The U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal—What Took So Long?

  I have been doing some reading on the history of U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations this week and stumbled across an interesting piece by Dan Joyner.   

Joyner argues out that none of the concessions Iran made at Geneva in November were new or represented a major shift in Iranian policy. He notes, “…none of them, and not even their sum, is beyond what Iran had already offered in past negotiations, going back at least to 2005.” 

Indeed, the Arms Control Association has an excellent timeline of diplomatic efforts regarding Iran’s nuclear program and another listing all of the past proposals from the parties over the years that supports his point. It seems like the general parameters of an U.S.-Iran nuclear deal have been sitting on the table for nearly a decade, which begs the question of what exactly took so long for the sides to sign off on it?

Yousaf Butt, a scientist from the Federation of American Scientists, attributes the recent breakthrough to “improved atmospherics” which made the deal suddenly doable. I think what Butt really means by “improved atmospherics” is a change in the domestic politics in Washington and Tehran. 

From my perspective, the domestic political calendars in both Washington and Tehran have been unfortunately timed for many years (if not decades) which has made moving towards cooperation politically tedious at home for each nation’s leadership until very recently.

This has left me with a few additional questions, thoughts and observations worth considering:

(1)   While Iran’s nuclear policy was often fluctuating and opaque, U.S. policy towards Iran seems to have undergone clear shifts from “no nuclear weapons” to “zero enrichment” to “no nuclear weapons” again which align nicely with the U.S. election cycle. Iran, of course, has never been willing to accept a zero enrichment deal. This was partly because Iran does have the legal right to enrich uranium as part of a peaceful nuclear energy program under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and partly because enrichment became a hotly debated political issue between Tehran’s hawks and doves.

(2)  Did the latest U.S. and international economic sanctions have the affect everyone seems to think they did and brought Tehran to its knees and caused a major shift in Iran’s position? Or were sanctions domestic political cover for the Obama administration to please hawks in Congress while subtly shifting U.S. policy from “zero enrichment” to “no nuclear weapons” while claiming the sanctions worked?

(3)  Did Hassan Rouhani’s election really make the difference? Or was it Obama’s reelection and the quick onset of being second-term lame duck president with a hostile Congress that won’t move his domestic agenda forward an inch? (Or was it both?)