TEHRAN - In a commentary published recently by the Middle East Eye, the writer suggests now that the chances to fully revive the 2015 nuclear deal is shrinking due to certain reasons, Iran and the United States “should consider an interim deal” within the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  

Following is an excerpt of the commentary:

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, reiterated that in order to revive the Iran nuclear deal, “the most important issue is that the economic sanctions against Iran should be effectively removed".

He continued: "Downplaying this key issue and focusing on another issue [delisting the Iranian Revolution Guards from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list) is not the correct response. We have not yet seen Biden act differently from Trump in practice. We have left the door for diplomacy wide open to reach a good and lasting agreement.”

President Joe Biden has decided to keep Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) on the U.S. blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). He conveyed this decision to Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in April, stating that the decision was final and that the window for concessions to Iran had closed. 

The Trump administration placed the IRGC on the FTO list in April 2019 to make it as difficult as possible for the next administration to undo the damage.

Paul Pillar, a senior fellow at Georgetown University and former executive assistant to the director of US Central Intelligence, has stated: “This move was a clear misuse of the FTO list. Of the 73 organizations currently on the list, 72 are - as creators of the list intended - non-state groups. The IRGC is the only one that isn’t.”

During a public interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN at the World Economic Forum, Amir Abdollahian said: "We have intelligence that the Zionist regime has taken the foreign policy of the U.S. hostage." 

This is consistent with what an Iranian official, who requested anonymity, told me.

He said that, in 2011, during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, in an international conference under Chatham House Rules, a former chief of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) told an Iranian ambassador: "You are negotiating with the six world powers on your nuclear program but, in the end, we will decide on Iran's nuclear program.”

On 25 March, Robert Malley, the lead U.S. negotiator for the revival of the nuclear accord, told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Iran’s demand for delisting the IRGC from the FTO list was unrelated to the 2015 nuclear deal and that, as a result, Tehran would have to offer an equivalent “reciprocal” concession to Washington, which it has thus far failed to do.

He emphasized, however, that “a military option cannot resolve this issue. It could set it back. The only real solution here is a diplomatic one.”

The reality is that, after a year of negotiations, there is an agreement on the choreography of how Iran and the U.S. would rejoin the 2015 deal. The key remaining issue is Iran’s demand for a guarantee that the U.S. will abide by the deal and not withdraw again.

Biden is unable to guarantee that Congress or the next president will not overturn the deal again. Therefore, Iran’s logic has been that, in the absence of such a guarantee, an equivalent “reciprocal concession” for Tehran would be delisting the IRGC from the U.S. terrorist blacklist.

If the hang-up is the inability of the U.S. to guarantee - at least before the November U.S. midterm elections - that, if the nuclear deal is revived, it will be sustained, or that the IRGC will be removed from the FTO list, Tehran and Washington should consider an interim deal. One possibility would be a "two vs two plan of action" within the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).