The Bankrupt Alternatives to the Nuclear Deal

The diplomatic path remains the only path forward.

Suzanne Maloney thinks salvaging the nuclear deal is no longer realistic, so she proposes some even less realistic alternatives:

If Biden wants to secure international visibility for Iran’s nuclear activities, he must rally like-minded states to ensure that the country abides by its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And if Washington wants to stop Iran’s malevolent behavior at home and abroad, it must preserve space for the protests. The mobilization of the Iranian people represents the world’s best shot at bringing about positive and lasting change in the country’s role in the world.

If this sounds far-fetched and unworkable, that’s because it is. It makes no sense to respond to moribund negotiations to save the nuclear deal by pursuing a much more ambitious agenda. Betting on the long shot of regime change as a solution is not a serious alternative. It is little more than wishful thinking.

The Biden administration has been unable to revive a carefully negotiated nonproliferation agreement in part because it refused to take any political risks to make the necessary policy changes, and it has paid the bare minimum of attention to this issue for the last two years. It is absurd to think that an administration that couldn’t cope with a relatively straightforward challenge of reentering an agreement that the U.S. abandoned is going to be successful with more difficult tasks. Having repeatedly failed to make the diplomatic equivalent of a lay-up, the U.S. is not going to start making half-court shots at the buzzer.