With Iran, Diplomacy remains the only path forward

Highway in Tehran, source squarespace free images.

The original version of this piece ran in the January 19th edition of the Kentucky Standard.

Just over six years ago, my friends and I were celebrating Implementation Day.

On January 16th, 2016, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly referred to as the Iran Deal, moved from adoption to implementation. The Iranians had met their key nuclear-related obligations in the agreement.

The Iran Deal marked nearly 15 years of diplomatic efforts related to Iran’s nuclear program. Much of that progress happened in the later stages of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration and continued thru the early years of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency. The diplomatic engagement wasn’t just bilateral between Iran and the US, rather it represented a heavy lift through multilateral engagement–mainly the permanent five members of the UN Security Council and Germany.

The agreement, signed in the summer of 2015 and implemented six months later, focused solely on Iran’s nuclear program and nothing else. And at its root, curtailed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

For the next two and half years, the deal worked. Iran’s uranium enrichment program remained limited. The US rolled back sanctions and held off adding new ones.

But in May 2018, the Trump Administration found it prudent to back out of the agreement, promising to get a better deal. Sanctions were reimposed, waivers were not renewed. A year later, Iran began expanding enrichment beyond JCPOA limits. And a year after that, stockpile limits were exceeded and technological know-how was expanded.

The Trump Administration never negotiated in any meaningful way and all but killed off any attempts by imposing more sanctions and by assassinating revered Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp officer Qasem Soleimani. Iran, for its, part continued expanding its nuclear program and now can enrich to a level just below what’s needed as part of a nuclear weapon.

The JCPOA is effectively dead. Iran likely is not going back to low-level enrichment and if they do, it will not erase the knowledge they have gleaned over the last four years–even accounting for the targeted assassinations of their nuclear scientists. In the U.S., it’s nearly impossible for President Biden to lift sanctions in any meaningful way without either jeopardizing the mid-term elections or having the Democrats keep hold of the White House in 2024.

This is the current state of play. A nuclear agreement in tatters. Zero trust between adversaries. And very little political impetus from either side to actually engage at any fruitful level, despite eight rounds of negotiations.

War isn’t inevitable, though. Which I suppose is a good thing. While there have been low-level tit-for-tat responses to escalations, both sides have shown remarkable restraint to not be pulled in to a larger military conflict–something neither side could afford.

An Iranian bomb isn’t a fait accompli, either, but it’s looking increasingly likely. They haven’t mastered the required fuel cycle, but are close. They can’t seem to master the technology required for ballistic missiles at any significant range or the sorts of advancements required to arm a nuclear warhead. Those things are another two to three years away. But let’s not forget, anti-Iran folks have been telling us for 30 years that Iran is just a few years away from getting a bomb. I suppose they’ll finally be correct, though this was likely avoidable.

Polls in the US suggest Americans are in favor of using diplomacy to settle disputes. But those same polls suggest Americans are in favor of bipartisanship. And in the same way that Americans largely refuse to accept the steps required for bipartisanship, they largely disincentivize the actions necessary for diplomacy to work.

From conversations over the last six years since implementation day, much like bipartisanship, Americans view diplomacy as an exercise where their side walks into a room, issues their demands, and through sheer force of will alone the other side acquiesces to the demands. That, unfortunately, isn’t how either works and precisely how we have gotten here–both domestically and internationally.

In many ways, diplomacy is harder than a military conflict. Those engaged in peacemaking are going against what is historically human nature–settling disputes on the battlefield. And in many cases, folks on either side are too impatient to allow for the time required to build the sort of trust needed for diplomacy to work.

Those opposed to diplomacy have the easiest case to make. The other side being the enemy, the other side being bad, all concessions however small are nothing more than appeasement to a nefarious regime hell-bent on regional or global hegemony. (Iranian hardliners make the same argument against diplomacy as American conservatives do, by the way).

Finding ways to resolve our disputes with other countries doesn’t mean there will be an absence of tension or everyone will sit down to sing kumbaya. Our diplomatic mission with Canada is often our busiest in resolving disputes and our northern neighbor is one of our closest allies. Thus, tension between humans and nations is a historical axiom. It has been so and so will it be.

But can we accept the mechanisms required to resolve those disputes without resorting to violence? Can we institutionalize diplomacy with our adversaries? That means letting go of our grievances, recognizing theirs, then finding ways to build and manufacture trust, even when trust is at a deficit.

We’ll be better for it.