For others, notably Western opponents of the JCPOA who have tried to use sanctions to undermine the custodians, the reading should be even more somber. External pressure would undoubtedly delegitimize the normalizers and tip the balance of power in favor of the spoilers. In such a scenario, the collapse of the nuclear agreement could not be ruled out, a process that can lead to a new round of conflict in the already fragile region.

Dr. Farhad Rezaei is a research fellow at Center for Iranian Studies (IRAM) in Ankara, Turkey. He is the author of Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Study in Nuclear Proliferation and Rollback (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). He tweets at @Farhadrezaeii.

Image: President Hassan Rouhani after a cabinet meeting. Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/Siamak Ebrahimi