The Iranian Rubik’s Cube: Understanding the Impacts of Pressure, Engagement, and Domestic Determinants on Nuclear Negotiations with Iran

Abstract/Contents

Abstract: On July 14, 2015, the P5+1 and Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a landmark nuclear agreement that significantly limited Iran’s nuclear program in return for international sanctions relief and peaceful nuclear cooperation. Starting in 2002, when Iran’s illicit nuclear program was publicly revealed, the international community worked for over a decade to resolve the dilemma, with each attempt at negotiations resulting in failure. This leads one to question, why did the JCPOA negotiations succeed despite over a decade of failed attempts at negotiations? While a number of policymakers credit pressure, specifically economic pressure, with the success of the JCPOA, this thesis finds that economic pressure alone was insufficient to successfully reach a deal. Rather, by analyzing six cases of negotiations with Iran from 2002 to 2015, with information gathered from interviews, government statements and documents, news articles, and secondary sources, this thesis finds that five conditions were necessary to reach an agreement. Those conditions include significant economic pressure on Iran; broad international diplomatic isolation of Iran; a substantive overlap of goals, made possible by a willingness to compromise on critical issues; the prioritization of direct engagement, focused on a discrete objective, as a top foreign policy objective; and, American and Iranian domestic political landscapes that enabled the signing of an agreement.

Type of resource	text
Date created	June 3, 2019

Author	Shneider, Elizabeth
Primary advisor	Kahl, Colin
Advisor	Bridgeman, Tess
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation

Subject	Center for International Security and Cooperation
Subject	Iran
Subject	diplomacy
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/th111fk5597

License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Shneider, Elizabeth. (2019). The Iranian Rubik’s Cube: Understanding the Impacts of Pressure, Engagement, and Domestic Determinants on Nuclear Negotiations with Iran. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/th111fk5597

Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses

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