Attack on Iran’s Natanz plant muddies U.S., Iran nuclear talks

WASHINGTON — The attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility is casting a major shadow over Tuesday’s resumption of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran over resurrection of the international accord limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

Neither Iran nor the U.S. say the incident will crater the negotiations. But the attack and the destruction of a significant amount of Iran’s uranium enrichment capability add uncertainty to the discussions in Vienna.

The attack gives both sides reason to harden their positions, yet each has incentives to keep the talks on track.

Iran wants Washington to lift sanctions that have contributed to damaging its economy, including measures not related to its nuclear program. It insists that the sanctions be lifted before it returns to compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement that then-President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018.

For the Biden administration, the talks are a highstakes gamble that it can salvage what the Obama administration considered one of its prime foreign policy achievements and slow Iran’s programs, even as critics claim the accord had given Iran a pathway to a nuclear weapon instead of closing it off.

Iran has blamed Israel for the destruction at an important underground facility, and Israeli media has been filled with claims from unnamed officials claiming responsibility.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has taken a hand’s-off approach, neither praising nor condemning the attack. The White House said the U.S. “had no involvement” and had “nothing to add to speculation about the causes.”

The attack adds a fresh complication to discussions in Vienna and also to President Joe Biden’s efforts to smooth ties with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enjoyed a close relationship with Trump, who abandoned the Iran agreement and began a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Iran by imposing harsh sanctions.

The U.S. has said it is prepared to lift or ease sanctions that are “inconsistent” with the nuclear deal along with sanctions that are “inconsistent with the benefits” that Iran expected to get from agreeing to the accord. The deal had removed nuclear sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its atomic program, although critics noted that many of those restrictions are timelimited and will expire before 2030.

Those same critics, including many in Congress, have expressed concerns that non-nuclear sanctions — such as those imposed for terrorism, ballistic missile activity and human rights abuses — may be on the table in the negotiations. The administration has not specifically commented on that but has said it will not offer Iran sweeteners unrelated to the agreement.

Israeli officials have raised concerns, too, about what they fear would be a precipitous U.S. return to the deal, and news of the attack broke as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was visiting Israel. Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in Brussels later this week for talks with European and NATO allies likely to touch on Iran.