The transatlantic dialogue on Iran : the European subaltern and hegemonic constraints in the implementation of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran

This article analyses the US-EU transatlantic dialogue on the Iranian nuclear dossier with a particular view to implications for European Union (EU) foreign policy on Iran. Doing so, it uses neo-Gramscian scholarship to put the EU’s ‘over-compliance’ with Iran sanctions into perspective. Constrained by the imperatives of hegemonic coercion in the form of US financial Iran sanctions against third country entities and with the hegemonic consent of a Western US-led 'historic bloc', Europe was relegated to a subaltern below its mediatory potential. It will be shown how this finding complicates the EU’s ambition to renew relations with Iran. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with experts and delegation members from the P5+1, this article thus analyses ‘the normative element’ in the transatlantic security dialogue on Iran at a time where the latter is undergoing a sea change in the wake of the implementation of the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ of July 2015