Schrodinger’s Cat? Is The Iran Nuclear Deal Dead Or Alive?
Two days after State Department spokesman Ned Price said the US was mulling European Union proposals over Iran’s nuclear program, there are no signs of progress.
Two days after State Department spokesman Ned Price said the US was mulling European Union proposals over Iran’s nuclear program, there are no signs of progress.
The English-language Tehran Times warned the “western media” Friday against “early judgment” on the fate of the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell recently produced new ideas to bridge differences between the United States and Iran and allow both to return to the agreement.
The Tehran Times highlighted the Wall Street Journal, which July 25 ran an opinion piece by Walter Russell Mead, Professor of Foreign Affairs at Bard College, New York, comparing the JCPOA to Schrodinger’s cat, a hypothetical feline in an indeterminate state that is neither alive nor dead.
Some analysts believe that agreement remains likely to revive the JCPOA, which the US left in 2018, with Iran by 2019 expanding its nuclear program beyond the deal’s limits. This remains the assessment of Mossad, Israel’s extraterritorial intelligence agency, Al-Monitor’s Israel correspondent Ben Caspit reported Friday.
But some European diplomats have this week privately expressed pessimism to journalists, arguing Borrell’s proposals will not achieve the necessary concessions from either Iran or the US, each of whom blames the other for the failure of seven-party talks in Vienna paused in March and June’s bilateral US-Iran two-day round in Qatar.
The basic challenges remain agreeing which US sanctions breach the JCPOA, what guarantees Washington offers over respecting a revived deal, and exactly how Iran’s expanded and refined nuclear program should be brought back within JCPOA limits. There have also been reports that Iran has demanded that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drop enquiries into nuclear work Iran conducted before 2003, although Tehran’s explanations deemed unsatisfactory by the agency led to a critical resolution passed by the IAEA board in June.
Russian, Chinese calculations
Analysts also suggest that wider factors, including the Ukraine crisis, have come to play a growing role in calculations made by all parties. Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, said this week that Iran might judge that Europe’s need for oil and gas come the winter would lead it to put pressure on the US to compromise, while Washington continues to think its ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions will put Iran under growing economic strain.
Vaez also noted that Moscow and Beijing, which is buying nearly all Iran’s oil exports, might both judge that as long as Iran did not ‘weaponize’ its nuclear program, the current drift would “bog down” the US “in the Middle East and divert its attention from Russia and China.”
This was also part of Mead’s argument in the Wall Street Journal. “Whatever their long-term concerns about a nuclear Iran,” he wrote, “both Xi Jinping and Vladmir Putin seem more interested in stiffening Iran's commitment to the anti-American alliance than in facilitating an agreement that would reduce the pressure on a beleaguered American president.”
The US administration appear to believe they can manage the situation. Brett McGurk, President Joe Biden’s Middle East advisor, reportedly said recently that while it was “highly unlikely” that the JCPOA would be revived soon, the administration thought it could continue to deploy sanctions “but not needlessly escalate the situation.”
Ned Price, in his Thursday press briefing, said Washington would “convey feedback directly to our European partners” but reiterated a US position that holds “Iranian intransigence, the lack of constructive Iranian engagement” responsible for the failure of talks, in Vienna and more recently in Qatar, to resolve differences over restoring the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
The US and Iran take differing views over which US sanctions violate the JCPOA, while Tehran has sought guarantees that Washington would uphold any commitments made in reviving the agreement. Price said the US understanding was that proposals recently made by Joseph Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief, were based on draft texts drawn up in Vienna by the time talks paused in March – ones Price said the US had been “prepared to accept…for months now.”
Price insisted that Iran had failed to “make that political decision necessary to return to compliance with the JCPOA” and that Washington as preparing “equally for scenarios where we have a JCPOA, scenarios where we don’t have a JCPOA.”
The US and the three European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany and the United States – have expressed growing concern in recent months at the expansion of the Iranian nuclear program, which began breaching JCPOA limits in 2019, the year after the US left the agreement and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions.
Price welcomed the release in Iran on bail of British-American-Iranian environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, thanking Oman for work on his case, and stressed it was among Washington’s “utmost priorities” to secure the “safe return home of wrongfully detained Americans.”
Price denied links between nuclear talks and efforts to secure their release or arrange a prisoner-sway for Iranians detained in the US. He insisted the administration was “very careful not to tie the fates to these wrongfully detained Americans to a potential mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA.”
In another development over Iran Thursday, Deborah Lipstadt, the White House ‘special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism,’ condemned Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei over a tweet she called “unacceptable and dangerous.” Khamenei had criticized the extent of Zionist influence in the US as a “mafia.”
Lebanon ‘emergency’
President Joe Biden Thursday renewed for a further year a US ‘national emergency’ with respect to Lebanon first introduced by George Bush in August 2007. The measure gives the administration special powers to impose economic sanctions, with Biden’s statement citing “the actions of certain persons to undermine Lebanon’s legitimate and democratically elected government or democratic institutions.”
Biden expressed concern over Iran’s arms transfers to Hezbollah, the Shia party and armed militant group sanctioned by many countries, that has been for decades in conflict with Israel. The US has a variety of sanctions against Lebanon, many introduced under executive orders but also by statute.
Iran announced Friday it had appointed Mohsen Naziri Asl as its new ambassador to the United Nations bodies in Vienna, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA. Asl has previously served as ambassador to UN bodies in Geneva, while his new post will take in the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is based in the Austrian capital.
Raisi’s claim contradicts the fact that even critics loyal to the Islamic government have been demanding moderation in foreign policy and some have called for a referendum on the nuclear issue. It also contradicts the fact that both the parliamentary elections in February 2020 and the presidential vote in June 2021 were low-turnout events, after heavy screening and rejection of hundreds of candidates.
In the meantime, Iranian media including Rouydad24 and Iran Diplomacy have opined that neither Iran, nor the United States seriously pursue the issue of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal or at least resuming the talks over Iran's nuclear program.
One of the headlines in Rouydad24 reflects the degree of concern over the fate of the negotiations: "How far are we from a military confrontation?" asked the headline. Under the circumstances, according to Mohsen Jalilvand, a former diplomat, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is more worried than ever about Iran's nuclear activities.
Thursday was day 138 after the suspension of the Vienna talks. During this period Tehran and Washington blamed each other for the suspension. Iran's argument was once again reflected in a 26 July tweet by Foreign Ministry Spokesman Naser Kanani: "The party that needs to prove good faith and seriousness to re-enter the deal is the US…The onus is on the US." This comes while his US counterpart Ned Price reiterated that it is Iran who should make its final decision about the talks and the JCPOA.
According to Roudad24, all this might mean that everyone needs to forget the issue of the revival of negotiations over the 2015 nuclear deal. Meanwhile, the confrontation between the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization and the IAEA is an indication of an escalation that may signal more upcoming pressures on Iran.
Iranian former diplomat Fereidoun Majlesi told Sharq daily in Tehran that apart from all other political reasons, one must acknowledge that there has been a big change of policy in Iran since the 2021 presidential election that led to the consolidation of hardliner conservatives’ power in domestic politics.
Majlesi said that the Raisi administration assesses the impass in the talks as a best-case scenario for itself that gives it the upper hand in domestic politics. The former diplomat said the world has also realized that the Islamic Republic is no longer interested in reviving the JCPOA, so the IAEA is likely to issue stronger worded resolutions against Iran.
Majlesi said that after the IAEA resolution against Iran in June, Tehran is more determined to further its nuclear agenda regardless of IAEA's views. The Raisi administration thinks that by delaying the talks the current situation will be frozen. But the political situation inside Iran may be changing.
Former diplomat Jalilvand on the other hand pointed at remarks of two Iranian officials about Iran being close to the ability to develop a bomb and pretending that Iran is at the nuclear threshold. This may bring Iran some concessions but at the same time it also leads to threats for Tehran.
Majlesi told Sharq that Israel, the most important player in the region, is trying to garner international consensus in support of an all-out attack on Iran as Tel Aviv believes that the nuclear and ballistic missile programs have reached the point of no return, and it is time to limit Iran's power.
Grossi told CNN on Tuesday, July 26, that "Iran has to restore all our inspection capabilities" after Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami declared on the same day that Iran will keep cameras monitoring its nuclear activities switched off until a deal is struck with the United States." Grossi, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency explained: "We do not know what is happening with Iran's nuclear program."
In an interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency ILNA on Wednesday, Beheshtipour criticized Iranian officials for saying repeatedly that the IAEA is under the influence of the United States and Israel, and said that this will not solve any problem. He stressed that the difference between Iran and IAEA can be solved only through negotiations.
Beheshtipour said while Iran and the IAEA level accusations against each other it means that this is not the right time for cooperation and added that Iran possibly expects Grossi to also call on the United States to go back to its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.
With the latest accusations against Iran, the IAEA will certainly issue a resolution against Tehran in September, Beheshtipour remarked, adding that Iran will take that as a step fabricated to condemn Tehran. However, Beheshtipour pointed out that the IAEA has confirmed in 14 previous reports that Iran was committed to the terms of JCPOA.
Meanwhile, Iran's former ambassador to the United Kingdom Jalal Sadatian said in an interview with Didban Iran website that the negotiations to revive the JCPOA have failed. He added that the 2015 agreement could be revived only with a miracle. "We should consider the JCPOA as a terminated case, and if Iran's nuclear issue is not resolved, its economy will not improve," Sadatian said, adding that Russia and China are not able to solve Iran's economic problems. He argued that there has been no benefit for Iran in the boosting of its ties with Russia.
Lately, Iran has been insisting that it can survive under US sanctions by closer ties with Russia and China. Vladimir Putin visited Tehran earlier this month and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei praised him for his invasion of Ukraine.
The former diplomat further said that Russia is determined to prevent Iran from providing oil for Europe while Europe is keen to have access to Iran's energy market.
In a related development, former diplomat and current political analyst Ali Bigdeli said in an interview with Nameh News website that there is no hope the nuclear talks would continue and bear results, nonetheless, the two sides are reluctant to declare the failure of the negotiations, partly because they know that there is no chance for another agreement.
Bigdeli's view is more pessimistic than the position of commentators such as Heshmatolah Falahatpisheh who believe that Iran and the United States should forget about the JCPOA and start working from the scratch on a new agreement.
Bigdeli went on to say without an explanation, that the United States is by no means prepared to accept a new agreement. In the meantime, Iran has demands from the US which are beyond the scope of the JCPOA, and the United States insists that the two sides should return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
It is not in Iran's interest to declare the failure of the JCPOA as this would be a bonus for Israel, which could launch a war in that case to protect its security, the analyst added.