Richard Nephew is the Bernstein Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has spent much of his career in the U.S. government in various capacities. From 2022-2024, he was the inaugural U.S. Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption at the Department of State. He was also
Articles & Testimony
If carefully negotiated and given enough time to demonstrate results, a new deal could prevent a crisis in the near term and create a foundation for regional stability down the road.
Of all the consensus-bucking foreign policy moves that President Trump has undertaken, few have been more surprising than the resurrection of nuclear talks with Iran. Trump, after all, pulled the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018. And after four years in which the Biden administration failed to negotiate a deal to replace the JCPOA, the prospects for a new agreement seemed slim. Instead, during those seven intervening years, Iran produced enough near-weapons-grade enriched uranium for multiple warheads. Yet despite their history of enmity, Tehran and Washington have shown consistent, mutual interest in a deal since Trump’s return to the White House. Over the course of several rounds of talks, the two sides have even sketched out potential frameworks. Both have clear motivations for getting a deal done. But although Trump has said that he wants to deal with the nuclear issue quickly and insists that an agreement is close, long-standing issues between the two parties are likely to bedevil the process...
