John Irish and Arshad Mohamed

(Reuters] – Washington’s subtle shift in U.S. diplomatic statements suggests that Washington feels that reviving Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, despite Iran’s advances in its nuclear program is better than other options.

Biden’s administration has argued for many months that the benefits of a revived agreement – Iran’s ability to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon – would soon be overshadowed by Iran’s progress with its atomic program.

Rob Malley, lead U.S. negotiator said that you can’t “revive a corpse”.

Iran, six world powers and Iran reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It made Tehran’s nuclear program more difficult in return for lifting economic sanctions.

Tehran long maintained that its program was for peaceful purposes.

Trump’s 2018 renunciation of the accord led Iran to start violating nuclear limits one year later. U.S. President Joe Biden attempted to revive the agreement through indirect talks in Vienna but without success.

Ned Price, State Department spokeswoman, stated that two weeks earlier, the talks had collapsed. “We will need additional clarity in these coming days since we are at the decisive… Moment, knowing that Tehran’s nuclear advances will soon render the benefits of non-proliferation that the JCPOA communicated practically meaningless.

Other people have also used analogies to explain the urgency. They said that the runway was short, the clock ticked, and the window was closing.

U.S. INTEREST

Price, along with other U.S. officials put less importance on the expiration of time and have focused more on reviving the agreement if necessary for national security reasons.

Price stated that he would test the idea of mutual compliance with JCPOA as long as it is in his best interests. Price stated that as long as we can see the benefits of a mutual compliance with JCPOA, it will be in our best interest.

Although the phrase “reviving the agreement only if it is in the U.S. National Interest” has been repeated before by Price Jan. 4, its emphasis on the importance of the matter and decreased stress on the time dwindling are a significant shift.

According to one person familiar with this matter, “That’s an enormous rewrite of the nonproliferation standard.”

He is basically saying that there is no question about whether it provides us with benefits comparable to previous JCPOA experiences. It simply means that it is more effective than what we have today. It’s a loose standard to say “better than” today.

Dennis Ross, an ex-diplomat from the United States who managed Iran policy for Obama White House for 2 years, agreed.

Ross stated that Ross’s formulation was “it is still in our national security interests to have this” given other options.

He stated that although the breakthroughs in the program will mean the breakout times won’t be as long, this agreement is better than any other options. That’s what makes them where they are.

Breakout is the time required for Iran to obtain fissile material to build one bomb. According to U.S. officials, this was a compromise that allowed for an agreement of approximately a year. Now it’s down to weeks.

The State Department did not respond to Reuters’ questions.

OPTIONS

There are not many good options, despite talk of “Plan B”, which could be used to deal with Iran’s nuclear program in the event that the agreement is broken.

Ross stated that other options include increased economic pressure and U.S. military action to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. Washington is trying to revive this deal, but none of these options appeal to it.

Ross declared, “Plan A is basically the same plan B as Plan A.”

Ross stated that Washington believes that restoring certain limits of the agreement, including the 3.67% limit on purity at which Iran can enrich Uranium, and the 202.8 kg limit on its enriched Uranium stock, is better than any alternative.

The March 3 International Atomic Energy Agency Report stated that Iran was enriching its uranium to 60 percent purity. It also reported that Iran’s stock of enricheduranium was at 3.2 tons.

The March talks collapsed due to Tehran’s request that Washington eliminate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from a U.S. terrorist list. This was in addition to the U.S. refusing to comply, arguing this was beyond the purview of the agreement.

On May 13, the European Union’s chief of foreign policy stated that Enrique Mora (the EU’s envoy to Iran) made sufficient progress during a trip to Tehran to allow for talks to resume.

Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iranian Foreign Minister, said that the visit offered an opportunity to resolve any remaining problems. He said that a good, reliable deal was possible if the United States made a decision to do so and abided by its promises.

A source in Europe said that neither side had made any commitments to resume negotiations after Mora’s visit. However, it was impossible for either party to reach a compromise regarding the IRGC.

This source said that the Americans had been vocal about two months back saying there was no time left and they needed to strike a deal. But they haven’t seemed to be in hurry any more since March.

An official from the West said that reviving this deal would be a political decision.

According to this source, “This is an political judgement.” Although the deal does not have its core benefits anymore, you can still argue that some aspects make it better than others.