where Hopes of a return to the Iran nuclear deal fade

WASHINGTON — Efforts to bring Tehran back to the terms of the Iran nuclear deal risk falling short, senior U. S. officials said, forcing the United States and its allies to consider non-diplomatic measures to contain the threat posed by Iran. For months, the United States and other major powers have held a series of indirect talks in Vienna to try to salvage the 2015 deal. The official name of the agreement is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JC POA). But those talks stalled. Some key officials in Washington have warned that time will soon be running out. "As time goes by and Iran refuses to engage in good faith in negotiations, the runway gets shorter and shorter,"U. S. Secretary of State Blinken told reporters in Washington on Wednesday during a media briefing with the foreign ministers of Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Still, diplomacy is the most effective way to achieve this, but diplomatic engagement requires two parties, and we haven't seen Iran willing to do that," he said. "If Iran does not change course, we are ready to move to other options. "Washington's special envoy for Iran gave an equally grim assessment in an online speech earlier Wednesday. "We're realistic. We know there's a good chance Iran will choose a different path," Robert Marley said when asked how hopeful he had Tehran's compliance with the Iran nuclear deal. "We have to prepare for a world where Iran has no restrictions on its nuclear program, and we have to consider options for dealing with this," Marley said. Every day that passes, every day they don't come back to the negotiating table, every day they make a statement about how little the Vienna meeting has achieved, every day we're getting a bit of an answer from Iran. "The United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018 under President Trump as part of the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions and what it called Tehran's malign activities. In response to the U. S. withdrawal from the deal, Iran has increasingly abandoned its commitments under the deal to enrich uranium to higher levels and hold a larger stockpile of enriched nuclear material. To lure Tehran back to the nuclear deal, Mali said Washington offered to lift all sanctions that were "incompatible with the JC POA. "However, he said that while the proposal appeared to have created some initial momentum, any progress had stalled after the election of Iran's new president, Ibrahim Raise. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Blinken warned that Iran's leadership is playing a dangerous game. "We agreed that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons," he told reporters. “If Iran does not change course, we are ready to turn to other options,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said. Those other options were discussed Wednesday at the State Department, with Blinken and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh About At the heart of the talks between Sheikh Abdullah Bin Al Nahyan. "Every day that passes, every delay in the negotiations brings Iran closer to a nuclear bomb," Rapid said. "Sometimes, the world has to show its cards to make sure Iran understands the consequences of rushing to become a country that has crossed the nuclear threshold. "