Any New Iran Deal Would Likely Only Be Temporary

T here was speculation that earlier this week, the eleven months of negotiations in Vienna would finally end in a completed Iran deal. Indeed, EU foreign minister, Josep Borrell Fontelles, tweeted that the final text of the agreement is “essentially ready and on the table.” As of Thursday, however, the deal has stalled — most notably due to Russian demands for protection from sanctions on its trade with Tehran.

Yet Iran, too, continues to have demands despite the hundreds of billions in sanctions relief and the lax nuclear limits it could inherit in this deal.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that Iran’s Tasnim news agency “quoted an Iranian official saying that there were still important matters linked to guarantees and sanctions that had not been resolved.” Iran wants a guarantee that future U.S. administrations won’t pull out of the deal.

When negotiations started last spring under more-moderate President Rouhani, Iran said that a guarantee for the duration of the Biden administration would be enough. Since then, under new hardliner President Raisi, Iran has gone back to demanding a permanent guarantee.

On the surface, the demand appears to reflect Iran’s ire at the breakup of the last deal. Ayatollah Khamenei, who didn’t like Obama’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the first place, was nonetheless incensed and humiliated when it crumbled.

But guaranteeing that the terms of the new deal will be permanent is practically impossible. And the Iranians know that; Trump pulled out of JCPOA in 2018. Even now, Republicans are warning Biden and the Iranians that the deal would not last. On Wednesday, Mike Pence said that when Republicans regain the majority — which seems more and more likely — they will “end the JCPOA just as quickly as we ended it under the Trump-Pence administration.”

Iran’s demand for a guarantee, therefore, might not be sincere; it’s likely strategic. Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, believes that “Iran has played up fear that a future U.S. president could again walk away.” It’s a savvy move. According to Rubin, “to get around” Iran’s purported fear, “Biden appears prepared to front load rewards like lifted sanctions, new investment, maybe some cash penalties.” “This is what Iran wants,” says Rubin.

And it’s working. The Biden administration is sweetening the deal as much as possible — arguably to the point where this isn’t even a deal, but a capitulation. At the end of January, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran was doubling down on its demands for a permanent guarantee from the U.S. Since then, Iran has reportedly scored the lifting of terrorism sanctions and the lifting of the IRGC’s FTO designation.

Rubin told National Review that “legally, if the White House doesn’t submit this deal to the Senate for ratification as a treaty, a future president could walk away.” The last JCPOA was an international agreement, not a treaty. Per Article II of the Constitution, the president “shall have Power . . . to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” If an agreement does not get ratified as a treaty by the Senate, it does not qualify as the ”the supreme Law of the Land.”

The Biden administration is trying to brand the new deal as a return to Obama’s JCPOA to skirt around what would be a contentious bid at congressional approval.

With the last JCPOA, Republicans condemned Obama’s circumventing of Congress. Led by Senator Tom Cotton, 47 Senate Republicans went so far as to send a letter to the Islamic Republic of Iran during JCPOA negotiations stating that the signatories “will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement.”

Currently, Republicans are trying to ensure accountability from the White House. For instance Congressman Andy Barr (R., Ky.), in conjunction with Senator Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), introduced the Iran Nuclear Deal Advise and Consent Act of 2021 last April to cut off federal appropriations used to reenter the JCPOA if the administration can’t get the agreement ratified by Congress.

Barr, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told National Review: “Congress needs to pass my bill to cut off federal funds used to rejoin the JCPOA unless the Senate ratifies the agreement as a treaty. If President Biden wants to rejoin the failed JCPOA, he should be required to follow the constitutional process in order to do so.”

Republicans could also potentially tack on a bill reimposing sanctions on Iran to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2022 (NDAA). The behemoth of a defense-spending bill is typically passed with bipartisan support, so it’s unlikely Democrats would tank the whole thing to stop holding Iran accountable for terrorism. Aside from the terrible optics of such a stance, Democrats have always been supportive of keeping Iran on the hook for sponsorship of terrorism, even under Obama’s JCPOA.

Any way you spin it, a deal (should it happen) would likely die. But that may not matter to the Iranians, who will stand to gain plenty in the meantime. Iran is currently five weeks from breakout capability; the deal would only push that up to under six months (well before a new president takes office).

Most crucially, it will gain up to $130.5 billion in sanctions relief. Iran needs money now. According to Rubin, the country’s leaders have “driven their economy into the ground even before sanctions, and the cash infusion really will allow them to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.” This is especially true for Iran’s proxies. Rubin, who visited Hezbollah territory in Lebanon last year, reported that “Residents there — including former Hezbollah members — said the group was losing its members in droves as the money dried up.” Rubin believes that a new deal would “throw a lifeline to Hezbollah.”

Given a likely impending red wave, the current deal on the table would likely be scrapped. But that probably doesn’t matter to Iran, which gets plenty of goodies in the meantime.