Why Trump and Iran need a new nuclear deal badly

The United States and Iran concluded a third round of indirect negotiations in Oman last Saturday, with both sides agreeing to meet again in a week. The latest round involved technical experts, which pundits said underlined that the talks are picking up pace and that both sides are now discussing the details of a possible agreement on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.

President Donald Trump has expressed hope that an agreement was within reach. At the same time, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iran’s state television on Saturday that while disagreements remained between Tehran and Washington, he was “cautiously optimistic that we can progress.”

Trump was a bitter critic of the 2015 nuclear deal that his predecessor, Barack Obama, negotiated. If elected, he vowed to withdraw the US from the international agreement, which he did in 2018, leaving the other permanent members of the Security Council and the EU to try to salvage the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the deal was called back then.

While the original deal was hailed by the rest of the world, one disgruntled leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stood aggressively against it. So when Trump got elected, Netanyahu pushed him to withdraw from it and re-impose US sanctions on Tehran. Needless to say, the US withdrawal was met with an Iranian decision to boost its uranium enrichment activity to levels that Israel believed would give the Islamic Republic the capacity to build a nuclear bomb.

'Weak original deal'

Trump, who described the original deal as weak, did nothing to re-negotiate a new one during his first presidency. Netanyahu was hoping to convince him to use force to annihilate Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Under former President Joe Biden, Iran insisted that it was not the one that pulled out of the agreement and that if the US wanted to hold Tehran to its obligations, all it needed to do was rejoin the deal.

However, now that Trump is back at the White House, both sides appear ready to open talks. In March, Trump’s letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered the Iranians two choices: negotiate or face a military strike. After much dithering and a secret exchange of messages, the Iranians chose to talk.

Netanyahu was the last to know of these secret exchanges; earlier this month, Trump summoned him to the White House to be told not to interfere or try to sabotage the negotiations.

Foreign policy breakthrough

Trump, who was hoping to end the war in Ukraine on day one as promised, is looking for a foreign policy breakthrough. While President Vladimir Putin showed little interest in embracing a deal that would require him to give up territory, the Iranians, on the other hand, appeared compromised after a series of regional setbacks in Syria and Lebanon.

An agreement over keeping Iran’s nuclear programme peaceful would be much easier to reach. After all, it took all parties more than two years to get the 2015 deal that covered the minutest technical details, from uranium enrichment to international monitoring of all Iranian sites. Iran has always insisted that it had no desire to acquire nuclear weapons and called on all countries of the region to commit to a nuclear-free Middle East.

Trump and his special envoy to the talks, Steve Witkoff, have said that they want to make sure that Iran will never develop a nuclear weapon, but stopped short of denying Tehran’s right to have a peaceful nuclear programme.

What could bog down the talks, though, are other issues, such as Iran’s long-range missile programme, its support of regional proxies, and its strategic ties to China and Russia. Netanyahu will push the US to demand Iranian concessions on the first two issues to derail the agreement.

An Iran nuclear deal 2.0 will not look much different from the original one. But this time, the tribute will go to Trump, who has expressed readiness to meet with Khamenei, which is unlikely, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Relief for Iran

A revived nuclear deal with the US would bring much-needed relief for Iran. It would end Netanyahu’s ambition of dragging the US into another regional war. Israel cannot wage an attack on Iran without US support and approval. More than that, a deal would lift US sanctions and open up Iran for business with Europe and the United States. Finally, a deal would bring down regional tensions, especially in the Arab Gulf region, while opening the path for Tehran to have normal ties with its neighbours.

A new deal with Iran would be an essential foreign policy triumph for Trump, especially since a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine remains remote, for now.

- Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.