Iran deal tantalizingly close

Washington DC: Last week's attack on author Salman Rushdie and the indictment of an Iranian national in a plot to kill former national security adviser John Bolton have given the Biden administration new headaches as it attempts to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

A resolution may be tantalizingly close. But as the US and Europe weigh Iran's latest response to an EU proposal described as the West's final offer, the administration faces new and potentially insurmountable domestic political hurdles to forging a lasting agreement.

Deal critics in Congress who have long vowed to blow up any pact have ratcheted up their opposition to negotiations with a country whose leadership has refused to rescind the death threats against Rushdie or Bolton.

Iran also vows to avenge the Trump administration's 2020 assassination of a top Iranian general by killing former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iran envoy Brian Hook, both of whom remain under 24/7 taxpayer-paid security protection.

Although such threats are not covered by the deal, which relates solely to Iran's nuclear program, they underscore deal opponents' arguments that Iran cannot be trusted with the billions of dollars in sanctions relief it will receive if and when it and the US return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, a signature foreign policy accomplishment of the Obama administration that President Donald Trump withdrew from

in 2018.

This is a tougher deal to sell than the 2015 deal in that this time around there are no illusions that it will serve to moderate Iranian behaviour or lead to greater US-Iran cooperation, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace.