The U.S. and Iran have been engaged in on-off talks about the resuscitation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the ‘nuclear deal’ – for some months now following the U.S.’s unilateral withdrawal from the treaty in May 2018. So far, little progress has been made on any of the key issues involved on either side , although recent economic and financial data from Iran has kept the Islamic Republic at the negotiating table. There are hopes in some quarters of the U.S. State Department that this data, in conjunction with the election in Iran on 18 June of a new president, will result in a softening of Tehran’s stance towards accepting the tougher clauses that Washington wants to include in any new nuclear deal. These hopes, though, are likely to come to nothing, as the Iranian Presidential Election has been multiply rigged to ensure that no […]