In July 2015, Iran and eight other countries, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union, China, Russia, and the United States, adopted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.

The Iran nuclear agreement was considered a landmark accord. Under its terms, Iran agreed to roll back much of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections in exchange for billions of dollars' worth of sanctions relief.

In 2018, President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal and enforced more than 700 different sanctions on Iran. Many countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, disagreed with the sanctions.

As a result, Iran's already fragile economy struggled. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded by announcing that the country will no longer abide by clauses that had been earlier agreed to under the 2015 agreement. 

However, President Joe Biden rejected former president Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the JCPOA and vowed to return to the agreement. 

Despite the difficult economic situation, Iran did not sit still, quietly awaiting the nuclear deal's fate to be decided by western powers. Instead, the country has allied with the Russian Federation and the people's republic of China to upgrade its military position and shore up its economy. 

China and Russia are now constitutively involved in Iran's affairs, from its oil and port infrastructure to its defense capabilities. It’s no secret that this expanding nexus has always been encouraged by the supreme leader Khamenei. The Raisi administration is more than willing to continue the existing cooperation framework and mechanisms with the eastern superpowers.

Many analysts believe that as a result of this progressive collaboration Iran is today far less susceptible to Trump's campaign of "maximum pressure" or to Biden's re-engagement policy than it once was.

According to a survey conducted by the Univerity of Maryland and IranPoll, economic hardship has swayed the support of Irani citizens away from liberal politicians and ideas of globalization. Support for the nuclear deal (JCPOA) went down from about 80 % when it was first signed to 50 percent in 2021. The majority of the citizens believed that their government should wait for the U.S. to remove sanctions before talking to Biden. 

On the one hand, Iran is in a dire economic situation that desperately needs sanction relief. The infrastructure suffers from shortages of electricity, water, jobs, and inflation rates that have impoverished more than half the population. The Covid-19 pandemic has added to the havoc, with no proper vaccination program in place. 

, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) announced that Iran had begun enriching uranium to 60 %. With its thousands of gas centrifuges, Iran can soon enrich uranium to a grade suitable for nuclear reactor fuel or to an even higher grade suitable for nuclear weapons.

Some US government officials say that the war in Ukraine has added urgency to the matter. The future, pros and cons of the nuclear deal are widely debated.  Most claims, opinions and/ or allegations are often politically biased. Still many world leaders believe that reinstatement of deal is the most viable measure to constrain Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Will the Biden Administration be successful in re-implementing the deal?

How do you think the Russian and Chinese support for Iran will play out in the future?

The Iran Nuclear Deal

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