The US push to revive the JCPOA with Iran has accelerated in the wake of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. As many reports have indicated, the ongoing talks in Vienna are very close to a successful outcome. As other reports have also indicated, the US is also willing to lift sanctions on Iran, including removing the Revolutionary Guards’ designation as a terrorist group. […] The pace of these talks and the concessions that the US is willing to concede are both tied to the overall strategy of scuttling the Russian economy by manipulating the global oil production and supply.

In September 2021, the Australian, the United Kingdom and the United States governments issued a joint statement announcing the creation of a new trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS. The pact ignited the international security community and, over the past five months, has generated a broad debate over the possible non-proliferation implications attached to it. While assessments have been mixed and often conflicting, they have brought to the fore some weak aspects of the non-proliferation regime. […] AUKUS will probably not be the ultimate trigger for Iran to rush and use naval reactor programmes as a cover to acquire nuclear weapons. On the contrary, the significant progress made by the Vienna negotiations and Iran’s interest in reviving the JCPOA suggests that this is not the path Iran is wanting to follow at the moment. However, measuring the impact of AUKUS simply by whether other would-be proliferators exploit the precedent is not a sufficient metric. It ignores the question of how non-nuclear weapons states re-assess the credibility of international enforcement actions, the incentives to cooperate and reduce proliferation risks, and more generally, the costs and benefits of complying with an increasingly two-tiered non-proliferation regime.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abollahian notably said that Iran, “will not ignore the idea of direct talks with the US if this facilitates a suitable and guaranteed agreement.” Iran has refused to sit with the Americans in Vienna up until now, instead passing messages through other delegations to the talks. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei even signaled the possibility of a direct dialogue with Washington earlier, noting that it was possible to “negotiate with the enemy” without surrendering to it.

1) Iran can have enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon in as little as three weeks. 2) Iran could detonate a nuclear explosive underground in as little as six months, rattling the Middle East profoundly, destabilizing the region perhaps irretrievably. 3) Iran has made key irreversible nuclear advances, perforating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, perhaps irretrievably. 4) Iran is mastering the construction and operation of advanced centrifuges far faster than anticipated. 5) Iran remains one of the most egregious violators of strategic trade controls and sanctions.