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If Joe Biden is elected, he will have a major agenda to repair the damage of the past four years. Iran will be one of the few national security issues that appear at the top of his list.
The solution to the crisis is simple: return to compliance with the Iran nuclear deal and related UN Security Council resolutions, and then work with our allies to build on that foundation and resolve our other differences with Iran through diplomacy.
Yet implementing this simple solution will be difficult. Even if Biden adopts a new approach, Iran may not agree, domestic opponents allied with foreign governments will attack him, and the window for action will be short.
The Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is the strongest nonproliferation agreement in history and provides the basis for other agreements to address Iran’s other troubling actions and rebalance America’s regional relationships.
Trump ended U.S. compliance with the deal, against the advice of his cabinet, promising that through a “maximum pressure” campaign and superior negotiating skills, he could get a “better deal.” Now, at the end of his term, there is no deal, and Iran’s consequential violations of the deal have increased its supply of enriched uranium (bringing it closer to having a bomb).
The Washington Post editor concluded this week that President Trump’s maximum pressure “campaign” has failed, adding that it was Trump’s “utter failure of diplomacy” that repelled the United States, not Iran.
Biden can repair a lot of damage, and the most promising path is to take a “compliance-by-compliance” approach. He can restore U.S. participation in the Iran nuclear deal by lifting the sanctions imposed by Trump and Pompeo, and European allies who worked to preserve the deal could help. A new report from the European Council on Foreign Relations recommends that European diplomats engage in “shuttle diplomacy” between Washington and Tehran immediately after the U.S. election to help Biden. This could create needed political space for officials in both the incoming Biden administration and the outgoing government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
That’s roughly the path Biden said he prefers. “I will rejoin the agreement and use our new commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and expand it,” he said.
This is the logical path. It will provide Biden with the most leverage and Iranian politicians with the greatest incentive to bring Iran back into compliance with the deal. In fact, Iran’s moves appear to be reversible. That is, reducing the amount of enriched uranium, exporting accumulated stocks, and stopping the operation of advanced centrifuges.
But it would be politically difficult for Iranian officials to take such steps, especially ahead of national elections. Other countries, including China and Russia, could again have the same hesitation toward the United States.
This is the main reason Biden has resisted the proposal, with some of his advisers trying to extract additional concessions from Iran before joining the deal. This suggestion, while tempting, fundamentally misunderstands the situation.
Biden’s advisers are now quietly developing a transition plan for Iran. The steps along that path must be carefully sequenced, communicated, and negotiated. It helps that many of these advisers have done this before, both in secret and in public negotiations.
* National Security Analyst at the Quincy Institute and Associate Director for National Security at the Center for American Progress. (Responsible Statecraft)
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