U.S. and Iranian envoys have been meeting since April 12, under the auspices of the Sultanate of Oman, achieving sufficient accord at the sessions to move to discuss technical details of a new agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program. The ongoing process will be complex and volatile, particularly as negotiators bring their interlocutors’ proposals back to their leaderships for decisions. Although some of the most central issues, such as the extent of limitations on Iran’s enrichment of uranium, might be soluble, other issues threaten to block the road to an accord. Asserting any agreement will be complex and take many months to complete, Iranian officials have sought to focus the initial talks on an interim agreement, offering to reduce Iran’s stockpile of its most highly enriched uranium (60% purity) in exchange for some initial relief from U.S. sanctions. The stakes of the talks are high, because failure to reach agreement might very well result in a U.S., Israeli, or joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran’s major nuclear facilities.

Scope of the Agreement

Political leaders and public opinion in both Iran and the United States will undoubtedly evaluate any pact, if achieved, in comparison to the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which President Donald J. Trump exited in 2018, during his first term. Trump cited as justification for his withdrawal its provision of extensive sanctions relief that facilitated Iran’s ability to financially support the network of regional allies that provide Iran with strategic depth against U.S. or Israeli attacks. As outlined by The New York Times, Trump and his foreign policy team are certain to insist that any new accord not only prevent Iran from a rapid “breakout” to a nuclear weapon but also constrain Iran’s broader ability to threaten U.S. regional allies and interests to a greater degree than did the JCPOA. Still, it has been the scope of limitations on Iran’s enrichment of uranium that has attracted the most attention thus far, from negotiators, global officials, and media. Comments by the chief U.S. negotiator, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steven Witkoff, have provided cause for optimism that an acceptable formula might be found to meet Trump’s bottom line objective that Iran get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. “They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. Statements by other members of Trump’s national security team, however, have restated demands for full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Assuming differences over Iran’s nuclear program can be bridged, another fundamental question centers on the scope of the new agreement. Trump administration officials have said any accord must go beyond the JCPOA to include binding limits on Iran’s longer-range ballistic missile programs as well as its support for armed groups in the region, termed by Iran the “Axis of Resistance.” Iranian leaders have rejected discussing any issues beyond the nuclear program, insisting Iran’s missile programs are not intended to deliver nuclear weapons but rather constitute a vital regional deterrent that cannot be bargained away. Javan, a conservative Iranian paper aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, wrote in an editorial that any attempt to bring the missile issue to the table would result in the immediate termination of the talks. Iranian officials have also repeatedly rejected any new restrictions on Iran’s support for its network of armed allies in the region. Several of those factions, particularly Hamas and Hezbollah, have been significantly set back by Israeli operations since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Iranian leaders regard their allied movements as fighting Israeli occupation and U.S. hegemony, in the process generating significant social bases and broad legitimacy in their societies.

Yet, there are grounds to assess that the dispute over the scope of the talks’ agenda is soluble. U.S. negotiators can argue that United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which enshrined the JCPOA, provides precedent for including limitations on these programs and operations in a revised deal. The resolution’s Annex B provided for a nonbinding ban on Iran’s development and testing of nuclear-capable missiles and acquisition of related technology, including for armed drones. And, the annex contained a binding ban on Iran’s exportation of conventional weapons, interpreted as a prohibition on Iran’s arms shipments to its regional allies. Both provisions included definitive sunsets: The conventional weapons export ban expired in October 2020 (five years after JCPOA formal adoption) and the missile restriction expired in October 2023 (eight years after adoption).

Sanctions Issues Might Prove Intractable

Two related Iranian demands might prove more difficult to resolve than differences on Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities and the scope of the agreement. Iran is demanding broad relief from comprehensive U.S.-led secondary sanctions and that U.S. commitments to sanctions relief and other provisions be irrevocable. After the April 19 meeting with Witkoff in Rome, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi explained Iran’s insistence on these points, saying: “We made clear how many in Iran believe that the JCPOA is no longer good enough for us. To them, what is left from that deal are ‘lessons learned’. Personally, I tend to agree.”

In any new agreement with Washington, Tehran insists on not only a relaxation of all U.S. secondary sanctions on Iran’s economic sectors but also to rectify what Iranian leaders identified as a key deficiency of the JCPOA – limited access to dollar-denominated transactions. The JCPOA did not lift sanctions on Iranian banking system access to the U.S. financial system, either directly or indirectly. That restriction reduced the ability of Iran’s trading partners to complete large transactions that often require the ample liquidity of the U.S. dollar, which is the world’s main reserve currency. Whether Iranian negotiators would settle for the same sanctions relief as the JCPOA, without also gaining broader access to dollar-denominated transactions, is an open question. And, even if U.S. prohibitions on direct access to U.S. banks were lifted, Iran would likely demand further guarantees that its use of the U.S. banking system would be protected. There are Iranian concerns that any Iranian assets entering the U.S. banking system would be impounded by U.S. officials seeking to enforce monetary judgments awarded by courts to victims of Iranian or Iran-backed terrorism.

It is doubtful Trump will accept Iran’s conditions on sanctions relief. He placed U.S. sanctions at the core of his Iran policy, both in his first term and the first months of his second term. Retracting sanctions relief was a key rationale for his leaving the JCPOA in 2018. Following that pullout, Trump not only reinstated all previous U.S. sanctions on Iran but added further sanctions beyond to apply “maximum pressure” on Iran’s economy. For example, in 2019, Trump designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization – an action that contributed to the failure of the administration of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to negotiate a return to mutual Iranian and U.S. adherence to the JCPOA. It is difficult to envision Trump not only reinstating JCPOA-era sanctions relief but also agreeing to provide Iran broader access to U.S. dollar transactions. Making Trump’s decision to ease sanctions even more difficult is the fact that Iran’s Parliament debated but did not pass anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing measures required by the Financial Action Task Force to open Iran to broader access to Western financial institutions.

Iran’s demand for “guarantees” that Trump or any future president cannot exit the accord might be even harder to accommodate than the insistence that sanctions relief be comprehensive. Even if Trump were to accede to Iran’s demand for a permanent agreement, a president only has the formal power to waive – not repeal – existing U.S. sanctions laws, such as the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act and the Iran Freedom and Counterproliferation Act, that pressure virtually every sector of Iran’s economy. These laws give an administration the power to compel Iran’s oil customers to stop buying Iranian oil and foreign banks to restrict Iran’s access to its foreign exchange accounts in banks worldwide – or risk exclusion from the vast U.S. economy.

Repealing the sanctions laws would require a majority vote of both chambers of the U.S. Congress. Yet, elected members have, on a bipartisan basis, always overwhelmingly supported imposition of maximum sanctions pressure on Iran’s economy – no matter who is president. Congress has also historically been disinclined to offer Iran major sanctions concessions. The JCPOA did not give Iran the assurances of enduring sanctions relief it sought, but it did provide for the president to request, eight years after JCPOA adoption (by October 18, 2023), that Congress repeal applicable Iran sanctions. Trump’s exit from the JCPOA avoided a test of the outcome of such a presidential request. It is also not possible for Trump to legally bind his successors to repeated waivers of U.S. sanctions provisions. Submission of a new agreement with Iran to the Senate as a treaty, requiring a two-thirds vote to ratify, is an alternate route to satisfying Iran’s demands. However, achieving a super-majority Senate vote on an agreement with Iran would be difficult, particularly if the proposed treaty does not require Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear infrastructure.