Western opponents of the JCPOA who have tried to use sanctions to undermine the custodians should understand that external pressure would undoubtedly delegitimize the normalizers and tip the balance of power in the spoilers’ favor. In such a scenario, the collapse of the JCPOA could not be ruled out, a process that can lead to a new round of conflicts 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 the forthcoming Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Study in Nuclear Proliferation and Rollback (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

Image: President Hassan Rouhani at a press conference. Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/Meghdad Madadi