In the summer of 2015, a team of us working on behalf of the United Nations Security Council reached an agreement with Iran many had thought impossible. We were confident that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. A combination of factors, from destruction of centrifuges to intrusive monitoring systems, made sure it complied, in return for the gradual lifting of sanctions and the return of seized assets. Had Iran decided to renege on the deal, verification systems would reveal this long before it had any chance of building a weapon. The international community would have time to deal with the problem.

The agreement was the result of painstaking work that started as early as 2003, when France, Germany, and the UK began to try and persuade Iran not to pursue a nuclear weapon. Joined later by the United States, Russia, and China, they created the P5 – permanent members of the UN Security Council – plus one, Germany, with the European Union as chair of the talks. As the first ever EU High Representative, I took over as chair of the talks in 2009, continuing until a short time before the final agreement was struck and my tenure in office ended.

Progress was slow, or non-existent for a long time, until the arrival of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, elected in the summer of 2013. He brought a fresh impetus to the talks, and it took only a few months from his taking office to reaching the interim agreement which froze Iran’s programme and started to reverse its activities. The long slog succeeded because of the willingness of teams from all six nations, plus the EU, and Iran, to spend weeks together working through proposals, testing ideas and negotiating on the finer details. In the end the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), did what was asked. It gave confidence in the purely peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

The JCPOA was not only the most significant agreement of that time; it laid the ground for future negotiations, addressing Iran’s hostile actions in the region, its ballistic missile programme, and its failures to uphold human rights. US President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the agreement in 2018 dashed any hope of further talks. The US administration argued the deal was simply not tough enough, left too many possibilities for Iran to build a nuclear weapons programme in the future, and had emboldened Iran in the region, giving it more resources to use in support of its proxies. Nothing would persuade President Trump that building on the agreement already in place was a better option than ripping it up and starting over again.

Sadly, today’s events underscore the folly of that short-sighted thinking. The options now being discussed to allow access to the Strait of Hormuz have echoes of some parts of the JCPOA, but none represent a fully fleshed out programme of actions by both sides to deal with the problem some argue was the basis for the war. This brings us to one of the clear lessons from the JCPOA that is not yet being applied in the current situation.

From the beginning of the JCPOA negotiations, we were clear about what we were trying to do. And we stuck to it. There were many pressures to include other issues, and many suggestions for what part of the deal we needed to focus on. I described it as a jigsaw puzzle. The size and shape of the pieces mattered less, as long as they fit together and the picture was clear. The lack of clarity about what the purpose of the current conflict with Iran hoped to achieve. How will they know when they have succeeded?

For now, the most critical part of their negotiation has to be the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. But even with the clarity of that objective, another important factor in the JCPOA negotiations needs to be factored in, namely the process.

We met for sustained periods of time – sometimes weeks – as we got closer to an agreement. Pre-meetings determined our objectives for each session as a team, then informal discussions with Iran allowed us to work out logistics, timing, and the agenda for each day. Technical teams got ready to take on work as ideas emerged, and conclusions were collated at the end of each session. We have already seen the challenges of not writing down conclusions: Israel’s continuing war in Lebanon was seen by Iran as included in the ceasefire, not necessarily by the US and almost certainly not by Israel. Agreeing on each step is vital. Short meetings with “final offers” may get somewhere, but not to sustainable agreements. These take time. And reaching a solution beyond opening the Strait will require experienced, detailed negotiators, ready to put in the time to get to a solution that gives confidence in the outcome – just as the JCPOA did.

In the end the JCPOA failed, as President Trump withdrew the US from the agreement. He had a different view, and the power to enforce it. In theory, however, the JCPOA belonged to the UN Security Council, whose permanent members had negotiated it, and who had designated the EU to lead it. But the power to save the pact from the choices of one member did not exist. Once the US had decided to leave there was nothing to be done. Efforts by the EU to save it, and attempts by the Biden administration to repair the agreement, ultimately came to nothing.

What now? Any long-lasting agreement needs to be grounded in the legal, sustainable framework of each nation, and each organisation involved. Whatever deal is reached needs to rely on more than one president at one moment in time.

Parties to the JCPOA have largely been replaced by those with a greater vested interest in the region itself. Pakistan is the location of choice to meet, its government trusted at a minimum to pass messages in both directions and offering to be a mediator between the two sides. Joined by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, it has brought together a quartet willing to work together in search of stability.

Yet there is a broader question to be answered: how is the international community to go forward in a time of individual action rather than collective will? New groupings may give us the clue. As the Gulf countries weigh their traditional alliances, and major players from China and India to Saudi Arabia and Turkey consider the opportunities to be effective leaders of change, we may be witnessing a reformation of the post-war settlement. Where in this mix is Europe?

The continent still has a major role to play if it chooses to do so – as Europe as a whole, not just its constituent parts. Its position has been tested by the war in Ukraine, hardened by its internal struggles to grow capabilities, and challenged by its failure to develop a common foreign policy. It now has a chance to restore its relevance: to step up and be the convenor in a world that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described so vividly in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. But this requires individual nations to put the collective action of European members first. This is a big ask and one we have yet to see in action.

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

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