Can the Iran Nuclear Deal be Rescued?

While the top diplomatic priority at the moment is to prevent a possible war between Russia and Ukraine, another effort is underway in Vienna to try to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power. As Russia is building up its forces around Ukraine while denying it has any intention to invade, so Iran is building up its stocks of enriched Uranium, while denying it has any intention of constructing nuclear weapons. In both cases there are warnings that time is running out on diplomacy. US intelligence warns that the Russians are close to being able to launch offensives against Ukraine and also that Iran is a few months away from having enough fissile material to make its first bomb. 

For both the starting point is agreements reached in 2015. In the case of Ukraine an agreement was signed in Minsk in February that year after a meeting with the French, German, Ukrainian and Russian leaders. It has yet to be implemented. In July of that year the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed by Iran, along with the five permanent members of the Security Council (the US, China, Russia, France, and the UK) plus Germany. This deal was implemented successfully until, in 2018, President Donald Trump decided that this was a ‘horrible’ deal, walked away from it and ordered new, punitive sanctions against Iran.