The New York Times ran an article under the headline “Iran and U.S. Agree on Path Back to Nuclear Deal,” reporting that the two nations “agreed to try to synchronize Washington’s lifting of sanctions and Iran’s limiting of uranium enrichment.” While welcoming the good news from Vienna, few in Tokyo seem to be optimistic.
As a student of Middle East politics since 1978, I am one of those skeptics in Japan. The Times wrote that Washington and Tehran had agreed through intermediaries to establish two separate working groups to try to get the two nations “back into compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.” I sincerely hope they eventually will.
The mediation initiative was launched by European members of the deal together with the European Union. Russia and China, other signatories, also joined the negotiations. That said, this has been so far a desperate dual-track discourse to revive the aborted 2015 deal. The following are some of my personal observations: