Two months after the Joe Biden administration took office, concerns are growing about the lack of progress between the United States and Iran. 

No breakthrough on the two sides returning to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has happened. Regional tensions are on the rise again. Rockets fired by Iran-backed militias are hitting on or near bases in Iraq that house American troops. The Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched repeated missile attacks against Saudi Arabia. An Israeli ship was the victim of an incident in the Persian Gulf and an oil slick has fouled Israeli beaches.

In retaliation for the missiles fired by an Iran-backed Shia militia at an American military facility in Erbil that killed a US contractor, the US mounted strike on a contingent of that militia in Abu Kamal, Syria, on February 25.

All observers knew that the will to return the US to the JCPOA, displayed by Biden during his presidential campaign, would face implementation difficulties. The vexing problem of “sequencing” was anticipated—who would take the first steps and how would the two countries synchronize the necessary measures to revive the agreement?

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Read the rest of the blog post at the Atlantic Council.