Dr. Jeffrey Lewis

It would be wrong to see the JCPOA debate as merely an old feud. It's the closest thing we have to a test case for how to deal with Iran. The failure of the assumption that maximum pressure would lead to a "better deal" or regime collapse is highly relevant to your questions about what should come next. For example, should we now accept a ceasefire and degree of sanctions relief in exchange for a verifiable agreement to curb Iran's capacity to produce a bomb--for example with a suspension of enrichment for x number of years, prohibitions on HEU production, and limits on a LEU stockpile, even if it doesn't include everything we might want? Or should we expect that a continued blockade and renewed airstrikes will lead to a better deal, in which the regime agrees to end enrichment forever, give up its HEU, open the Strait without tolling, forego ballistic missile development and support for proxies, or possibly even collapse? Do we think Iran will respond to continued pressure by agreeing to all those demands, or is it more likely to counter-escalate, at extraordinary human and financial costs and in the absence of any nuclear constraints? These are hard questions but they should at least be informed by the lessons of recent experience rather than wishful thinking or ideology. That's why continued debate about the JCPOA remains essential. Critics argued for years that more pressure on Iran would produce a "better deal" and we wouldn't have to go to war to get it. So far they've been proven catastrophically wrong and we are now struggling at great cost to end Iran's stranglehold on the world economy--that it didn't have before--let alone get a comprehensive nuclear deal or change the regime. Continuing to act on their flawed assumptions would be to make policy based on hope rather than experience.

one of the U.S. navy divers wearing a "NOT FLAT, WE CHECKED" patch during the artemis Il recovery operation

This comment defies the facts. As of February 2021, Iran had sufficient LEU enriched below five percent to produce enough weapon-grade uranium (WGU) for up to two nuclear weapons. It had almost no 20% enriched uranium. That February 2021 stockpile is not the reason Iran was able to produce so much less than 5%, 20%, and 60 percent enriched uranium over the years. It was the increase in the number of the advanced centrifuges, clearly shown in the graphs.   As of June 2025, it had enough enriched uranium to make sufficient weapon-grade uranium for 22 nuclear weapons. We went from 2 to 22.