Page 7 - IRANRptJun22

However, with the US mid-term elections looming in November, US President Joe Biden probably calculates that he can ill-afford to take the IRGC off the list as his opponents would present the move to voters as weakness.
Iran, meanwhile, is reportedly very close to having enough enriched uranium for at least one nuclear bomb—though weaponising it—something Tehran claims it has no ambitions to do—might take a few more years.
One possibility for an interim deal to preserve but not fully restart the JCPOA, in which Iran is supposed to verifiably keep its nuclear programme in the civilian sphere in return for the lifting of economic sanctions, would see Iran firstly stop producing uranium enriched to 20% and 60% uranium-235 and limit itself to producing uranium enriched to less than 5%, and, secondly, return to compliance with an additional protocol so that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could again verify that Iran was not producing centrifuges for a clandestine enrichment facility.
For its part, the US would drop sanctions on purchases of Iran’s oil and lift sanctions on Iran’s financial institutions, including its central bank.
Such a possible interim arrangement was on May 31 described by Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University, and a former chief of Iran’s National Security Foreign Relations Committee, in an opinion piece for Middle East Eye.
Wrote Hossein Mousavian: “The reality is that Israel, the US and Iran are already in a shadow war, one that has been playing out for years on land, sea, air and in cyberspace. Biden’s Iran negotiator told the congressional hearing that ‘nuclear talks aren’t dead, but almost’. An interim deal could still salvage the accord and potentially provide the basis for full compliance by both sides after the US elections this November.”
7 IRAN Country Report June 2022 www.intellinews.com