Read the full article at the Washington Examiner

For months, President Biden and his Iranian counterpart have said they want to rejoin the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Yet neither side is any closer now to that goal, with Tehran moving further away from compliance and rejecting Washington’s offer to talk.

This standoff highlights the hazardous path of any U.S. return to the JCPOA, even if intended as the first step toward a better deal. An array of obstacles threatens to make this policy self-defeating, and perhaps impossible, for the United States.

[B]oth countries have taken steps beyond the original agreement that they cannot easily walk back.

Most importantly, and despite Iran’s insistence it can simply reverse every nuclear violation, both countries have taken steps beyond the original agreement that they cannot easily walk back. Breaching the JCPOA’s limits on advanced centrifuges provides Tehran invaluable experience operating these machines in ever-larger numbers, and the lessons learned will endure even if the centrifuges do not. Iran’s prohibited experiments in producing uranium metal for the core of a nuclear weapon pose similar challenges. Iran also is building new underground nuclear facilities not covered in the 2015 agreement, which it argues are not violations.

Iran could resume adhering to the letter of the JCPOA without rolling back these critical advances, leaving its now-expanded nuclear program facing even weaker restraints than when it previously implemented the agreement.

Read the full article at the Washington Examiner