While the American president-elect has suggested that he will “dismantle” the deeply flawed agreement to limit the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, Joseph Lieberman and Mark Wallace argue that U.A. interests would be better served by first enforcing it—as the Obama administration has refrained from doing—and then trying to renegotiate it:

To date, the Iranian regime has made clear it has no intent to honor the spirit or letter of the JCPOA, [as the deal is formally known]. Iran’s pattern of reckless behavior has accelerated over the past year. Its anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Arab rhetoric has grown stronger, and its actions have matched its rhetoric. . . . In June, the State Department again designated Iran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. . . .

With U.S. leadership, a new coalition [including Israel and America’s Arab allies] could address the policy omissions in the JCPOA by, for example, securing an agreement with Iran to curb its regional aggression, state sponsorship of terrorism, and domestic repression of human rights. In exchange, Iran could be given broad-based sanctions relief and even normalization of relations.

However, if Iran refuses, the United States and our allies will have great leverage to hold Tehran accountable under the existing accord. Iran has already twice exceeded its allotted limit for heavy water; it has test-fired multiple ballistic missiles, in defiance of UN Resolution 2231, which endorses the nuclear deal; and, according to German intelligence estimates, Iran has continued its “illegal proliferation-sensitive procurement activities” at a “quantitatively high level.” The United States and its partners have closely adhered to the letter of the JCPOA; they should demand that Iran do the same. . . .

If Iran does not change course, the president-elect should make clear he is prepared to impose a new round of comprehensive secondary sanctions against Iran—and then to walk away, with cause, from the JCPOA. Then it will be time, as the president-elect has said, to tear up this agreement

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.