The U.S. Could Build on the Prisoner Exchange Deal, But It Won't

Instead of seeking to use this as the foundation for making additional progress, the administration goes out of its way to reject that possibility.

Brett McGurk tells Jason Rezaian that no one should expect the prisoner exchange deal to lead to any further diplomatic progress:

This deal was not linked to nuclear diplomacy. It was negotiated separately, in Doha. At the same time, we have told the Iranians in no uncertain terms that diplomacy cannot meaningfully advance if American citizens are being wrongfully detained.

Similarly, if Iran is escalating conflicts in the region, or supplying drones to Russia for its war on the Ukrainian people, this makes the prospect for meaningful diplomacy hard to envision. We have made that clear to Iran repeatedly and consistently.

It doesn’t surprise me that this is the line that the administration wants to take, and it perfectly captures why the administration has had so little success in negotiating with Iran (and other sanctioned states). The deal that led to the release of five Americans this week was proof that the U.S. and Iran could still reach a mutually acceptable compromise through negotiations. The U.S. achieved through a modest compromise what years of “maximum pressure” economic warfare failed to deliver.

Instead of seeking to use this as the foundation for making additional progress, the administration goes out of its way to reject that possibility. McGurk emphasizes that there is no chance of reaching agreements on any other issue because the Iranian government engages in destructive behavior elsewhere. Rather than seeing a small deal as creating an opening between our governments, the administration is quick to quash the idea that this is anything more than an isolated, one-off deal. The administration might as well say, “Look at how well diplomacy can work, and we are never going to do anything like this ever again.”