WE BROKE THE DEAL; WE NEED TO FIX IT:

The sanctions relief process has from the outset been riddled with problems, though, at least initially, most were unintentionally so. Now, however, Biden faces major sanctions hurdles that are entirely intentional: President Donald Trump, in his last two years in office, meticulously built a "sanctions wall" that explicitly was designed to make any return to the JCPOA by subsequent presidents prohibitive in terms of political cost.

Trump officials told The Wall Street Journal that even if potential new targets are already under existing nuclear sanctions, "blacklisting them again under terror powers makes it more difficult to reverse the action." Advocacy organisations supporting Trump's Iran policy were even more explicit. Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Trump should "build a wall of additional sanctions that a pro-Tehran successor could not easily dismantle."

These sanctions, Dubowitz continued, should "be directed not against the nuclear programme but the regime's role as the leading state sponsor of terrorism," as well as its missile programme and its human rights abuses. The explicit purpose of these sanctions, however, was to prevent a return to the JCPOA.

In due order, Trump imposed sanctions on Iran's central bank, its Ministry of Petroleum, and its state-owned oil company pursuant to terrorism-related authorities. Trump also sanctioned Iran's entire financial sector, as well as virtually all other productive non-oil sectors of Iran's economy on non-nuclear grounds. These so-called "non-nuclear" sanctions impose what is effectively an international boycott on Iran that lacks any modern historical precedent. 

But even if the Trump administration had not been transparent about the intent of these sanctions, reality is that even reimposition of sanctions on genuine non-nuclear grounds would violate the JCPOA. Contrary to popular impressions, the nuclear agreement obligates the United States to "refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly or adversely affect the normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran inconsistent" with the JCPOA, and to "prevent interference with the realisation of the full benefit by Iran of the [JCPOA's] sanctions lifting."

There is no question that Trump's sanctions violate these basic conditions of the JCPOA.

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