In Vienna this week, negotiations continue between Washington and Tehran over how to reinstate the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which aimed to restrict the Islamic Republic’s ability to develop the technology necessary for producing atomic bombs. Jacob Nagel and Mark Dubowitz explain the risks of a bad deal:

The talks revolve primarily around what the West should pay the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism for the privilege of re-entering a faulty nuclear agreement that in 2015 granted Iran everything it wanted—namely, a patient pathway to atomic weapons and massive economic relief. The Iranian strategy is clear: wield the threat of nuclear escalation to extort massive economic concessions in the form of American sanctions relief and a return to the JCPOA. This will give the regime tens of billions of dollars and allow it to forge ahead on nuclear research and development. (Sadly, the regime’s advances are based on knowledge and production capabilities they gained by violating the 2015 agreement).

By returning to the JCPOA, the regime can legally install advanced centrifuges, build up their enrichment capabilities, and wait for key restrictions to sunset over the next two to nine years. After 2030, there will be no prohibitions on the Islamic Republic’s ability to enrich massive uranium quantities to weapons grade.

The U.S. can permanently cut off Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons or collapse at the negotiating table. It’s now time for the Biden administration to choose.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.