New Iran Deal Worse Than No Deal?

But whatever differences of opinion remain, there’s no doubt that Iran and the international community are the closest they’ve been to a deal ever since Trump tore up the last one four years ago. The question is, what’s inside the deal taking shape? How does it differ from the previous deal? And will the West’s claim that this is the final draft prove accurate, or will the Iranians succeed in dragging out the process and securing further concessions?

John Hannah, the Randi and Charles Wax Senior Fellow at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy, expects the worst. “Let’s stipulate that we don’t know all the details of what’s been negotiated,” he says. “But what we do know looks bad enough.”

According to Hannah, this will certainly not be the longer, stronger deal that the administration promised when it came into office.

“It’s already acknowledged as much,” he says. “By definition, a straightforward return to the 2015 deal today will be a shorter, weaker agreement. There’s been no extension of the sunset clauses, so all the restrictions on the size and scope of Iran’s nuclear program now expire within nine years instead of 15. And because Iran will get to retain all the capabilities that it gained from violating the deal for the past three years, especially when it comes to highly advanced centrifuges, its breakout time in the best case will go from 12 months under the 2015 deal to less than six today.”