The mood music says Iran won’t budge

Talks to resurrect a deal to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb began in the Austrian capital on Monday

By Jonathan Marcus

Ever since the Trump administration abandoned the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 it has become commonplace to describe the agreement - known as the JCPOA - as being on lifesupport. This week could help to determine if it is finally declared dead or if, at the very least, something can be salvaged to forestall a new Middle East crisis.

The formal meeting in Vienna includes Iran, along with Russia, China and the so-called European 3 - that is Britain, France and Germany.The original deal came about because there were real fears in the West that Iran’s ultimate intention was, if not explicitly to develop a nuclear weapons capability, to become a so-called “threshold” state - one that has all the technical knowledge and wherewithal to sprint towards such a capability at a time of its choosing.

Israel and the United States saw this as unacceptable. The JCPOA deal, while in no sense perfect, was seen by many as the best option - buying time perhaps for the development of a more positive relationship with Tehran. It constrained many aspects of Iran’s research programme and opened it up to greater international scrutiny from the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. In return many of the nuclear-related economic sanctions against Iran were lifted.

So could it be revived? Given the shorter time left on some of its deadlines, and the advances Iran has made since it was drafted, the JCPOA deal is less useful than it was, says Mark Fitzpatrick, veteran non-proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“The more important question is whether the deal remains useful on balance, and here the answer is again certainly yes, especially for the enhanced verification measures it entails.”

For Tehran, it is all about sanctions removal. Iran was broadly honouring the terms of the JCPOA and it was Washington that unilaterally walked away. So the Iranians want all sanctions lifted and the focus to be on US commitments

Iran may not be averse to returning to the JCPOA, though they are certainly not going to broaden the scope of the talks to cover missiles or their regional activities. And they want a copper-bottomed assurance that if they return, then the JCPOA will bind future US administrations. This latter demand though is impossible to meet. The US system just does not work like that. All the mood music from Tehran is tough. But might they budge?

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says: “While it’s a safe bet to assume that the new Iranian negotiating team will drive a hard bargain, it is hard to predict whether they would, in addition to their maximalist demands, have the requisite flexibility to meet the US halfway.” The US is not attending the meeting but its officials in Vienna will be keeping a close eye on it. Washington backs a return to the JCPOA and expected Iran’s new president Ebrahim Raisi to return to it. However it seems to have badly misjudged the mood in Tehran. US officials are signalling their bottom line - President Biden will not countenance Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Israel

Israel’ s a long way from Vienna but its shadow falls heavily over the talks. Israel and Iran are arch-foes and Tehran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist. Many in Israel see Iran’s nuclear programme as presenting them with an existential threat.

Israel is already engaged in a deepening undeclared war with Iran and its proxies in Syria, broadening the scope of its air strikes in recent weeks. Iran has used the interim to make significant progress and Israel judges Iran by its actions not its words.

Gulf allies of US

Once implacable opponents of the JCPOA, many of Washington’s Gulf allies have quietly changed their minds. As Ali Vaez notes, “Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbours have realised that an imperfect deal is better than no deal”.

“It’s not only that maximum pressure didn’t put Iran in a box,” he says. “But it unleashed an Iran that was much more aggressive in the region with the Gulf Arab states being caught in the crossfire between Iran and the US.”

With Washington’s strategic focus now much more on China than the Middle East, many of its allies now think that a reconstituted deal might serve their best interests.

All five countries who will be sitting around the table with Iran want a return to the full implementation of the deal along with the necessary lifting of US sanctions.

Moscow and Beijing are mindful of Washington’s declining focus on the Middl