The Iran Deal Isn’t Dead, and a Powerful Activist Network Wants to Revive It

The biggest proponents of the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Iranian regime seem to be holding out hope that it can one day be revived. Two recent reports indicate that U.S. outreach to the Islamic Republic continues behind the scenes and that pro-JCPOA foreign-policy advocates are quietly building out the political and policy groundwork for an eventual push to bring it back in some form.

While President Biden called the deal “dead” in off-the cuff comments caught on video during a campaign rally last fall, administration officials have refused to declare it dead, only going so far as to say that it’s “not a focus” right now. Tehran’s intransigence at the negotiating table throughout 2021, Iran’s efforts to supply the Russian military with drones and other systems, and the crackdown on the ongoing protests throughout the country have put the nuclear negotiations on the back burner, according to the Biden administration.

That doesn’t mean that they can’t be brought back. In fact, there are some indications that U.S. outreach has continued amid the Iranian demonstrations.

“Diplomacy never ends as we do other things,” is how Robert Malley, the U.S. special envoy to Iran, put it during a recent BBC interview. During that conversation, he also declined to refute a report by the anti-regime outlet Iran International that he had met Iran’s U.N. ambassador three times in recent months.

Behind the scenes, a group of advocates connected to the billionaire philanthropists George Soros and Charles Koch are working to set the stage for an eventual revival of the talks, and they met at a Rockefeller estate in December to make plans, the Washington Free Beacon reported today.

A source told the website that a constellation of activist groups connected to their policy advocacy networks are finding a way to give political cover to “pro-deal Democrats” by pushing legislation to support Iranian human rights while simultaneously getting lawmakers to write to President Biden to continue to support the nuclear talks with Iran. That way, this person told the Free Beacon, members of Congress could criticize the regime’s repression without pushing for any specific action that would punish it.

The groups involved with that effort include the National Iranian American Council’s political advocacy arm, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Open Society Foundations, J Street, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Carnegie’s role in this coalition runs through Matt Duss, the former foreign-policy adviser to Bernie Sanders, who landed last year at the Koch-backed division of the think tank. The Free Beacon described a meeting by the coalition that took place last year:
The activists gathered for a strategy meeting during the week of Dec. 3 at the Pocantico Center at Kykuit, the John D. Rockefeller family’s estate in Westchester County, New York, a source familiar with the discussions told the Free Beacon. The 200-acre property houses the family’s 40-room stone manor, an underground gallery with artwork by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, and “expansive Italian-inspired gardens with French and English influences,” with views of the Hudson River, according to the New York Times.
At surface level, the Iran nuclear negotiations have stalled. But the Biden administration is keeping its options open, and a powerful, well-funded political network is throwing its weight behind an effort to get the U.S. back into the deal.