The Obama-era Iran nuclear deal had a name. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Diplomats called it the JCPOA because saying the full thing made them sound like they were ordering coffee at Starbucks.
The deal worked like this: Iran promised to stop enriching uranium past a certain point. In exchange, the U.S. lifted sanctions. Everyone signed papers in 2015. Obama called it historic. Iran got access to frozen assets. The whole thing hummed along for three years.
Then Trump withdrew in 2018.
He said the deal was terrible. He said he'd negotiate a better one. He imposed maximum pressure sanctions instead. Iran responded by enriching more uranium than before. Both sides dug in. Neither side blinked.
Now Trump is back. He says talks are progressing. The problem is Iran has spent six years spinning centrifuges at full speed. They're closer to weapons-grade enrichment than they were when the original deal existed. That's the whole thing the deal was supposed to prevent.
So we're right back where we started, except now Iran has more leverage and less reason to trust American promises that last longer than one presidential term.
The signals Trump mentions are doing a lot of work in that sentence. Signals could mean anything. A handshake. A phone call. A guy who knows a guy who talked to another guy at a golf course in Dubai. None of it means a deal is close.
The Obama deal took two years to negotiate. It involved six world powers. It had verification protocols and inspection regimes. It was boring and technical and it actually worked until someone tore it up to prove a point.
The irony is that withdrawing from a nuclear deal to get a better nuclear deal has resulted in no nuclear deal and more Iranian nuclear capability than ever, which I'm told is the exact opposite of the intended outcome.
Photo by Craig Melville on Unsplash
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