Biden’s opportunity for lame-duck diplomacy with Iran

Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal remains one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history, but it’s one we now have a new opportunity to fix. 

President Joe Biden should not miss this chance to conclude his presidency with a major security win while assisting Vice President Kamala Harris in setting a popularly supported course for a more peaceful and stable Middle East.

The 2015 multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) blocked each of Iran’s paths to a nuclear weapon, and its slow collapse in the wake of Trump’s unilateral abandonment has resulted in across-the-board losses for both U.S. and regional security. It not only triggered an entirely predictable (and predicted) expansion of Iran’s uranium enrichment activities but it also bolstered the political fortunes of Iranian hardliners who had warned the United States would not stick to the deal. 

Destabilizing attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their proxies surged throughout the region, including against American forces. In Iran, the administration of Hassan Rouhani that had negotiated the JCPOA was replaced by that of conservative Ebrahim Raisi and increased suppression of civil society culminated in the bloody crackdown on the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement triggered by Mahsa Amini’s death in the custody of the morality police.

While this chain reaction was set in motion under Trump, President Biden had the opportunity early in his administration to restore the JCPOA and its constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. He was advised by countless outside experts to immediately reverse Trump’s disastrous withdrawal from the agreement and diplomatically de-escalate tensions with Iran. As a candidate, Biden unequivocally promised to do so.

Yet upon taking office, the Biden administration dithered and delayed diplomacy, in many cases continuing and even expanding the disastrous approaches of its predecessor. Sanctions imposed by Trump in violation of the Iran deal were not only left in place but increased, further buttressing hardliners, while a lack of diplomatic urgency from the administration allowed the clock to run out on negotiating with the more willing partners of Rouhani’s reformist government. 

While negotiations continued after Raisi had replaced Rouhani in August 2021 — with the former criticizing the latter for his naivete in agreeing to the deal in the first place — the window for a speedy restoration of the agreement closed.

Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash and the unexpected election of reform-oriented Masoud Pezeshkian as Iran’s next president has now opened another window for a new agreement to restore some of the most critical components of the JCPOA. Pezeshkian, a supporter of the Iran Deal at its creation in 2015, has expressly opened the door to diplomacy toward reviving the agreement’s core exchange of constraints on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief for Iran’s people.

This presents President Biden with an unanticipated yet fortuitously timed opportunity to advance U.S. and regional security in the remainder of his term by seeking to peacefully limit Iran’s nuclear work while lowering tensions between the countries. 

The benefits of reviving diplomacy are especially clear when measured against the track record of maintaining and expanding Trump’s disastrous “maximum pressure” policy of ever-increasing sanctions. That approach has not only failed to prevent but catalyzed Iran to coming closer than ever to nuclear weapons — all while increasing its destabilizing actions, including its support for Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel, the Houthis against U.S. vessels in the Red Sea and Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

Renewed diplomacy on the nuclear file — and perhaps beyond — would provide a path away from escalation amid the multiple but linked conflicts in the region. 

Indeed, proof of concept for diplomacy, even in the deeply unstable current environment, was provided when the Biden administration worked deftly with countries close to Iran in April, preventing the outbreak of an all-out war between Iran and Israel and choreographing face-saving responses to the unprecedented direct hostilities between the two countries. Walking through the door to dialogue opened further by Pezeshkian could advance the repeatedly stated U.S. objective of de-escalation and prevention of a potentially costly and bloody war.

While the security policy advantages of diplomacy over continued escalation should be clear to the Biden administration, so too should the political considerations as Vice President Harris takes up its standard in the upcoming election. The JCPOA was supported by a majority of Americans at its inception, and even more popular when Trump withdrew from the agreement; Trump’s abrogation of the deal was supported by fewer than 1 in 3 Americans.

While the outbreak of the Gaza War and subsequent Iranian-launched or -backed attacks on Israel and U.S. forces in the region have no doubt impacted U.S. opinion, a survey conducted by the Chicago Council for Public Affairs in the month before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack found popular support for a renewed Iran Deal. 

According to the study, 63 percent of Americans, including 55 percent of Republicans, said the United States should participate in an agreement that lifts some sanctions on Iran in return for at least a decade of strict limits on its nuclear program. 

The same study found that 72 percent of Americans — including 76 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents and 65 percent of Republicans — would support direct talks between the United States and Iran. Those are strong approval numbers compared to those of any politician.

There are obvious hurdles to negotiating a worthwhile agreement in the time remaining in Biden’s term. The Iranian nuclear program has advanced so far since Trump violated the JCPOA that many of the agreement’s original terms are now inadequate or inapplicable to the current reality. 

Yet there remain key elements of the original deal — particularly those relating to unprecedented and permanent inspection and monitoring to prevent weaponization — that would be a major security win to restore.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle, however, would be Iran’s and the rest of the world’s certainty that a deal reached — or progress in negotiations made — under President Biden would be again repudiated by Trump were he to return to office.

While the U.S. presidential election will not be decided based on whether a deal is achieved with Iran, the pursuit and near-finalization of one in the coming months would help motivate and sharpen the choice facing American voters, particularly among independents and Democrats who favored the JCPOA by strong majorities or supermajorities. 

With the Biden administration finding fewer achievements to point to in the Middle East than in other parts of its record, this is an opportunity to promote security and de-escalation that it would be unwise to squander.

Dylan Williams is vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy. Follow him on X: @dylanotes