Tracking the Volatile Conflict Between the U.S. and Iran

President Joe Biden has pledged to work toward returning the U.S. to an era of diplomacy with Iran, after four years of his predecessor’s campaign of “maximum pressure” on that country. He’s proposed that the two nations return to complying with the 2015 international agreement under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear work in exchange for relief from economic sanctions imposed by countries worried it was trying to develop a nuclear bomb. The U.S. and Iran both insist the other goes first, however, creating a sequencing problem that underscores the difficulty of calming tensions between them.

Biden campaigned for president on a pledge to get the nuclear accord back on track. Iran has been gradually abandoning its commitments under the deal in response to sanctions imposed under U.S. President Donald Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018. In mid-February, Iran upped the ante by notifying the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would stop allowing the group to conduct snap inspections as of Feb. 23. Days later, Biden’s government said it would be willing to meet with Iran to discuss a “diplomatic way forward.”