The Foreign Service Journal - October 2017

28 OCTOBER 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL I n July 2015, the United States and five other countries concluded an agreement with Iran concerning that country’s nuclear program. The negotiations stretched over 20 months and the resulting accord ran to more than 30,000 words, but it was based on a simple tradeoff: Iran would get relief from economic sanctions and in return would dismantle parts of its nuclear infrastruc- ture and place limitations on the rest. The goal was to assure the world that the program would not be used to develop nuclear weapons. While some hailed the successful conclusion of the talks as MAKING FOREIGN POLICY Doing foreign policy has rarely been easy, but several new realities contribute to making it especially difficult today. Dennis Jett is a professor at Penn State’s School of International Affairs and served 28 years in the State Department, including assignments as ambassador to Peru and Mozambique. His fourth book, pub- lished by Palgrave Macmillan and titled The Iran Nuclear Deal: Bombs, Billionaires, and Bureaucrats , will be out in October. BY DENN I S J ETT FOCUS ON DEALING WITH IRAN What the IRAN Nuclear Deal Says About TODAY ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/XTOCKIMAGES