Why are the US and EU Upending the Iran Nuclear Deal?
13:28 GMT 19.10.2022 (Updated: 16:59 GMT 31.07.2023)
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The revival of the Iran nuclear deal may be fatally stalled after two years of indirect US-Iranian talks, according to the White House. Following the US' suit, the EU, another signatory to the deal, has slapped sanctions on Iran over its response to ongoing protests and accused Tehran of involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
"The Europeans are generally not following their own interests when it comes to foreign policy," said Foad Izadi, professor of political communication at the University of Tehran. "They listen to American dictate, which is contrary to the interests of the European people. So if the US wants to derail the agreement, the Europeans will follow the American lead. And this is unfortunately what we are seeing now."
In 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, labeling it as "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."
Iran responded by advancing its nuclear program, which nonetheless remained strictly peaceful to force Western countries to observe their obligations under the deal.
"It was Iran that kept the JCPOA alive after Trump left. Iran also could leave. Iran did not leave, because Iran was interested in the agreement," Izadi pointed out. "Iran was in the agreement more than one year after Trump left. And gradually, little by little, Iran reduced its commitments. So, this is a multilateral agreement, Iran cannot follow a multilateral agreement unilaterally."
After Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021, his administration signaled its commitment to restore the deal. Talks to restore the deal kicked off in April 2021 between Iran and the P4+1, including China, Russia, France, the UK, and Germany, in Vienna. The US participated in the negotiations indirectly.
International Atomic Energy Organization, IAEA, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, right, speaks with with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, left, during their meeting in Tehran, Saturday, March 5, 2022.
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By mid-August 2022, the "big issues" concerning the nuclear accords had been "largely settled," as per US State Department spokesman Ned Price. On August 22, EU High Representative Josep Borrell called the "final" text of the agreement "reasonable" at a press conference in the Spanish city of Santander. Borrell added that he hoped the American response would "put an end to the negotiations," after some 16 months of EU-mediated talks.
"Ever since the Iranians responded to the EU text and Josep Borrell said that the Iranian demands were reasonable, the United States changed course. If the United States had accepted the text, along with Iran's proposals that Josep Borrell said were reasonable, then we would have had a deal," said Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University, who was part of the Iranian delegation that helped to negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal.
The first harbinger of Washington's change of heart apparently came on September 8, when national security spokesman John Kirby said that Biden had conveyed to the rest of the administration that "he wants to make sure that we have other available options to us to potentially achieve that solid outcome of the no nuclear weapons capability for Iran."
In early October, the US State Department signaled that the JCPOA is no longer Washington's focus, while on October 17, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the US government doesn't see "a deal coming together anytime soon."
12 September 2022, 01:55 GMT
Biden Fears Looking Weak Ahead of Midterms
Washington's change of heart could be caused by two factors, according to Sputnik's interlocutors: first, the Democrats' shaky positions ahead of the November midterm elections; and, second, the Iranian protests which erupted in mid-September.
"I think the United States is having an internal problem - there are a lot of people in the US Congress and outside the US Congress who oppose the JCPOA, both Republicans and Democrats," said Izadi. "You have the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that has openly talked about the fact that he opposes the 2015 JCPOA agreement."
Prior to the Biden administration's remark about "other available options" to exert pressure on Iran, a bipartisan group of 50 US lawmakers urged the administration to immediately consult with Congress over the looming nuclear deal agreement. 34 Democrats and 16 Republicans led by Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) wrote to President Joe Biden warning him against inking the deal with "the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism," as they branded Iran.
"The real reason why the Americans effectively halted the negotiations, even though we were almost there (…) was because the Biden team didn't want the other side to hammer them with an agreement by accusing them of being weak," Mohammad Marandi presumed.
Joe Biden's hand does appear weak, given that his approval rating has recently been fluctuating between 39% and 42.7%, according to different estimates. A Fox News survey of registered voters, released on October 16, found that just 33% would reelect Biden in 2024, while over half (54%) would vote for someone else. The Biden administration's poor performance has backfired on the Democratic Party, which is projected to lose its slim majority in one or both chambers of the US Congress after the November midterms, thus making Joe Biden a lame duck president.
16 October 2022, 18:03 GMT
Mahsa Amini Protests in Iran
The Biden administration may see the unfolding protests in Iran as an opportunity to force Tehran into making further concessions over the Iran nuclear deal, suggested Hossein Askari, Aryamehr professor of international business at George Washington University.
Protests in Iran flared up on September 16, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested on September 13 in Tehran by Iran’s morality police for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly. The Kurdish woman fell into a coma while in police custody and died a few days later. Demonstrators and social media users spread the news that Amini was beaten to death by Iranian law enforcement officers. However, CCTV security footage released by the authorities appeared to show that Amini was not subjected to any physical abuse while in Guidance Patrol custody. The Iranian Legal Medicine Organization concluded on October 7 that Amini's death was not caused by blows to the head or vital organs of the body, but by cerebral hypoxia, which led to hypotension and multiple organ failure.
Nonetheless, the unrest has continued to rage on, with US government-funded Voice of America Persia and Radio Farda and London-based Iran International, a privately-owned UK entity, fanning the flames. In particular, Iran International claimed on September 19 that it had obtained from hackers a skull CT scan of Mahsa Amini which allegedly confirmed that the woman died from being hit several times on the head.
The hashtag #MahsaAmini got an unprecedented popularity in social networks, which was compared by Grayzone independent journalistic investigators to "a massive social media amplification campaign" backed by the West during the Arab Spring.
The Biden administration openly hailed the protests. The US Treasury Department on September 23 issued guidance expanding the range of internet services available to Iranians, while in early October, the Biden administration slapped a new batch of sanctions on Iran over its response to the protests. On October 14, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with "activists and thought leaders focused on Iran" asking them "what more the United States could do to support" Iranian protesters apart from providing internet access. For his part, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted in an interview with CNN on October 16 that the US is taking "a number of aggressive steps aimed at supporting the protesters in Iran."
"The Biden administration purposefully supported the protests in Iran, not because they were interested in democracy in Iran, but because that would make Iran resist joining the JCPOA," said Dr. Hooshang Amirahmadi, founder and president of the American-Iranian Council and a professor of public policy at Rutgers University. "And that's exactly what the US wants, that Iran does not return to the JCPOA and keeps going as it is. Therefore the US policy is designed to make Iran's return to the JCPOA or make Iran make any compromise in that direction impossible. The policy of 'the door is open for diplomacy' basically means yes, it is open for Iran to kneel, to submit to the demands made by the US. Period."
11 May 2018, 17:01 GMT
Does the US Hope for Regime Change in Iran?
Apparently, US politicians are not actually looking to use the protests to force Iran into making concessions over the JCPOA, but hope that the unrest will take the Iranian government down altogether, presumes Dr. Hasan Selim Ozertem, an Ankara-based security and political analyst.
"It is hard to expect to use the protests as leverage to push Iran to make concessions. (…) It is known that the main expectation, of some circles in Washington by imposing sanctions, was to trigger social unrest in Iran as the economic conditions in the country deteriorated," said Ozertem.
On August 17, 2022, the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) held a panel discussion titled "NCRI-US Conference to Examine Tehran’s Nuclear Agenda on the 20th Anniversary of Natanz Revelation." The speakers included ex-US national security and military officials such as John Bolton, Joseph Lieberman, Gen. Chuck Wald, and others. Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI’s Washington office openly called for regime change in Iran, saying that "the solution is a regime change by the Iranian people and replacing [the Iranian government] with a democratic republic."
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton echoed Jafarzadeh's sentiments, claiming that "the key is the Iranian people, who are a threat to the regime." This is not the first time that Bolton has flirted with the idea of a coup d'etat in the Islamic Republic: he previously pledged to "change the regime" in Iran by 2019 at a gathering of the dissident group Mujahedeen Khalq, known as MEK, on July 1, 2017. Bolton further advocated the use of force against Tehran and maximum pressure politics while national security adviser under President Donald Trump. The Grayzone suspects Mujahedeen Khalq of exploiting "troll farms" to fan the flames of the ongoing Iranian protests.
"They're interested in a color revolution in Iran, and they have failed miserably," said Foad Izadi. "The Iranian people, the majority of them, know what the US is all about. The demonstrations have died down here. Here and there [there] are very small demonstrations that are generally linked to the intelligence services of the United States and European countries. And sooner or later that is going to also die down, for sure. This is what is going to happen. And this attempt at regime change also has not worked."
18 October 2022, 16:08 GMT
EU Follows US Suit
The EU has jumped on the US' bandwagon by increasing pressure on Tehran. On October 5, the European Parliament adopted a resolution "on the death of Mahsa Jina Amini and the repression of women’s rights protesters in Iran." On October 17, the bloc announced restrictive measures against 11 Iranian individuals and four entities "in the context of the existing Iran human rights sanctions regime." The EU's restrictive list now comprises a total of 97 individuals and eight entities. The bloc has accused the Islamic Republic of a "violent crackdown against peaceful protesters."
The Iranian government denounced the EU's moves, stressing that the protests swirling across the nation are far from peaceful and are accompanied by arson, assaults, and clashes with the police. The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the EP's selective human rights approach, citing the fact that the body "never issued any human rights resolution to condemn inhumane sanctions against Iranian people.”
Earlier, the ambassadors of the UK, Norway, and the French chargé d'affaires were summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry and handed a note of protest over anti-Iranian messages in their respective media, as well as calls for regime change in Iran.
Meanwhile, the EU has threatened Tehran with a new round of sanctions. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, said that the bloc is currently gathering evidence to determine whether Russia is using Iranian drones to launch kamikaze-style attacks in Ukraine. The assumptions revolve around Russia's Geran-1 and Geran-2 drones, which some Western media outlets compare to Iran's Shahed 136 unmanned aerial vehicles. Moscow and Tehran have resolutely rejected the allegations that the weapon systems have been delivered from the Islamic Republic to Russia.
As Washington and Brussels are pushing forward with new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, their efforts are complicating any hopes of reviving the talks on the Iran nuclear deal, Bloomberg warned on Monday.
"As far as the EU goes, the EU is a puppet group," said Hooshang Amirahmadi. "It has no independent existence. It is just an extension of the US. I think the whole EU together is weaker than any one single state in the US – let's say California or New York. The EU is nothing. Unfortunately, these days it just plays the game that the US wants it to play. I would not take the EU seriously in international diplomacy and in the JCPOA or in relation to Iran. If I were Iran, if I were to open up, I would still directly go to the US and not take time with the EU, Mr. Borrell, or anybody else. They are puppet mediators."
