As officials from Washington and Tehran return to Vienna for talks that aim to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran hawks in the US Congress are determined to prevent that happening. In a letter sent to the US president Joe Biden on February 7, Republican US senator Ted Cruz and 31 of his colleagues threatened to block any attempt to revive the agreement.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015 by Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, and the US) was seen internationally as a major coup for the Obama administration. But Barack Obama was followed into the White House by Donald Trump, who pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018 and reimposed severe sanctions, under a policy of “maximum pressure”.
This set relations between the US and Iran firmly back on a hostile path. A string of bellicose incidents by both sides resulted, including the assassination of Iran’s most powerful security and intelligence commander, General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.
