In attempt at damage control, US says sanctions relief for Iran is ‘performance based’

US President Donald Trump’s administration rushes to perform damage control after Iranian officials leak what they claim are details of the memorandum of understanding that the two countries are on the verge of signing.

“⁠Nuclear material will be destroyed and removed and⁠ ⁠(Iran’s) nuclear program will be dismantled,” a senior administration official says in a statement sent to querying reporters.

But those would only appear to be concessions that the US is seeking to secure from Iran during subsequent nuclear talks that the sides will hold during the 60-day truce extension inked as a result of the MOU slated to be signed in the coming days.

The MOU doesn’t actually see Iran make any major nuclear concessions, beyond pledging to never obtain a nuclear weapon — something Tehran has long claimed it wasn’t pursuing, even though the US and Israel argued otherwise

The senior administration official adds that the agreement will see to it that the Strait of Hormuz is open and that Iran will not provide any funding to terror groups.

The latter clause is not believed to be in the MOU and is more likely to be something that the US will try to raise during the subsequent negotiations during the 60-day ceasefire extension, though Iran is unlikely to embrace the idea.

Nonetheless, the senior administration official says in a statement, “This is what they have agreed to. This is a performance-based deal.”

The dynamic appears similar to what played out after the Gaza ceasefire agreement brokered by the US, which effectively divided the accord into two phases, with the first still being difficult, but thornier issues were left for later that have yet to be resolved.

In the weeks and months following the Gaza ceasefire deal, US officials insisted that Hamas had agreed to give up its weapons, something that is expected of the terror group in the second phase of the deal, and something that Hamas has shown little indication that it is prepared to do. Accordingly, Trump’s Gaza plan has stalled.

In the case of Iran, the US is again claiming that the Islamic Republic made all sorts of major concessions up front about its nuclear program, including that the US will be allowed to extract all of Tehran’s stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium, even though Tehran has made no such concession.

That issue, along with the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear facilities, will surely be at the top of the agenda during subsequent nuclear talks, but the US appears determined to frame these issues as already settled as it seeks to sell a deal that critics say falls well below what was promised when the war was launched.