave us today? 

The Nitty-Gritty Details of a New JCPOA

Let’s start with the technical realities of what it would take to get another nuclear deal with Iran. The thousands of decisions made by then-U.S. Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz and his Iranian counterpart, then-head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi, about how to ensure Iran could not enrich enough uranium or plutonium required years of intense negotiations about everything from Iran’s uranium mining and mills to which newer generation centrifuge cascades Iran would be allowed to continue research and development on. This was hard, tedious, detailed work that required an extraordinary amount of know-how and commitment. I have seen no evidence that there is someone in the Trump administration expert enough in nuclear issues to manage that technical process or empowered enough to engage in actual negotiations over these issues. It is also safe to assume that Iran will want even more than the JCPOA gave them, because of their leverage from a further-progressed program. 

President Trump and his senior leadership team display an extraordinary amount of impatience on detailed policy issues and are often dismissive of the need for concrete outcomes, never having shown they can invest in a process long enough or put in the legwork to achieve something this complicated. So much of what they do is purely for show—Trump’s meeting in the first term with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un comes to mind—and is focused not so much on the results themselves but on the narratives. It should go without saying that narratives or photo ops alone aren’t enough to curb Iran’s nuclear program. And the challenge with months and months of negotiations is that there aren’t signing ceremonies or victory laps to be taken, just a lot of work that goes on outside of the spotlight—not a place where the Trump team thrives. 

In addition, the political decisions necessary for a deal are in many ways the more difficult and delicate on which to come to agreement. Because Iran does not appear cornered enough to start abandoning their core red lines in these talks, the United States (and whoever else American negotiators decide to bring in on their side, which at this point looks like no one) cannot force Iran to accept just any deal. There has to be a give and take, and the Trump administration has shown no aptitude or appetite for that kind of diplomatic work. 

Relatedly, it would be incredibly difficult to conclude a bilateral nuclear agreement without a multilateral coalition, for several reasons. First, other countries—most significantly, Russia—played vital roles in implementing the technical aspects of the previous deal. For example, Russia took a large percentage of Iran’s already-enriched nuclear stockpile. Second, the sanctions Iran wants relief from are not just American ones, but international as well. The United States cannot unilaterally provide the far-reaching economic relief Iran desires under a new deal, but the Trump administration has again here (like in the Russia-Ukraine negotiations) indicated they want to go it alone without real international help or support. 

The Politics of Foreign Policy

In these kinds of negotiations, individual leaders really matter. Without Obama working with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (elected in large part to get the kind of economic relief the deal provided), or U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif doing the same—all of whom were willing and able to make difficult political decisions in the service of getting a strong, verifiable deal—the JCPOA never would have happened. Obama and Rouhani, and Kerry and Zarif, worked around the decades of mutual mistrust and hostility to achieve something that, in theory, would benefit both countries. In today’s political climate, I have seen no evidence that anyone on the Trump team is willing to engage in a process where they don’t simply dictate terms but actually negotiate a deal that the Iranians will be politically satisfied signing onto.

Here’s one scenario that keeps me up at night: what will happen if a decimated U.S. intelligence community (led by a director of national intelligence heavily invested in conspiracy theories with way outside-the-mainstream views on global affairs) determines Iran is rushing for a bomb? Who will Trump turn to for guidance on options? Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who never met a conflict (especially in the Middle East) that he didn’t appear eager to engage in? A hand-picked new under-qualified chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who once reportedly (and wrongly) stated the terrorist group ISIS could be defeated in a matter of weeks if only Washington let the commanders in the field be more aggressive? Military action is a problematic and fairly ineffective long-term strategy to curb Iran’s program, which is so diffuse and advanced that any strike would arguably only temporarily set back its nuclear work and cause a whole host of other geopolitical and security challenges in the region. 

But the political pressure here in the United States to go after Iran more aggressively can feel overwhelming, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, effectively limiting policy options so narrowly as to become almost a caricature. One glaring example: in an interview with 60 Minutes days before the 2024 presidential election, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was asked which nation she considers “to be our greatest adversary.” “I think there’s an obvious one in mind,” Harris responded, “which is Iran.” A perplexing answer to even the biggest of Iran hawks, one quite plausible explanation for this answer was that Harris believed naming Iran would garner her political benefits with American voters. The politics of how the United States should handle Iran (and of what it means to be “supportive” of Israel) have shifted further rightward since the Obama administration, and it is dubious that today’s Congress—Democrats and Republicans alike—would be as supportive of the JCPOA now as it was then. 

The enmity felt by both the United States and Iran appears firmly entrenched in each country’s bureaucracy and leadership psyches. Nuclear agreements like the JCPOA, or whatever deal might possibly replace it, are not designed in and of themselves to change those dynamics. But until they begin to shift, however slightly, it is hard to envision a world in which any leader in Washington or Tehran is willing to invest the kind of time, effort, and political capital necessary to achieve anything real and lasting diplomatically. 

So long as the erratic and easily distracted Trump remains President, the prospects of solving Iran’s nuclear issue diplomatically are incredibly slim. And we cannot overestimate the impact of Trump’s own previous decision making on the calculations in Tehran. The Iranian regime simply does not believe the United States will uphold any deal it makes. There are consequences when leaders and countries renege on their commitments, especially when the other side took real political risks to enter into these agreements. American politicians have long complained that they cannot trust Iran to keep its word, yet today find themselves in the uncomfortable position of being the only party to the JCPOA who actually blew it up. 

To put a finer, final point on it: Among the most convincing reasons to doubt a new nuclear deal can be reached is the thing no one can seemingly change: Donald Trump’s factory settings—his insecurities, his impulsiveness, and his profound weakness on the world stage.