The Iran nuclear deal: A Bionian commentary

Abstract

The threat of a nuclear war became more evident when President Trump walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the Iran nuclear deal. The agreement, reached between Iran and the P5+1 (The United States, Britain, China, France, Russia, and Germany) in 2015, was the most important nonproliferation agreement in decades. In this paper, the author provides a detailed history of the relationship between Iran and the United States starting with the Central Intelligence Agency's covert Operation Ajax in 1953 that led to the overthrow of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. The impact of the United States' role in the Iran–Iraq war as well as President Bush's declaration of Iran as a part of the “Axis of Evil” will be discussed in the context of the present situation. The challenges facing the Biden administration in negotiating with Iran will be explored, given the past and current chasm between Iran and the United States. The author draws on Wilfred Bion's model of the mind and offers a perspective on the unconscious group dynamics present in the current geopolitical climate around the threat of the impasse, or possible collapse of the negotiations, in reviving the nuclear deal between Iran and the United States. The paradoxes and dilemmas faced by both parties will be examined through the vertex of Bion's concept of the container/contained, and the significance of the “function of linking” as the foundation of psychic existence.