Despite the harsh anti-Iranian rhetoric employed by Donald Trump before and after his unilateral withdrawal from JCPOA in May 2018, it appears that the US would now prefer a new negotiated deal with Iran over the more complicated and costly option of going for regime change.
But the US hopes of forcing Iran to the negotiating table for a more comprehensive deal have so far remained frustrated. The fact remains that neither serious domestic problems, in the form of violent nationwide protests at petrol rationing and price increases, nor huge anti-Iran demonstrations in places like Iraq and Lebanon, have influenced an Islamic regime that remains weakened but ostensibly defiant.
Failure of the ‘4+1’ (UK, France, Germany, Russia and China) to provide Iran with the practical support it needs to overcome US sanctions, has forced Iran to reverse some of its agreed undertakings under JCPOA, along with hints that it might altogether withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it had signed in 1968.
