ran signed a nuclear agreement with five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany (called P5+1) in 2015. It was a US-led negotiation process that culminated in a deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the plan, Iran agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme and allow international inspection bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to scrutinise its nuclear facilities and programme in exchange for a softening of US sanctions regime. Pro-JCPOA elements hoped that Iranian nuclear ambitions as well as regional (proxy) interventions, for example in Syria, could be stopped through the agreement.

Iranian policymakers, for their part, hoped for economic recovery. However, before the true benefits of the JCPOA could be reaped, the then US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from the said agreement in 2018. Since the US was the key player as far as implementation of the agreement was concerned, its withdrawal diminished the prospects of collective action in terms of enforcement.

Consequently, though the European countries somewhat reflected a cautious policy outlook towards Iran post-US withdrawal, China and Russia, with whom Iran shared concerns in the Middle Eastern geopolitics, marked their agency to further strengthen economic and military ties with the Iranian government. Hence, the 25-year strategic cooperation agreement between Iran and China, signed in 2021, should not come as a surprise. It provides for $400 billion investment in various energy and infrastructure projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). To confront the US, which not only withdrew from the deal but also harmed Iranian scientists in 2020 and not discouraging Israel to carry out AI-based attacks on top Iranian military leaders such as Gen Qasim Sulemani Iran opted to resume its nuclear programme.

“[It] has reached important nuclear milestones. It has stockpiled hundreds of pounds of highly enriched uranium and installed thousands of advanced centrifuges. Iran could produce its first bomb’s worth of weapon-grade uranium in a matter of weeks and material for subsequent bombs shortly thereafter.” Early this year, as per UN inspectors, Iran had enriched uranium to almost weapon-grade level, causing serious concerns in the US strategic circles.

In the context of Iran’s resumption of nuclear activities coupled with its proxy warfare in the Middle East and getting closer to Russia and China commercially and militarily the Biden administration has decided to re-engage Iran in order to open, at least an indirect communication channel. Remember, the Biden team did try to talk with the Iranians in the past two years to somehow restore the JCPOA. However, due to increasing conditionalities such as opening up of Iranian missile programme for UN inspection, the talks remain fruitless. However, the two sides continued to intermittingly engage each other through third countries such as Oman where emissaries of both the countries reportedly met recently, and discussed prospects of an interim agreement that serves interests of the two countries.

The US is not in a position, due largely to compulsions of its domestic politics, i.e presidential election next year, where it can put more pressure, through its allies, on Iran to stall its nuclear programme. It is now focused on de-escalation of bilateral tensions. As confidence building measures, “[t]he United States… agreed to forgo censuring Tehran at a March meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors, after Iran was revealed to have briefly produced 84 percent enriched material — just shy of the typical 90 percent level for weapon-grade uranium but still high enough to be used in a bomb if produced in sufficient quantities. In addition, Iran has been allowed to indirectly access some of its frozen funds [$2.76 billion in gas and electricity debt] in Iraq and Tehran has permitted a small increase in international monitoring of its programme.”

Given high inflation along with domestic turmoil caused by anti-regime protestors, it seems the Iranian leadership has the option to enhance its economic capability by reaching a deal with the US that may enable Iran to get its frozen funds from Washington. For the US, halting nuclear activity, more inspections of Iran’s nuclear programme and, above all, safeguarding American regional interest, i.e no war, the US may not have to shift its attention and resources away from the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war where Washington is playing a pivotal role in terms of military and moral support. Finally, with a reductioni in US/ EU pressure, i.e sanctions, Iran may have more space to commercially engage other stakeholders in the region such as Saudi Arabia. Similarly, China-Iran and Iran-Pakistan economic cooperation could reap dividends from the US-Iran rapprochement.

The writer has a PhD in political science from Heidelberg University and a post-doc from UC-Berkeley. He is a DAAD, FDDI and Fulbright fellow and an associate professor. He can be reached at ejaz.bhatty@gmail.com