Less of Change, more of Déjà vu: Biden Administration and Nuclear Talks with Iran

Robert Malley, who served on Obama’s negotiating team for a nuclear deal with Iran, has been appointed by the Biden administration as the US special envoy for Iran.[i]Malley’s appointment is being widely interpreted as signalling the new administration’s willingness to engage with Tehran notwithstanding the immediate disagreement over who will first begin to comply with a deal that lay in tatters after Iran stopped complying in a step-by-step manner after a year of Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018.

Malley, who until his new appointment was the CEO and president of Washington-based think-tank, has been critical of the Trump administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ policy. Instead, he has supported a mutually acceptable diplomatic settlement and de-escalation of tensions with Iran. Most recently, in the wake of dramatic outbreak of coronavirus in March, 2020, Malley argued for a two-phased humanitarian de-escalation in which Washington will facilitate transfer of medicine and medical equipment to Iran in exchange for the release of American detained by Iran and the US will not block Iran’s request for IMF loan in exchange for Tehran freezing its nuclear escalation and reigning its allied groups in Iraq, preventing further attacks on the US facilities.[ii] While more than 200 foreign policy experts and progressive groups including the influential National Iranian American Council came out in support of his nomination, some pro-Israel groups and Republican lawmakers, such as Tom Cotton from Arkansas accused Malley of sympathies with the Iranian government and enmity towards Israel.[iii]Malley has been critical of the Trump administration’s support for Israel’s annexation of territories in the West Bank that will make a two-state solution almost unviable if not impossible.[iv]

Iran has breached its commitments by significantly increasing its nuclear capabilities, expanding its low enrichment uranium from 660 to 8,800 pounds and started enriching uranium and following a new law it started enriching at 20 percent purity at its Fordow facility from January 4. However, Iran insists that its breaches are ‘remedial actions’ duly notified to the IAEA and fully in conformity with the paragraph 36 of the nuclear agreement, which allows Iran to “cease performing its commitments” under the deal should another signatory stop performing its own.[v]Therefore, the Iranian position is that that onus of salvaging the nuclear agreement is on the United States, which must “unconditionally remove, with full effect, all sanctions imposed, reimposed, or relabled since Trump took office.”[vi] On the scheduling issue of who will comply first, Zarif has argued that the issue was one of the longest issues and it is impossible to renegotiate it.[vii] The idea that the two sides had to carry out their respective obligations in a way that is “simultaneous and parallel” had been one of the principles agreed by Kerry and Zarif in the framework deal reached in Lausanne after eighteen months of intensive bargaining and eight-day period near continuous talks.[viii]In other words, Iranian position is that it is only by lifting of sanctions that Washington can return to the deal. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, a votary of ‘economy of resistance’ that is will make Iranian economy resistant to sanctions, has argued that Iran has ‘no urgency’ for the United States to return to the deal and nor will not renegotiate the multilateral agreement that the US has exited from. In October last year, in a commencement speech to military graduates, Khamenei rejected European signatories call for a broader negotiation with Iran that would include Iran’s missile program and regional influence.

A major criticism of the JCPOA among a section of Western and regional policymakers and scholars was that the deal with Iran did not address Tehran’s regional activities and security concerns of Washington’s regional allies, destabilising the region by legitimising Iran’s status as a regional power. However, following the nuclear agreement which removed threat of military confrontation with the United States, Tehran had revived its calls for regional security dialogue with its neighbours. Among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman have expressed willingness for such a dialogue. But Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirate have instead sought to balance Iran along with Israel, as visible in the accelerated trend of the US-backed Arab ‘normalisation’ of ties with Tel Aviv.

Iran which has traditionally maintained that it will discuss regional security issues only with the regional countries was quick and categorical in dismissingFrench President Emanuel Macron’s argument that talks on a new agreement with Iran should include countries in the region including Saudi Arabia. However, Foreign Minister Zarid has intensified his calls for confidence-building measures and security dialogue with Arab neighbours in the Persian Gulf.[ix] Qatar, which has close ties with Tehran and had previously mediated between Iran and the United States supported dialogue with Iran. Even as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE have restored relations with Doha by ending the blockade they expressed that the rapprochement with Qatar meant that the GCC would be better able to combat the “threat posed by the Iranian regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme.”[x]Even as Anthony Blinken, the new Secretary of State tried to assuage fears among the US allies in the region by promising to consult Gulf states and Israel “on take-off, not the landing of” new negotiations with Iran, it would not be easy to reconcile with Netanyahu’s alarmist position calling Washington’s re-entering of the JCPOA a mistake. However, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s former rival and Defence Minister in the unity government, has displayed a more favourable attitude towards the Biden administration and asserted that he will not allow Netanyahu to bypass him on any talks with Washington on crafting policy towards Iran.[xi]

Notwithstanding Biden administration’s willingness to return to the deal, the road ahead is going to be long and tough. Rouhani administrating had negotiated the nuclear agreement reached in 2015 with both popular and political support from the Supreme Leader. Thus, was able to make compromises and accept monitoring and scrutiny of its nuclear programme, unparalleled in the history of any sovereign country. This time around, an Iran bruised and wounded by Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign and assassinations of its leaders will not show the same ‘heroic flexibility’ that helped clinch a deal.

[i] “Biden appoints Rob Malley as Iran envoy despite backlash from hawks,” Middle East Eye, 29 January, 2021, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/biden-appoints-rob-malley-iran-envoy-despite-backlash-hawks

[ii] Robert Mally, Ali Vaez,“The Coronavirus Crisis Is a Diplomatic Opportunity for the United States and Iran,” Foreign Policy, March 17, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-crisis-maximum-pressure-iran-usa-diplomacy-opportunity/

[iii]“Biden taps Rob Malley as Iran envoy, going against objections from republicans,” Business Insider, 29 January, 2021, https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/biden-taps-rob-malley-as-iran-envoy-going-against-objections-from-republicans/articleshow/80589484.cms

[iv]Phillip H. Gordon and Robert Malley, “Biden Must Speak Out Against Israeli Annexation Plans Before It’s Too Late,” Foreign Policy, April 23, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/23/biden-israel-annexation-occupied-west-bank/

[v]Mohammad JavadZarif, “Iran wants the Nuclear Deal it Made” Foreign Affairs, 22 January 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2021-01-22/iran-wants-nuclear-deal-it-made

[vi]

[vii]“Iran’s missile program not subject to negotiation, Zarif says,” Tehran Times, January 20, 2021, https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/457185/Iran-s-missile-program-not-subject-to-negotiation-Zarif-says

[viii]Gareth Porter, “Behind the Scenes: How the US Iran and reached their Landmark Deal,” The Nation, September 5, 2015, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/behind-the-scenes-how-the-us-and-iran-reached-their-landmark-deal/

[ix]“Zarif calls on U.S. to choose comity over failed Trump policies” Tehran Times, January 23, 2021, https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/457283/Zarif-calls-on-U-S-to-choose-comity-over-failed-Trump-policies

[x]“Qatar Calls for GCC Talks with Iran,” Bourse and Bazaar, January 29, 2021,

https://www.bourseandbazaar.com/news-1/2021/1/19/qatar-calls-for-gcc-talks-with-iran

[xi]Jacob Magid, “Gantz warns Netanyahu not to try to sideline him again on Iran talks with US,” The Times of Israel, January 22, 2021, https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-warns-netanyahu-not-to-try-to-sideline-him-again-on-iran-talks-with-us/

Deepika Saraswat

Senior Adjunct Researcher, AGA.