By Senior Research Fellow, Andrew Lumsden

The election of Joe Biden to the Presidency of the United States awakened hopes and expectations around the world that Washington will re-enter into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’), a landmark agreement which relieved some economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on the country’s nuclear program. During the 2020 campaign, both the Biden Campaign and the Democratic Party vowed not only to re-enter the JCPOA, but to “strengthen and extend it,” as well as use it as a springboard to a more “comprehensive diplomatic effort” with Iran.

While a Biden-era U.S.-Iran thaw is certainly possible, it must be understood that Iran’s current domestic political landscape is very different compared to when the JCPOA came to be, and may be moving in a direction increasingly unconducive to diplomacy and compromise with the West.