President-elect Joe Biden has made it clear that his preferred method for dealing with Iran is to find a way back to the nuclear deal the Obama administration concluded in 2015, while bargaining for an extension to some of its key provisions.
“If Iran returns to strict compliance,” Biden wrote in a September op-ed for CNN, “the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.”
The Iranian regime, for its part, has made it clear that, in reaction to last month’s assassination of its nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, it intends to ramp up its production of enriched uranium while threatening to expel international inspectors by early February if the United States doesn’t immediately lift sanctions.
The regime has also ruled out any extensions to the nuclear deal, from which President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018. “It will never be renegotiated,” said Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. “Period.”
There’s a way out of this impasse. The Biden administration should – and, more important, can – bide its time.