In July 2015 the conflict between the United States and Iran over the latter's nuclear programme seemed to reach a resolution, in the form of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). For the first time leaders on both sides, in the form of Presidents Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani, demonstrated a simultaneous willingness to make the concessions necessary to satisfy sufficient of the other's demands for an agreement to be reached. On the American side, having managed to impose an effective sanctions regime without forcing Iran to halt enrichment, Obama decided that he had run out of options. As time progressed without a resolution, and the Iranian programme continued to advance, the choice seemed increasingly to be between accepting Iranian enrichment or risking war. By choosing the former, and thus meeting Iran's one non-negotiable demand, Obama made an agreement possible. Nevertheless, the fact that Iran took up the offer and made the necessary reciprocal concessions required other developments to have occurred. Rouhani had been ready to make the deal agreed in 2015 since 2003, but had been prevented from doing so by the American refusal to concede on enrichment and the power of Iran's hardliners. While Obama's shift removed the first obstacle, a combination of economic failure (in which sanctions played a role) and the regime's ongoing legitimacy crisis gradually shifted the balance of power in Iran toward the more moderate factions, creating the political conditions in which Rouhani could make the deal.

Obama and Engagement

In a speech in Israel in 2008, Obama outlined his views on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear programme:

In order to prevent such an outcome it would be necessary ‘to offer a series of big sticks and big carrots to the Iranian regime’.