On 5th Year Of JCPOA Withdrawal, Calls To End Overtures To Iran

All the parties involved know that the dead body of the JCPOA is in the political morgue and cannot be revived any longer, said Mehdi Motaharnia in an interview with Nameh Newswebsite in Tehran. 

According to the website, no one talks about the need to revive the JCPOA on the May 8 anniversary of former US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the deal. What does the silence mean? Motaharnia answered: The JCPOA is dead, but no one wants to bury it. 

Referring to a remark by Hamid Aboutalebi, an adviser to former President Hassan Rouhani who had said "returning to the JCPOA or making changes in it is no longer possible," Motaharnia pointed out that this is not a new situation. Even if the two sides return to something called the JCOA, it will be different from the 2015 agreement. "I have always said that reviving the JCPOA is wishful thinking," Motaharnia added. 

The analyst further said that "We have to admit that the Biden administration has tightened sanctions on Iran. Despite the fact that some in Iran believed that the Biden Administration will come to terms with the Raisi government. At the time they believed that if Iran stands firm against the United States, Washington will return to the JCPOA. However, despite Iran's insistence on its terms, the United States did not give in and did not put a step back. Even Iran's ‘looking East’ policy of closer ties with China and Russia did not persuade Washington to soften its position. 

Iran hoped that an anti-Western front will be formed by China after the Ukraine war started, but Beijing was not interested in that either. Nor it is interested to stand against Washington over the JCPOA, Motaharnia said, adding that although Tehran had high hopes about joining the Shanghai treaty, nothing in particular happened in Tehran's interest. Furthermore, The Chinese are not interested in opposing the United States as Iran's strategic partners. 

Iran can only be happy about making a deal with Saudi Arabia and sign some contracts with Syria, but these cannot bring about a serious change in its ailing economy, said Motaharnia.

On the other hand, another Iranian foreign policy analyst Amir Ali Abolfath told Nameh News that the European signatories of the JCPOA are waiting to see if there will be an agreement with Iran over the nuclear issue. If that is not feasible, then they will use the JCPOA's ‘trigger mechanism’ and make sure that the UN Security Council's pre-JCPOA sanctions against Iran will be brought back as some Western countries have threatened. 

Abolfath said: "Activating the trigger mechanism is a possibility. This is something that has been stipulated in the text of the JCPOA. So far it has not been used although Iran reduced its commitments under the JCPOA after the US pull-out. He said that the mechanism might be activated if the Europeans see that UN Resolution 2231 based on which sanctions against Iran were lifted is reaching its expiry date. Then, as there will be no JCPOA, there won't be a trigger mechanism either. Europeans would activate the trigger mechanism in that case, Abolfath said. 

Iran's former government had threatened that if other JCPOA member states activate the trigger mechanism, Iran might consider exiting the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 

Abolfath, however, added that UN resolutions can be effective on Iran only if they affect more areas than the US sanctions, which they are not. So, Iran can rest assured that if the trigger mechanism is activated its situation will not become more difficult. Abolfath's take on the matter is that "The JCPOA will not be revived, and the United States will not return to its commitments. So, the JCPOA will continue to remain in the same state of lull and the world will not return to the pre-JCPOA period. That means the same agreement nobody is committed to will be still useful."

Representative Jim Himes (D-Conn) who was visiting Israel with the Intelligence Committee Chairman Republican Mike Turner were interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper about what they heard from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran’s nuclear program.

Himes said that Netanyahu was “very much focused” on the issue and told them many times that he could not imagine Iran armed with nuclear weapons.

Turner said the Israeli prime minister believes “Iran can be deterred and if they believe that there would be military action against them – some type of a surgical strike – that would diminish their ability to pursue nuclear weapons, that could have a chilling effect and could stall their programming.” He added that Netanyahu wants Iran to see that there is a risk of both the United States and Israel – together or separately – might take military action against its nuclear facilities.

Himes said, “The problem is that of course with Iran so brutally abusing its own people, the prospect for negotiations I think is arguably further away than ever before.”

The Biden administration decided early in its term to start indirect talks with Iran to revive the 2015 JCPOA accord that had restricted Iran’s uranium enrichment. President Joe Biden had said before the 2020 election that he opposed his predecessor’s decision to pull out of the JCPOA.

However, after 18 months, the negotiations reached a deadlock in September 2022 and since then Iran has continued uranium enrichment at 60 percent, accumulating enough fissile material for 4-5 bombs.

Rouhani in a meeting on May 3 with his former officials and aides said that before his term in office ended in mid-2021, his government had convinced the Biden administration not only to lift IRGC’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation by the Trump administration, but also to lift sanctions on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office and entities.

Rouhani has recently been holding regular meetings with his former aides, which is seen as an act of opposition toward hardliners, which control all three branches of the government.

One of the first foreign policy initiatives by the Biden administration in early 2021 was to launch indirect negotiations with the Islamic Republic to revive the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal that former President Donald Trump had abandoned in 2018. This entailed lifting of sanctions that Trump had imposed.

The talks that lasted 18 months and eventually reached a deadlock in September 2022, were partly kept secret, and it is not clear if Washington had agreed to lifting the sanctions that Rouhani is taking credit for.

One thing which is clear is a five-month hiatus in the negotiations in Vienna from June to November of 2021 – the period from Iran’s presidential elections to when the new administration decided to return to talks.

Iran’s hardliners had readied themselves to capture the presidency, with Khamenei’s apparent blessing. The constitutional Guardian Council loyal to the Supreme Leader, disqualified most serious candidates, leaving the path open for Khamenei loyalist Ebrahim Raisi to get elected in a low-turnout vote.

Whatever Rouhani’s negotiating team had achieved in the nuclear talks from April to June 2021 became meaningless once the hardliners took office.

Rouhani was quoted by reformist media on Saturday as having said during his meeting that his government had wanted to solve as many problems as possible for the incoming administration. “Everything was completed for the revival of the JCPOA and was ready,” he was quoted as saying.

The former president went on to say, “When I informed the Supreme Leader [about lifting of the sanctions], he was very happy, but unfortunately this did not come to fruition.”

Rouhani also took credit for many domestic accomplishments and claimed that several major projects were almost completed and ready to be inaugurated by the new administration. He implicitly criticized the Raisi administration of not following up and leaving these projects in limbo.

In the wake of the unprecedented anti-regime protests last fall, reformist and centrist regime insiders have been trying to drive home the point that hardliners, having, monopolized power in parliament and controlled the presidency, have failed to solve the country’s multiple crises.

In fact, after the breakdown in the nuclear talks, the economic situation has worsened, with the national currency rial losing half its value against the US dollar, the euro, and other major currencies.

Many pundits and politicians have been blaming the deepening political and economic crises on the hardliners for not reaching a nuclear agreement with the United States, which would lift crippling sanctions.

In a sign of European concern, Britain, France and Germany have warned Iran they would trigger a return of UN sanctions against Tehran if it enriched uranium to the optimal level for a nuclear weapon, three European officials said.

The threat, made last year in a previously unreported letter sent by the countries' foreign ministers, underscores Western fears that Iran could produce bomb-grade uranium of 90% purity.

Those concerns intensified in February after UN inspectors revealed their discovery of uranium particles of 83.7% purity at an Iran nuclear facility built deep underground to protect it from air strikes.

A renewed crisis over Iran would come at a bad time for U.S. President Joe Biden who is focused on maintaining allies' support for the war in Ukraine and on rallying Western countries to push back on China's military and diplomatic ambitions.

But while some White House aides may prefer to keep Iran off the president's desk, officials and analysts suggested they may not have that luxury.

"They are busy with Ukraine, Russia and they don't want, for the time being, to open another front," said a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity. "Therefore, they want to do everything in their power to prevent this (90%) from happening."

'Snapback' Of UN Sanctions?

Western officials fear a nuclear-armed Iran could threaten Israel, Gulf Arab oil producers, and spark a regional arms race.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

US and European officials have been searching for ways to curb Tehran's program since the breakdown of indirect US-Iranian talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States.

The accord, aimed at keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, required Tehran to accept restrictions on its nuclear program and more extensive UN inspections, in exchange for an end to UN, US, and EU sanctions.

The deal, which had capped Iran's uranium enrichment at 3.67%, was abandoned in 2018 by then-US President Donald Trump, who argued it was too generous to Tehran.

Trump reimposed broad US sanctions, many of which have the secondary effect of forcing non-US firms stop dealing with Iran or risk losing access to the US market, but UN sanctions were not reactivated.

The deal had set out a procedure for the veto-proof "snapback" of the UN sanctions on Iran – including an oil embargo and banking restrictions – in response to Iranian violations. Any of the states who signed onto the original deal can trigger the snapback.

US sanctions - even with their secondary effects - have failed to keep Iran from producing ever-purer levels of uranium and China has flouted them by buying Iranian oil, making it unclear if the UN measures would be any more effective.

But Iran might refrain from enriching to 90% to avoid the public rebuke implicit in the return of UN sanctions.

A senior Iranian nuclear official said Tehran would not take the revival of UN sanctions lying down.

"If the other parties under any pretext trigger it, they will be responsible for all the consequences," he told Reuters. "Iran's reaction could range from leaving the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) to accelerating our nuclear work."

Leaving the NPT would free Iran to develop nuclear arms.

The Iranian official's threat was more explicit than comments by an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, who on Monday said only that Iran had told Western powers how it would react.

It remains unclear if the 83.7% particles were created deliberately. But Western officials and analysts say that Iran's production of 90% uranium would demand a significant response.

A US State Department spokesman said Biden "is absolutely committed" to making sure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.

"We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but President Biden has also been clear that we have not removed any option from the table," the spokesperson added, hinting at the possibility of military action.

'Face A Crisis At Some Point'

While Western officials want to leave the door open for diplomacy, tensions with Russia and China make that harder.

Divisions over the Ukraine war, which has seen Iran provide military aid to Russia, and rising Sino-US tensions further reduce the odds of resurrecting the deal because it is unclear how hard Moscow or Beijing might push for its revival.

If the deal is dead, the West has three broad options: deterrence, military action, or a new negotiated arrangement.

Deterrence has a downside: it could give Tehran time to creep toward a nuclear weapons capability.

Dennis Ross, a veteran US diplomat now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, suggested Biden may have to do more to make Iran fear the consequences of enriching to higher levels.

"If you don't do enough to persuade the Iranians of the risks they are running, you will face a crisis at some point because they will go to 90%" or move toward weaponization, he said. "What you are seeing is an effort to walk that tightrope."

Analysis by Reuters

Mohammad Marandi, who is introduced as “media advisor” to the Islamic Republic’s negotiating team was quoted by Al Mayadeen television close to Tehran as saying that Iran is ready to reach agreement based on a text presented by the European Union.

Marandi’s comment comes as Iran’s economic crisis worsens, with its currency losing half its value in 8 months and prices doubling in this period.

After 18 months of indirect talks with the United States in Vienna, the EU acting as mediator in the negotiations, presented a compromise text in August 2022 to all JCPOA parties involved, asking for their final input.

Although Iran and the US never rejected the draft agreement, Washington dismissed Iran’s response to the document as unacceptable, because it contained “extraneous demands.”

The US announced in October that pursuing the nuclear talks was not a priority any longer, as Iran used deadly force against anti-regime protesters and began supplying killer drones to Russia.

Marandi, who is in the inner circle of Iran’s hardliners, argued last year that the war in Ukraine and the cut in Russian energy supplies would leave the Europeans in a winter freeze and Tehran would get strong leverage on the nuclear issue.

Since then, Europe successfully replaced Russian natural gas supplies and avoided any major problems.

Some in Iranian media later ridiculed the idea of counting on a “European freeze” and throwing away the chance for a nuclear deal that would have lift US sanctions.