Iran deputy FM says ‘ready to move forward’ in deal with US

The signal from Tehran that Iran’s deputy foreign minister sent this week—“ready to move forward”—is less about a sudden breakthrough and more about a calculated gamble that the Biden administration still sees value in reviving the 2015 nuclear deal. The comment arrives as both sides weigh whether the political cost of re-engagement is now lower than the cost of continued stalemate. For Iran, the calculus is clear: each month without sanctions relief further erodes its currency, deepens public discontent, and pushes its uranium enrichment program closer to weapons-grade levels. For Washington, the dilemma is sharper—reopening talks risks appearing desperate while walking away risks ceding influence to hardliners in Tehran and their regional allies. What onlookers may overlook is how much has changed since the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action lapsed in 2018. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has expanded dramatically, its ballistic missile program has advanced, and its regional proxies—from Iraq to Yemen—have grown bolder. Meanwhile, the U.S. has tightened its sanctions net, frozen Iranian assets abroad, and repeatedly warned that military options remain on the table if diplomacy fails. The deputy foreign minister’s phrasing—“if the United States is serious”—is code for a demand that Washington not only lift sanctions but also curb Israel’s covert strikes inside Iran and restrain its Arab partners from escalating tensions. That demand underscores the depth of mistrust: Tehran no longer sees the JCPOA as a standalone agreement but as part of a broader regional détente that Washington has yet to deliver. The next chapter could unfold in one of two ways. Either Washington and Tehran find a face-saving formula—perhaps a limited sanctions waiver paired with a mutual de-escalation pledge—or the two sides default to a slow-motion crisis in which Iran inches closer to a nuclear threshold while Israel continues to degrade Iranian military assets. Either path risks drawing in other players: Saudi Arabia, already uneasy about U.S. reliability, may accelerate its own nuclear ambitions; Russia and China could exploit the vacuum to deepen ties with Tehran; and the risk of miscalculation—whether in the Strait of Hormuz or on Israel’s northern border—remains uncomfortably high. What this moment reveals is a broader erosion of the post-2015 order. The JCPOA was never perfect, but it anchored a fragile stability in the Gulf. Now, absent a new framework, the region is drifting toward a patchwork of ad-hoc agreements and proxy wars—a landscape where diplomacy is reduced to last-minute salvos rather than sustained engagement.