Michael Singh is the Managing Director and Lane-Swig Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute.
Articles & Testimony
As the next round of talks unfolds, U.S. officials should remember that a weak agreement could prove to be a strategic setback in the guise of a tactical success.
Nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 powers resume this week in an atmosphere that is at once hopeful and grave. Officials from both sides have been surprisingly optimistic about their chances of reaching a long-term accord. Yet serious differences reportedly remain, and failure to resolve them would leave both sides to weigh the unpalatable alternatives to a diplomatic resolution.
Failure would be easy to recognize; what success would look like is less clear. Despite U.S. officials' insistence that "no deal is better than a bad deal," they are also keenly aware that promising diplomatic openings with Iran have been few and far between in the past 35 years, and likely worry that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's ability to withstand domestic opposition to his economic and diplomatic initiatives may be fleeting...
