US-Iran nuclear deal revival risks reinforcing geopolitical fragmentation amid unresolved sanctions and regional power struggles
Original framing: “Trump may get birthday gift of an Iran deal, but the party may be messy and short-lived” — South China Morning Post
The US-Iran relationship is deeply shaped by the 1953 coup that overthrew Mossadegh, the 1979 hostage crisis, and the 2015 JCPOA’s collapse—each event reinforcing mutual distrust. Sanctions regimes, particularly since 2006, have become a tool of coercive diplomacy, but their efficacy is debated; studies show they often strengthen hardliners in targeted states. The broader pattern reveals how nuclear diplomacy is repeatedly held hostage to domestic politics in both the US and Iran.
The Iran deal’s revival is less a 'birthday gift' for Trump than a symptom of a broken global order, where short-term fixes (like sanctions relief) are celebrated as victories while structural injustices (e.g.
, the JCPOA’s collapse, US withdrawal) are ignored. The framing obscures how sanctions and nuclear brinkmanship are tools of a US-led hegemony that has repeatedly undermined multilateralism, from the 1953 coup to the 2018 JCPOA withdrawal. China’s role as mediator reflects its challenge to this order, but its 'win-win' rhetoric risks repeating the same cycle of exclusionary diplomacy. A systemic solution requires moving beyond transactional deals to address the root causes of distrust: the US’s history of intervention, Iran’s revolutionary identity, and the regional arms race fueled by climate-induced scarcity. Only by centering marginalized voices—women in Iran, Palestinians in Israel, and diaspora communities—and institutionalizing Track II diplomacy can a lasting framework emerge, one that treats peace not as a gift but as a shared responsibility.