Infographics: Challenges of Getting a Good Deal with Iran
With the start of nuclear negotiations tomorrow in Oman, the United States confronts major challenges to reach a deal that rolls back Iran’s enrichment program even to the weak restrictions of the 2015 JCPOA—let alone achieve an agreement to permanently and verifiably keep Tehran from a bomb—before President Trump’s 60-day deadline expires. Just to get back to the JCPOA, the Trump administration would now have to negotiate, in 1/20th the time, a deal dismantling more than twice as much Iranian enrichment capacity as in 2015, all with arguably less leverage than the United States had in talks that produced the original nuclear agreement.
JINSA has compiled two infographics: one comparing Iran’s current negotiating leverage with 2009, when the United States first offered nuclear talks to Tehran, and another showing how extensively Iran’s current enrichment program would have to be curtailed simply to return to the parameters of the JCPOA.