U.S.Policy Towards The Iran Nuclear Deal

The Iran Nuclear Deal is part of Obama’s political legacy,indicating that he is actively committed to resolving the Iranian nuclear issue and to mending the U.S.-Iran relations.However,Trump declared after he came into office that he would renegotiate the agreement and even threatened to withdraw from it.In May 2018,Trump made the decision to withdraw.Trump’s policy on the agreement differs a lot from Obama’s and brought the U.S.-Iran relations to a very low point.This thesis will answer the following questions:How did international negotiations and domestic bargaining contribute to the U.S.commitment to the Iran Nuclear Deal under the Obama administration?Why did the U.S.take a different position towards Iran and the Iran Nuclear Deal?How did international negotiations and domestic bargaining prevent the U.S.from continuing commitment to the deal under the Trump administration?This thesis adopts the two-level game theory to analyze the different policies of Obama and Trump on the Iran Nuclear Deal.It concludes that international negotiations and domestic political actors play different roles in these two policies.Under the Obama administration,at the international level,the U.S.played an important role in the international negotiations.First of all,Obama emphasized the U.S.leadership on the non-proliferation issues,and pointed out that the deal was in the U.S.national security interests and could resolve the Iranian nuclear threat.He also reached consensus with other countries at the negotiating table to expand the overlapping area of win-sets.Secondly,at the domestic level,the agreement was strongly opposed by the Republic majority in Congress and the pro-Israel interest group AIPAC.Therefore Obama turned to seek the support of Democrats and made his compromise to Congress.Finally,Obama used the strategy of "issue redefinition" to increase the possibility of a successful deal.Under the Trump administration,at the international level,the U.S.was the major force for its withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal.Trump repeatedly demanded agreement renegotiation and the imposition of sanctions against Iran,which contradicted the preferences of other major negotiators.Seeing the bleak hope to renegotiate and opposing preferences of other negotiators in international negotiations,the U.S.threatened to withdraw from the agreement.At the domestic level,the Trump administration shared the preferences with Congress and the AIPAC,which unanimously supported the decision to withdraw from the agreement.Finally,given Trump’s intention was to drop out,he did not actively adopt any negotiating strategy,leading to the passive withdrawal from the agreement.The contribution of this thesis is that by using the two-level game theory to analyze the different U.S.policies under Obama and Trump,it has sought to fill the gap in previous studies that pay little attention to the interconnection between the international and domestic levels.It has made useful addition to the two-level game theoretical research and the U.S.policy research on Iran as well as the Iran Nuclear Deal.