Can the US get a new nuclear deal with Iran?
Analysis  Irans nuclear deal with world powers lies comatose. With Trump out and Biden in, America has vowed to reanimate it. But while a statesman has replaced a populist in the Oval Office. Tehran looks set to elect a new anti-American hardliner as president. News and analysis, direct from Westminster to your inbox Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription. The deal was the main achievement of outgoing President Hassan Rouhanis eight years in office: suspending crushing sanctions in exchange for the strict monitoring and limiting of Irans uranium stockpile. With nuclear-armed Israel ready to respond to any hint of atomic warfare from the Islamic republic that has vowed to destroy it, the Obama administration and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany and the EU, saw the nuclear deal as vital. In signing up, Iran halted its race to make nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief. Donald Trump and his foreign policy hawks, such as Mike Pompeo, argued  that the deal didnt curtail Irans ballistic missile program or its funding of overseas terrorist groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah. Instead they ditched the agreement and tried to crush the life out of the regime with even harsher sanctions and hoped for regime change. That didnt work. Russian and China threw Tehran a lifeline even as ordinary Iranians got poorer. But with renewed US Treasury penalties effectively killing the deal, Iran has been cranking up its uranium enrichment  its now just shy of weapons grade. Iran also restarted enrichment at a special re-inforced underground facility and is building more centrifuge halls underground, after two attacks suspected to have been carried out by Israel. The nuclear deal meant Iran needed at least a year to make enough enriched uranium for a bomb, the so-called breakout time. If Irans nuclear program remains unchecked, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned it could shrink Tehrans breakout time down to a matter of weeks. I think for the international community  and specifically for the United States  putting the nuclear program back into a box is critical, said Sanam Vakil, an Iran expert at the Chatham House think-tank. Its important because beyond the nuclear agreement, the negotiators are ultimately hoping to lengthen and strengthen the deal. The Biden administration hopes that by holding some sanctions relief back in reserve, Iran might be persuaded to curtail some of its other nefarious activities across the Middle East. In terms of reviving the basic nuclear containment deal itself, they are some hopeful signs. Although hard-line judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi appears to be the front-runner in Fridays rigged Iranian presidential election, he has recently changed tack and said he wants to return Iran to the nuclear deal to help the countrys moribund economy. Since President Joe Biden took office, US diplomats have been working with other world powers to come up with a way to return both America and Iran to the deal in negotiations in Vienna, although direct US-Iran talks have yet to start. Its certainly not as complex as drafting a deal from scratch, which is what the sides did that resulted in the 2015 deal, said Henry Rome, a senior analyst focusing on Iran at the Eurasia Group. But theres still a lot of details that need to be worked out.  And Iran could yet up the ante even further by boosting enrichment and even restarting a facility that makes plutonium as a byproduct or abandoning a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Twitter: @michael2day