Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The U.S. military has been working on a weapon that could strike remote targets quickly, a development that risks triggering a new arms race with foreign adversaries.
In the nuclear realm, suggesting that first-use is unthinkable is misleading.
When Tehran agreed in November to the interim deal and the U.S. Senate moved to increase sanctions, it reinforced the idea in Iran that no matter they do, good or bad behavior, the same answer comes out of the United States.
Reaching a final agreement with Iran over its nuclear program is going to require some very hard compromises from hardliners both in Tehran and in Washington.
There is a mismatch of expectations between America and Iran in terms of what a comprehensive deal should look like. The United States expects Iran to drive its nuclear program further in reverse, while Iran expects America to lift all of the sanctions.
Under the new nuclear deal, the broad sanctions architecture remains. Iran’s oil industry is still under sanctions, and if indeed Iran wants to emerge from that isolation, it’s going to require some consistent nuclear compromise.
While the Iran nuclear deal offers a potential nuclear détente, the United States and Iran are not on the verge of a rapprochement just yet.
The interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 includes technical limitations on Iran’s program but most importantly serves as a confidence-building process.
Both pressure and diplomacy were essential in pushing Iran to the negotiating table and reaching an interim nuclear deal.
The success of nuclear agreements are judged over a period of months and years, not over a period of minutes.