Joe Biden’s United States, which resumes indirect negotiations with Iran on Monday in Vienna, are much less optimistic than they were in the spring about the possibility of saving the Iran nuclear deal.
But their options for preventing Tehran from gaining access to the atomic bomb are limited if that fails.
Relaunch of the 2015 agreement
Former US President Donald Trump slammed the door in 2018 on this international agreement, and reinstated the US sanctions that it had allowed to be lifted. In response, the Islamic Republic has freed itself from numerous restrictions on its nuclear program.
Joe Biden says he wants to return to the 2015 agreement if Iran also returns to its commitments. Indirect negotiations that started in April in Vienna resume Monday, after a five-month suspension imposed by Tehran.
“It is possible to quickly reach an agreement,” said American diplomacy on Wednesday, which clearly favors this option.
But the American envoy Rob Malley considers that the attitude of the Iranians does not bode well for the negotiations.
The United States reproaches them for having dragged their feet and multiplying “radical” demands, while continuing to make nuclear progress likely to bring them drastically closer to the bomb.
A provisional agreement
If, at the resumption of talks, it quickly appears to the Americans that Iran only wants to gain time to accelerate its atomic advances, they will not stand by “with folded arms”, warned Rob Malley.
“We’re going to have to consider other means – diplomatic and otherwise – to try to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” he said.
Among the diplomatic options, the track of a “provisional agreement” is mentioned.
“The Biden administration could consider a reduced, short-term agreement that frees Iran’s most sensitive proliferation activities in exchange for a limited lifting of sanctions,” told AFP recently. Kelsey Davenport of the Arms Control Association.
The goal would be to save time, because Tehran is now much closer than before to the bomb.
But such an option risks provoking an outcry in Washington, among Republicans but also several Democrats who would see it as too generous a concession with regard to the Iranians.
A more comprehensive agreement
“If Iran returns to the negotiating table with a long list of demands outside the nuclear deal, then the United States could come up with its own list” on Iran’s role in regional conflicts and its ballistic missiles, Kelsey Davenport believes.
But then long and complex negotiations would begin with an uncertain outcome.
Above all, nothing says that the Islamic Republic will not continue, during this time, its nuclear progress.
More pressure
For Suzanne DiMaggio, researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the “B plans” available to Joe Biden “are not great”. “If there was a better plan, it would be known,” she quipped Friday during an exchange with journalists.
One of the possibilities would be to strengthen economic sanctions, even as the Democratic government insists that the “maximum pressure” of the Trump era is a “failure”.
Punitive measures could target China, which continues to buy Iranian oil despite the US embargo. But Beijing is unlikely to change its posture.
Falcons opposed to the 2015 accord – and there are many in the United States, especially among conservatives – are calling for Washington to step up economic, diplomatic and even military pressure without waiting for the outcome of the Vienna negotiations.
The military option
Accused of weakness by these supporters of the hard way, the Biden administration began to speak up in October, warning that “all options” are on the table to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. One way to let the military threat hover.
In a noteworthy forum, ex-diplomat Dennis Ross said, however, that this “routine” reference to “other options” had become insufficient because “Tehran no longer takes Washington seriously”. “To relaunch the nuclear deal, the threat of military escalation must be on the table,” he insisted.
Israel clearly brandishes this possibility.
But for Suzanne DiMaggio, force “would not solve the problem” because “experience shows that Iran responds to pressure with more pressure”.
“Further acts of sabotage of the Iranian nuclear program risk provoking errors of judgment or an unmanageable escalation which could degenerate into violent conflict,” she warned.
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