Nuclear Talks - Western Negotiators Fail To Recognize Iran's Position

 

moon of alabama

This week new negotiations about a U.S. return to the nuclear deal with Iran took place. To set these into context and to understand the various positions it is helpful to look back at how this came to pass.

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In 2015 the Iranian government, the five members of the UN Security Council and Germany agreed on a deal (JCPOA) that would lift sanctions against Iran in exchange for limits on Iran's nuclear developments. The deal happened after a lengthy period during which Iran had been under global sanctions.

But even with the deal in place then U.S. president Barack Obama did not lift all the sanctions he had agreed to lift. Iran's economic situation recovered a bit after the deal but never to the extend that had been expected. Still in general both sides stuck to the deal. Iran limited its nuclear program which was also put under continuous IAEA inspections.

Donald Trump, the next U.S president, did not like the deal. Israel and his donors told him to end it to later goad him into attacking Iran. In May 2018 the U.S. left the deal and reimposed sanctions.

Iran waited for a full year. It then started to expand its nuclear program under a clause in the deal that allowed it to do so when other participants do not fulfill their promises. The program has since made quite significant progress towards higher enriched Uranium.

The Trump administration expanded the sanctions against Iran under a 'maximum pressure' campaign. These new sanctions were often not directly related to Iran's nuclear program and hit entities that had no relations to it. The point was to create so many 'unrelated' sanctions that any of Trump's successors would have problems to remove them and to reenter into the nuclear deal.

During the 2020 election campaign now president Joe Biden promised to reenter the nuclear deal. But even several months after he took office nothing had happened on the U.S. side. Instead of simply removing the sanctions Trump had imposed the Biden administration wanted Iran to give more for less. Next to a reduction of Iran's nuclear program it also wanted to prolong the deal, add new negotiations about Iran's ballistic missile program and still keep some of the sanctions.

During the same time Israel waged a secret war on Iran by sabotaging its nuclear program and by killing its nuclear scientists.

After some stops and goes new negotiations were launched in 2020. Six rounds of talks followed during which a scheme of step by step, sanction releases against nuclear program reductions, were agreed upon. But one clause the U.S. insisted upon led to breakdown of the negotiations. The U.S. wanted the ability to reimpose all sanctions unless Iran agreed to serious negotiations about its ballistic missile program and its support for resistance groups in the Middle East. Neither of these issues were part of the original nuclear deal.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected those conditions and the negotiations broke down. Meanwhile elections in Iran put a less liberal government into place.

The new government had criticized the previous one for giving in to U.S. demands. The U.S. expected the new government of Iran to immediately return to negotiation table and to start from where the previous negotiations had stopped. The new Iranian government was never likely to do that. It took time for the incoming Iranian administration to work its way through all the details of previous negotiations and to agree to a new strategy.

This week new negotiations between Iran, the other JCPOA members and the U.S. took place in Vienna.

The new Iranian negotiation team presented two papers. One describes all the sanctions Iran expects to get lifted and the measures that need to be taken to guarantee that these will not be arbitrarily imposed again. The second paper describes how Iran will reduce its nuclear program after the lifting of sanctions has been verified.

Iran's demands are now stronger than some of the points the previous Iranian negotiation team had asked for and which it had preliminarily agreed upon.

The 'western' participants of the negotiations badmouthed the new Iranian requests:

The nuclear negotiators for the E3 – France, Germany and the U.K. – told Iranian negotiators in coordination with the U.S. that the opening proposals they presented in Vienna nuclear talks this week were unserious and unacceptable, an E3 diplomat briefed on the talks said.
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• The E3 diplomat said the draft on sanctions relief was extreme and maximalist, with the Iranians increasing their sanctions relief demands in comparison to the draft agreement achieved with the previous Rouhani government last June.
• The second draft on Iranian nuclear measures was also very hardline. The E3 diplomat said the Iranians removed all of the previously agreed compromise language on steps they will take to roll back their nuclear program. In practice, the Iranians agree to fewer limitations on their nuclear program.

That is not what Iran has asked for or demanded.

The request by Iran is a return to the state of the original deal before the U.S. left it and reimposed sanctions. Iran also wants some form of guarantee that the U.S., after a potential return to the deal, will not again leave it.

These requests are not 'hardline' but quite reasonable.

Iran is now expecting a statement from the other side that would constitute a reasonable offer and opening position. Differences between the proposals by each side could then be talked about.

The 'west' has so far made no such offer but insist to go back to the state of the previous negotiations and to the concession the Rouhani administration had made. However the supreme leader and the Iranian electorate have rejected those positions. They elected the new President Ebrahim Raisi because he insists on a full return to the original deal while rejecting any further conditions.

Today, after a second day of negotiations, the delegations went back to their home countries. They will reconvene next week for another round.

The U.S. and its 'western' proxies will the have to make their position clear. Does the U.S. want to go back to the original deal or will it keep insisting on a much bigger one?

If the U.S. takes the second path the negotiations will fail. Iran will then leave the JCPOA deal. It will restrict supervision by the IAEA and it will further develop its nuclear program. Since its founding the Republic of Iran has consistently rejected the use of weapons of mass destruction for religious-ideological reasons. This even while it was under gas attacks during the Iran-Iraq war. That position might however not prevent it from building and testing some nukes.

The Biden administration and opponents of the nuclear deal claim to have a Plan B should the negotiations fail.

They would keep sanctions on Iran and add new ones. The plan would also include military threats.

However - before the original deal was negotiated China and Russia took part in the sanction regime against Iran. Now they are supporting Iran's position. China is buying oil from Iran and is investing in Iranian infrastructure. Russia recently signed a deal with Iran about the development of Iranian gas fields in the Caspian Sea. Neither country would participate in a new sanctions regime. Without them new 'western' sanctions against Iran will have little effect.

There is also no believable military threat that can be made against Iran. Any bombing of its nuclear facilities would only drive those underground and without IAEA supervision. Any attack would be responded to with attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East. Should a real war break out Israel would also come under fire from Iranian allies in Syria and Lebanon. That would be its end.

If the U.S. (and Israel) want to keep limits on Iran's nuclear program there is only one way. A full return to the JCPOA deal including the lifting of all sanction the Trump administration had imposed onto Iran.

The U.S. may not like such a deal but it is the only one it can have.

Posted by b on December 3, 2021 at 18:00 UTC | Permalink

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