The Biden Administration’s Time for Choosing On Iran
Vienna is bustling with another round of diplomacy on the Iran nuclear file. Unlike the direct talks that resulted in the flawed 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), this time the American and Iranian sides are not engaging directly.
No matter the format, the end result is hard to escape: another bad deal. A diplomatic collapse is coming, based on a familiar but wrongheaded negotiating approach by American diplomats.
This coming collapse is not hard to understand. The Biden administration is imploring the Islamic Republic of Iran to return to compliance with the JCPOA—and the regime’s talented negotiating team is playing hard to get. The talks revolve primarily around what the West should pay the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism for the privilege of re-entering a faulty nuclear agreement that in 2015 granted Iran everything it wanted—namely, a patient pathway to atomic weapons and massive economic relief.
Nuclear diplomacy is fine, but it must be shaped by American leverage.
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Read the piece on FDD’s website here.