For Biden, Iran Presents a Tough Road From Promise to Policy

By Ian Talley and Michael R. Gordon

WASHINGTON -- President Biden's national security team foresees a rocky road in pursuing one of his principal foreign policy promises: persuading Iran to return to the 2015 nuclear deal and then pressing for a follow-on accord that sets tougher limits.

The new administration jump-started its diplomatic agenda in its first days in office by extending the New Start nuclear arms-control treaty with Russia and rejoining both the Paris climate accord and the United Nations' World Health Organization.

But its hopes to coax Iran back into the nuclear accord are a far thornier prospect, with U.S. sanctions policy potentially posing an early diplomatic obstacle.

The U.S., under the terms of the 2015 accord, agreed to ease a specific set of sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in exchange for constraints on Iran's nuclear program. Separate U.S. sanctions, levied against Iran under authorities targeting terrorism, ballistic-missile development and human rights abuses, weren't part of the nuclear deal.

"If Iran comes back into compliance, we would, too," Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was confirmed to his post by senators on Tuesday, testified last week.

During the past four years, however, the Trump administration not only reimposed the sanctions lifted under the 2015 deal but also sanctioned many of the same sectors of Iran's economy under antiterror powers or tied them to sanctions on the development of ballistic missiles. Using the antiterror authorities, Donald Trump targeted the oil and financial industries critical to the country's economy -- a strategy intended in part to make a return to the nuclear deal difficult.

While top Biden administration officials said they plan to preserve some sanctions on terrorism and human rights grounds -- and may levy new ones under the same authorities -- Iran's leadership insists the U.S. revoke all of the sanctions imposed by Mr. Trump.

Timing is also an issue. Iran has said the U.S. should make the first move by taking off sanctions, while Biden officials say Tehran needs to first come into compliance.

"The incoming Biden administration can still salvage the nuclear agreement," Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, wrote Friday on the Foreign Affairs magazine website. "The administration should begin by unconditionally removing, with full effect, all sanctions imposed, reimposed or relabeled since Trump took office."

Even without the dispute over sanctions, coaxing Iran to adhere to the Iran deal and then agree to still more-stringent limits in a future accord would be a challenge, officials and Middle East analysts say. "We're a long way from there," Mr. Blinken said last week.

Since the Trump administration left the Iran deal in 2018 and ramped up its use of sanctions, Tehran has responded by breaching the agreement's enrichment limits, stockpiling enriched uranium and conducting prohibited research on advanced centrifuges that can more rapidly produce fuel for a possible nuclear weapon. It also has begun work on an assembly line to produce uranium metal, which could be used to make the core of nuclear warheads.

Most of the steps can be reversed and are seen by current and former officials as a way for Tehran to build negotiating capital. But the steps also have reduced the amount of time Tehran would need to amass enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, to several months from a year.

An even bigger test may lie in the Biden administration's promise to not only revive the 2015 deal but also conclude a follow-on accord with more stringent limits and broader scope.

One aim of a follow-on agreement, Biden officials say, would be to prolong tough constraints on Iran's nuclear activities that are scheduled to be eased over time according to terms of the 2015 accord. These include measures that limit how much uranium Iran can stockpile, cap the material's purity at 3.67% -- which is far from weapons grade -- and restrict how many centrifuges Iran can operate.

Such "sunset provisions" have been sharply criticized by some U.S. lawmakers, as well as officials in Israel and Arab Gulf states, who say they would enable Iran to gradually expand its nuclear infrastructure and potential option to pursue nuclear weapons.

Another goal of a follow-on accord would be to cover Iran's ballistic missile program, which is discouraged but not prohibited by the 2015 deal, Biden officials have said.

Mr. Zarif wrote that Iran isn't prepared to renegotiate the terms of the 2015 deal, but he didn't rule out the possibility that Tehran might agree to additional constraints in a future accord in return for additional concessions. Iran, however, has long argued that its ballistic missile program is necessary to counter the advanced air forces of its Arab and Israeli adversaries.

A follow-up agreement could also force the Biden administration to undertake some intricate diplomatic maneuvers. First, it would need to remove nuclear sanctions if Iran returns to the limits of the 2015 deal. But then the administration would need to seek new forms of leverage -- either the threat to impose fresh sanctions, reimpose some old ones or an offer of greater economic incentives -- to persuade Tehran to agree to stricter constraints.

"The 2015 deal was always a way to gain time and was never a permanent solution," said Gary Samore, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and a weapons of mass destruction expert on former President Barack Obama's National Security Council.

"Since both sides want it, they should be able to figure out a way to revive the 2015 deal," Mr. Samore added. "But I don't see any way to get to a quick agreement on a follow-on accord. Iran will resist all of our demands to extend and strengthen nuclear constraints."

Though the 2015 deal didn't take the form of a treaty that requires Senate approval, the Biden administration has promised to consult with U.S. lawmakers, including critics who have urged it to use the leverage from Mr. Trump's pressure campaign.

"A policy of containment rather than appeasement is the only approach that will be successful," Sen. James Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week.

To facilitate diplomacy, Mr. Biden is expected to name a special envoy who would consult with European allies who are party to the accord and other foreign partners, including Israel, before meeting with the Iranians.

In recent days, Mr. Biden has discussed the Iran nuclear issues with Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Biden administration officials have said little about which specific Trump sanctions they might retain and which they would roll back.

Brian O'Toole, a former Treasury official and an expert on sanctions at the Atlantic Council, said the Biden administration could waive the effects of terrorist-related sanctions under Treasury authorities instead of formally revoking them. But he added that it wasn't clear if Iran would be satisfied with such a procedure.

"There is a way to technically do this, but that kind of negotiation could take some time," Mr. O'Toole said. "The expectation that full return to the Iran deal happens overnight may be misplaced."

--Laurence Norman in Brussels and Sune Engel Rasmussen in London contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Talley at [e-mail] and Michael R. Gordon at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-28-21 1012ET