[News]The bad blood between the US and Iran won’t end after the prisoner deal

[Black CaT]

Five American prisoners were freed by Iran on Monday in a Qatar-mediated deal that also included the transfer of some $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds and the release of five Iranian prisoners in the United States.

The carefully choreographed agreement was years in the making and is being seen as a major diplomatic breakthrough for the two foes.

But in a sign that the pact is no indication of a wider thaw in relations, a senior Biden administration official said the deal “has not changed our relationship with Iran in any way.” Soon after the American prisoners took off from Iran, the Biden administration slapped new sanctions on the regime.

The prisoner deal is, however, an example of a new method of unwritten arrangements between Washington and Tehran, analysts say, where smaller mutual concessions are exchanged in the absence of a wider, formal agreement like the one reached in 2015 and abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018.

A new, wide-ranging agreement may be difficult for both sides to achieve as the US heads to presidential elections in November 2024. Such a pact would likely face resistance from Congress, whose approval it would need. And from Iran’s perspective, efforts to forge a new pact with a US administration that could potentially be ousted in those elections would be futile if the next president abandons it.

The Biden administration is unlikely to engage in “meaningful revival” of the 2015 nuclear deal, said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House think tank in London.

Instead, it has already agreed on an understanding that is unwritten, where Iran is rolling back (uranium) enrichment,” she said. “In exchange, the Biden administration is looking away and allowing Iran to increase its oil sales.”

The deal comes amid a significant dialing back of tensions between Iran and the US in recent months. Attacks by Iran and its proxies on US interests in the Middle East have almost ceased, and Iran’s oil exports have risen despite Western sanctions on its oil industry. Meanwhile, Iran’s uranium enrichment under its nuclear program has reportedly slowed.

Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group think tank, said a de-escalatory understanding between Washington and Tehran has created a more stable context for progress, calling it a “no deal, no crisis status quo.”

 

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/18/middleeast/iran-us-prisoner-deal-bad-blood-mime-intl/index.html