What Does Iran Have to Do?

As early as this upcoming Sunday, the E3—the UK, France and Germany—will probably trigger the snapback clause of the shattered 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran. That means the economy and people of Iran will face the full weight of the sanctions the JCPOA promised to end. 

Though the snapback sanctions may succeed in what may be their true purpose, punishing Iran for not abandoning Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, they will fail in their aim of accomplishing a new nuclear deal with Iran.

Typical of the waning U.S.-led world order in which economic and military threats have replaced diplomacy, the move carries no benefit, but is fraught with risk. Sanctions have had no effect on Iran’s commitment to its civilian nuclear program, and there is no reason to believe that trying the same thing again will have any different effect. And in punishing Iran for not abandoning Russia, the E3 will only push Iran closer to Russia and China.

For many years now, Iran has sat in a number of frustratingly paradoxical positions. The most painful has been the attempt to convince the U.S.-led world that it is sincere about ending a nuclear weapons program that it never possessed. 

In 2015, the Obama administration, together with E3, Russia and China, successfully negotiated the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran. For all its technical complexity, the deal’s basic provision was simple: If Iran keeps its promise to limit its civilian nuclear program, the U.S. would keep its promise to lift sanctions. A consistent series of reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran was completely and consistently in compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA. Nonetheless, in May 2018, the first Trump administration unilaterally pulled out of the agreement.

The Biden administration had four years to blame Trump, but they never committed to the simple solution of reentering the agreement. Iran had kept its promise to limit a nuclear program that was in no need of being limited, but was punished anyway.

At the beginning of the second Trump administration, though wary of reentering negotiations on a nuclear deal with the same leader who had broken the previous nuclear deal, Iran did return to the bargaining table. And those negotiations came very close to completion.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that Iran and the U.S. “were on the cusp of a historic breakthrough.” Iran was prepared to discuss two paths of compromise on its civilian nuclear program. One would see Iran export or convert its highly enriched uranium and limit future enrichment to 3.67 percent while agreeing to maximum transparency and inspections in cooperation with the IAEA. The other would see Iran fold its nuclear program into an international consortium that would allow Iran to enrich uranium but deny it access to the full enrichment process by distributing various roles in the process across different member states, probably including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The various member states could assist the IAEA by keeping a watchful eye on each other.

But despite the real progress and the real possibility that a deal was within reach, the diplomatic path was abandoned in favor of the military one, and instead of a diplomatic compromise, Iran’s nuclear facilities were bombed.

And that was the second paradoxical position included in the deal. Iran was meant to fulfill all of its obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) without the benefit of any of its rights or protections.

Despite the failure of the non-proliferation regime to protect Iran, Tehran tried to maintain that paradoxical position and its relationship with the IAEA. After initially suspending its cooperation with the IAEA, Iran recently signed a new agreement with the IAEA.

But that led only to the third paradox. The E3 had promised Iran that if they resume cooperation with the IAEA, including transparency on its stockpile of enriched uranium, and resume talks with the United States, they would delay the snapback sanctions for six months.

Iran did both, and the E3 triggered the snapback sanctions nonetheless. Iran not only genuinely reengaged with the IAEA, they genuinely reengaged with the United States.

Under the media radar, Araghchi and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff have been in direct contact. On September 16, Araghchi presented Witkoff with a proposal on an interim deal that would lead to a final deal. The outlines of the deal were also shared with the foreign ministers of the E3.

In the first stage, Iran would retrieve its 60 percent enriched uranium and dilute it to 20 percent. Though this is not yet the 3.67 percent of the JCPOA, the purity required for electricity, it is the magic number for civilian purposes, as it is insufficient for a weapons program while still being sufficient for radioisotopes for medical imaging. In return, the U.S. will guarantee that there will be no further aggression against Iran, and the E3 will put off snapback sanctions for a number of months.

After these steps are completed, the U.S. would lift the sanction that had been agreed upon in the interim deal, and negotiations on a final deal would begin.

Iran and the IAEA, with Egypt’s help, have agreed on steps for Iran to provide the IAEA with a report on its 60 percent enriched uranium within a month. Iran and the IAEA would then begin negotiations on how the IAEA can verify the report and carry out inspections. 

But despite Iran re-engaging with the IAEA, negotiating transparency of their stockpile of enriched uranium and re-engaging in direct talks with the United States, the E3 is going ahead with snapback sanctions.

This move by the E3 is not likely to speed up or encourage diplomacy. Instead, it seems to close the last off ramp for diplomacy. Araghchi says that “if the snapback is ultimately implemented, the agreement [with the IAEA] will also lose its validity.” Implementation of the deal clearly depended on the E3 delaying snapback sanctions. At the time the agreement was approved, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council stated that “the new agreement would be considered void if new ‘snapback’ UN sanctions were imposed or if its nuclear sites were attacked again.”

“It is time,” Araghchi said, “for them to choose between cooperation and confrontation” before adding that “[w]e hope for a diplomatic solution, but rest assured, if that fails, Iran is prepared to take necessary measures.” 

Those measures appear to include suspending cooperation with the IAEA. “Despite the cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the [IAEA] and the proposals presented to resolve the [nuclear] issue, the actions of European countries will effectively suspend the path of cooperation with the Agency,” Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which is chaired by the president, said.

It is not clear at this time what Iran is supposed to do. They honored the terms of the JCPOA until it was broken by the United States, and they seem to have satisfied the terms of the E3 to delay snapback sanctions. Nonetheless, Iran finds itself, once again, with no clear path to a diplomatic solution to a problem that doesn’t even exist.