Get ready for “Maximum Pressure 2.0” on Iran

OCCASIONALLY, THERE are second acts in American diplomacy. During his first term, Donald Trump abandoned the nuclear pact agreed on in 2015 by Iran and world powers. He went on to pursue “maximum pressure”, crippling sanctions meant to compel Iran into a stricter agreement. It was only half successful: the sanctions battered Iran’s economy, but Mr Trump left office without a deal.

Now he may get another chance. Many of the sanctions have remained in effect under Joe Biden, but American enforcement has flagged: Iran’s oil exports climbed from less than 600,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 2019 to a high of 1.8m b/d earlier this year, almost all of them sold to China. People close to the president-elect are keen to resume the pressure in January—but such talk has prompted unease in the Middle East, and not only in Iran.

Though Mr Trump has been vague about his plans, many of his cabinet nominees support tougher sanctions. Marco Rubio, his pick for secretary of state, opposed the original nuclear deal and criticised Mr Biden for his failure to enforce an oil embargo. Mike Waltz, Mr Trump’s choice as national security adviser, wants to “reinstate a diplomatic and economic pressure campaign” against Iran.

There may be dissenting voices, such as Tulsi Gabbard, who is tipped to be director of national intelligence. But advocates of fierce embargoes have spent four years making detailed plans for how to implement them and the sceptics have no clear alternative. The new administration will probably go with the ready-made policy.

Tougher American enforcement could well block up to 1m b/d of Iranian exports. That could halve Iran’s oil revenue at a time when its budget deficits are already widening fast. What is more, Mr Trump might be able to avoid a big rise in American petrol prices. The International Energy Agency, a global forecaster, predicts an oil-supply glut of more than 1m b/d in 2025. The market could probably absorb the loss of some Iranian crude.

Still, the effect might be temporary, since Iran has built a resilient network to defy sanctions. So the question is what America wants to achieve; sanctions are meant to be a means, not an end. For some hardliners in Washington, the ultimate goal has always been regime change.

That may be a minority view, but there is broad consensus beyond the incoming administration that a new nuclear deal is necessary. Even some supporters of the original agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), think there is no going back to it. The JCPOA sought to keep Iran’s “breakout time”, the period it would need to produce a bomb’s-worth of enriched uranium, to around one year. It limited Iran’s uranium stockpile to 300kg enriched to 3.67% purity.

Iran has blown past those limits. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, estimated in October that Iran had more than 6,600kg of uranium enriched to various levels. That included 182kg at 60% purity, a hair’s breadth from weapons-grade. It has also resumed production of uranium metal, which can be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb. Iran could probably produce a bomb’s-worth of enriched uranium in less than two weeks. Reviving the jcpoa would lengthen that time-frame—but it would still be far less than a year.

Ask and ye might receive

America could ask for many things in a new deal. It could insist that Iran dismantles some of its nuclear facilities, particularly those that were used in the past for weapons research. It could require Iran to implement the Additional Protocol, an addendum to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which gives the IAEA further inspection powers. Beyond capping enrichment, a new deal could also try to restrict Iran’s missile programme, or demand that Iran curtails its military support for its proxies.

The problem is that diplomats have tried to negotiate some of these provisions in the past. Iran refused. This is where advocates of maximum pressure think Mr Trump is their secret weapon: he could threaten to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails, and he might seem crazy enough that Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, would take him seriously.

Mr Khamenei may not, though. After a year of back-and-forth missile attacks between Iran and Israel, many conservatives in Iran would be reluctant to negotiate away their nuclear programme. Instead he could try to call Mr Trump’s bluff. He knows that the new president does not want a war with Iran and that some of his allies are keen to disengage from the Middle East in order to focus on China. Rather than a comprehensive accord, Iran could propose a limited one that simply pulls its nuclear programme back from the threshold. It could offer to get rid of its stockpile of 60%-refined uranium, by blending it down or by shipping it out of the country, and to cap enrichment once again.

This would be hard for Mr Trump to defend, a far weaker agreement than the one he abrogated in 2018. But he could argue that his predecessor left him a mess. A more limited deal would find some support in Iran, too. Hardliners seem to have accepted that they cannot muddle along without sanctions relief.

Binyamin Netanyahu opposed the JCPOA and has dreamed for years that America might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. But he would struggle to sabotage the new administration’s diplomacy. The Israeli prime minister has long promoted Mr Trump as Israel’s greatest champion in America; it would be ironic if Mr Trump ended up securing Republican support for a watered-down agreement with Iran.

Gulf states, meanwhile, worry that he will fail. Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, supported maximum pressure during Mr Trump’s first term; now he talks cheerily about how Saudi Arabia’s relations with Iran are “on the right path”. The Saudis are keen to avoid a repeat of Mr Trump’s first term, when Iran targeted their oilfields. Prince Faisal visited Iran last summer, the first such trip in seven years. There is talk of joint military exercises.

The kingdom has also tried to distance itself from Israel. At a conference in Riyadh earlier this month, Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince, condemned Israel not only for its wars in Gaza and Lebanon but also for its recent air strikes on Iran. The Saudis worry that Mr Trump may want them to cut ties with Iran and have urged the coming administration not to shatter their fragile detente. With the Middle East mired in an ever-widening war, few are in the mood to take risks. ■

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