TEHRAN – The Biden administration is not ready to resume talks with Iran to revive the JCPOA under the new Iranian president, the White House national security council spokesman said during a press conference on Monday.

When asked if Washington is ready to resume talks with Iran to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the election of a new Iranian President, who appears to be more in favor of engaging in negotiations with the West compared to his conservative predecessors, John Kirby replied with a blunt “no”. When asked to speak louder, Kirby added that Iran’s support for Resistance groups in West Asia and its alleged – and rejected – supply of drones to Russia to be used in the Ukraine war means the U.S. cannot resume talks with Iran to revive to the JCPOA, a deal that solely focuses on Iran’s nuclear program and promises to remove sanctions against Tehran if it limits its nuclear activities.

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by Iran and the 5+1 group of countries namely the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia. The deal was scrapped in 2018 by Donald Trump’s administration which reinstated sanctions against Iran under a “maximum pressure campaign.” Joe Biden criticized Trump for the move during his presidential campaign, saying he would begin talks with Tehran to revive the nuclear pact. Several rounds of talks were held after Biden’s victory. The deal, though, is just about dying.

Why is the JCOPA still on life support?

Various groups tend to assign blame to different actors for the current state of the JCPOA. Some argue that Iran bears more responsibility compared to the U.S., including one of the West Asian country’s two primary political factions, the reformists. The recently elected president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, is commonly associated with this faction, although he has stated that he does not adhere to any particular political group.

Pezeshkian was endorsed by reformist figures who previously supported Hassan Rouhani in his successful 2013 presidential bid – which ultimately led to the inking of the JCPOA.

Appearing often besides Pezeshkian during his campaign was Mohammad Javad Zarif, Rouhani’s foreign minister. Zarif staked his career on the JCPOA and faced backlash when Donald Trump left it in shambles in 2018. In his remarks during his three years of absence from Iran’s government, the former top diplomat often criticized his conservative rivals for "squandering" opportunities to revive the deal.

When away from the foreign ministry, Zarif mocked Iranian officials for awaiting the “harsh winter” to see the West budge – referencing a controversial prediction by an Iranian expert who said a few months after the commencement of Raisi’s administration that Russia’s war in Ukraine would force the West to go easy on Iran due to a sudden shortage of gas triggered by the ban of Russian energy products in Europe.

Zarif repeated his accusations when he appeared on national TV as Pezeshkian’s advisor during a political roundtable in June. He said a law adopted by parliament in 2020 which ordered the government and nuclear officials to scale back on Iran’s JCPOA commitments made it impossible to revive the deal. “One force that tried to hinder the revival of the JCPOA was Israel which assassinated [top nuclear scientist] Martyr Fakhrizadeh. The other [force] was The Strategic Action Plan,” he said adding that during the final six months of Rouhani's presidency, Iran had several chances to reinvigorate the 2015 deal, but these efforts were thwarted by the conservative-dominated parliament.

With the victory of Pezeshkian in the presidential elections, which many had not foreseen, some analysts saw a glimmer of hope for the U.S. to rejoin the JCPOA. Paul R. Pillar, a 28-year CIA veteran, was one of these people. “The ball for any future engagement is now in the West’s court and especially the United States,” he wrote for an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy. “In the wake of Pezeshkian’s unexpected election, the United States now has an opportunity to react in a constructive way and advance the cause of greater stability in the Middle East.”

Iran was never the problem

Kirby's simple "no" aligns more with the perspective of analysts and officials holding views vastly different than those of reformists. This group believes the JCPOA is already dead and that Washington is uninterested in reviving it, no matter what it says.

“During the beginning days of Biden’s time in office Wendy Sherman, who was the Chief U.S. nuclear negotiator, told American lawmakers that the JCPOA cannot be revived in its initial form as ‘the facts on the ground have changed.’ Biden does not want to revive the JCPOA. He wants Iran to make other compromises and who takes office in Iran will not change that,” Mahdi Khanalizadeh, a political expert and university professor told the Tehran Times.

Khanalizadeh expressed his belief that the JCPOA was intended to address not only Iran's nuclear program but also its regional and military policies since the very beginning. “Obama was planning to ink second and third JCPOAs after 2015. Trump did not have the patience for that and wanted new limitations on Iran’s capabilities sooner.”

The expert explained that a comprehensive agreement akin to the JCPOA is unlikely to be achieved between Iran and the United States. Rather, he suggested that the two nations should concentrate on addressing individual and distinct matters, like how they agreed to swap prisoners in 2023. "I believe there are numerous complexities and challenges in the bilateral relationship that would hinder the successful negotiation and implementation of another such deal. We saw how the JCPOA failed. I think Tehran and Washington should work on specific cases that are points of contention until they can gradually move towards a reconciliation throughout the years.”