History suggests that prospects for a final US-Iranian deal are bleak

Widely diverging US and Iranian attitudes towards Iran’s nuclear programme are not just about preventing the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons. It’s also about perceptions of sovereignty and efforts by non-nuclear states, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, to level the playing field with the world’s core nuclear powers, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France, and perceived double standards built into the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) when it comes to haves and have-nots. In contrast to Iran, Saudi Arabia, insisting on its right to enrich uranium, this year successfully negotiated a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States that allows the kingdom to enrich without intrusive supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), despite evidence over the years that it is creating some of the building blocks for a nuclear weapons programme. Saudi Arabia’s nuclear focus serves various goals: diversifying its economy, reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, countering a potential future Iranian nuclear capability, and enhancing efforts to ensure that Saudi Arabia, rather than Iran, emerges as the Middle East’s long-term dominant power. None of this is to ignore the fact that the Islamic Republic, at times, has worked to become a nuclear threshold state, if not to develop a nuclear weapon.