Today, we turn our attention to Iran and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the “Iran deal” or the “Iran Nuclear Deal.”
This agreement is heralded in the geopolitical sphere as a treaty and agreement that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons. It was reached in an agreement between Iran, Germany, and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Under the agreement, Iran agreed to:
- eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium,
- cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and
- reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years.
- For the next 15 years, Iran will only enrich uranium up to 3.67%.
- Iran also agreed not to build any new heavy-water facilities for the same period of time.
- Uranium-enrichment activities will be limited to a single facility using first-generation centrifuges for 10 years.
- Other facilities will be converted to avoid proliferation risks.
- To monitor and verify Iran’s compliance with the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have regular access to all Iranian nuclear facilities.
The agreement provides that in return for verifiably abiding by its commitments,
- Iran will receive relief from U.S., European Union, and United Nations Security Council nuclear-related economic sanctions.
This was a framework intended to eliminate the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, ostensibly for the purpose of using it on Israel, but some particularly bellicose rhetoric from Iran included the idea of them using a nuclear weapon on the United States in some way.
Now the main source of disagreement and bitterness appears to be centered between Iran and the United States. It does not get much real news coverage, and as is the case with many other nations on the US media’s “bad people list”, the propaganda is very easy to find and the true state of affairs is very difficult to find.
The agreement, which was implemented on January 16, 2016 was heralded by European powers and the American Democrats en masse, but it was roundly criticized by the conservative elements such as members of the US Republican Party and all the GOP presidential candidates that were in the field at that time. The criticism was that Iran was being given too many outs and ways to compromise or break the terms while getting free of the sanctions that the UN had placed on it.
A particular provision of the agreement (not a treaty, but sometimes called such) was that Iran would remain “one year away from breakout time” in producing a viable nuclear weapon for the next ten years. The counter argument ran, “…and after that they will just be able to continue and develop it… and then they will use it on the US or Israel.”
Taking a break from the rhetorical bombs
As one can see here, and as one will certainly hear in broadcast media, the details of the agreement do not surface very often, but the rhetoric does.
President Trump has signaled strongly that the JCPoA is seriously flawed, and that the United States will withdraw from it unless it is amended. The media tends to leave out exactly what amendments are needed.
The European signatories to the agreement all agree that the agreement is as good as it can be and cannot be changed. In fact, toward the end of the week just passed there was a lot of discomfort as leaders ranging from Emmanuel Macron of France to Angela Merkel of Germany, and Russian President Vladimir Putin all weighed in, saying that they hope and pray America will not withdraw from the deal.
The Iranians are on record too about this.
Muslims should stand firmly against the U.S. and other domineering powers’ bullying. If they don’t observe that, they will be humiliated.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) April 26, 2018
While I find it amusing that the Supreme theocratic leader of a nation would use Twitter, it is interesting and of note to pay attention to the tone he set here. This is not the only example, either.
Russia Today reported this in their piece on this topic:
Tehran maintains that there cannot be a ‘plan B’ for the agreement, with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif saying recently ‘It’s either all or nothing.'”
These are the various rhetorical bombs that are being thrown. However, there is a giveaway that forms the basis for my own opinion of this matter.
In liberalism, the bully wins
This seems like a contradictory statement, doesn’t it? It would seem that to be liberal would be to free the people who cannot speak for themselves, and to allow even the minorities and unfavored people a voice. How does this happen?
Usually it happens as an overextension of compassion. We tell ourselves that the bully is often using his bully tactics to cover up his or her weaknesses and cowardice. If we can appeal to his better nature, then, he will cease to be a bully.
The problem is that the record of success in using this tactic is highly mixed. It might work for the big kid on the playground, but what traditional literature and storytelling usually say is that when the person confronted by the bully actually hits back, the bully collapses and runs. The compassionate approach may have had some success with a few people but when someone thinks they have power, they are usually inclined to throw it around until someone stops them.
This is what I believe explains President Donald Trump’s take on this matter. And he is NOT the bully in this confrontation.
Iran is.
Defining the bully
The bully is usually the coward in the bunch. He or she pushes people around with words or with physical force, but this is basically an act of defense by being offensive. It is NOT something done in a state of strong self-confidence, but it IS often done in a state of arrogance.
Based on the rhetoric coming out of Iran, it is evident to me that it is Supreme Leader Khameini who is the bully in the pen here. There are factual reasons for this.
The JCPoA has very specific stipulations regarding nuclear facilities inspections. President Obama was quick to say how wonderful the deal was but he never mentioned certain little caveats, which we have indicated in bold emphasis:
- The number of IAEA inspectors assigned to Iran will triple, from 50 to 150 inspectors.
- If IAEA inspectors have concerns that Iran is developing nuclear capabilities at any non-declared sites, they may request access “to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with” the agreement, informing Iran of the basis for their concerns.
- The inspectors would only come from countries with which Iran has diplomatic relations.
- Iran may admit the inspectors to such site or propose alternatives to inspection that might satisfy the IAEA’s concerns.
- If such an agreement cannot be reached, a process running to a maximum of 24 days is triggered.
- Under this process, Iran and the IAEA have 14 days to resolve disagreements among themselves.
- If they fail to, the Joint Commission (including all eight parties) would have one week in which to consider the intelligence which initiated the IAEA request.
- A majority of the Commission (at least five of the eight members) could then inform Iran of the action that it would be required to take within three more days. The majority rule provision “means the United States and its European allies—Britain, France, Germany and the EU—could insist on access or any other steps and that Iran, Russia or China could not veto them”.
- If Iran did not comply with the decision within three days, sanctions would be automatically reimposed under the snapback provision (see below).
The bolded stipulations are tricky. Mainly they describe large intervals of time (24 days, 14 days, one week, three days – twice)… If conducted correctly, this would give Iran up to forty days to conceal anything clandestine that it is suspected of doing before any inspectors even arrive in the country. But it doesn’t stop there.
The United States is one of the countries that signed this agreement. But the United States does NOT have diplomatic relations with Iran. Switzerland acts as the intermediary. The United States and Iran are deeply at odds with one another, which makes the US the most likely to have skeptical need to inspect this country, yet they cannot do it.
There is at least one other issue in the history of the agreement. Not long after it was put in place, this supposedly rock-solid agreement was exempted. Prior to the implementation date of January 16, sanctions relief (spelled “$100 billion dollars”) started to flow even though Iran was in violation of the agreement. So the agreement was shifted:
The exemptions included:
(a) Iran able to exceed the 300 Kg of 3.5% LEU limit in the agreement
(b) Iran able to exceed the zero Kg of 20% LEU limit in the agreement
(c) Iran to keep operating 19 “hot cells” that exceed the size limit in the agreement
(d) Iran to maintain control of 50 tonnes of heavy water that exceed the 130 tonne limit in the agreement by storing the excess at an Iran-controlled facility in Oman. In December 2016, the IAEA published decisions of the Joint Commission that spelled out these clarifications of the JCPOA.
So under the catchy word of “clarifications“, the Iranians got to bend the deal before they even started it.
The bully won by being appeased, perhaps because to do this was seen as an expedient or convenient decision by the other nations in the agreement. Iran received a lifting of sanctions, an agreement that makes it very easy to conceal anything it is doing that is against the agreement, a softening of the conditions of the agreement even before it took effect, a whole pile of cash, and what did they have to lose? They got rid of four American prisoners… if you can all that a loss. Or, was it a trade?
The bully was further appeased in August 2016 in a rather disingenous manner, when President Obama sent a US plane with $400 million in Swiss francs, Euros and other currency (but not American dollars, so as to “hide” that it was American-held money Obama was returning) to Iran. This was part of at $1.7 billion settlement that was related to a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah of Iran – many many years ago. But there was another feature to this incident.
It was amazingly “convenient” that in an action thinly disguised to appear un-connected to this money drop, that Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the JCPoA.
It is a long standing American policy not to pay ransom for people, but this sure looked like a ransom payment.
So the bully got a lot of what he wanted. Now, President Trump is calling the bully out, noting the weakness of the JCPoA. As he is extremely astute in the art of deal-making, he is particularly sensitive to bad deals that the US has made in recent history, and he wants to change this one in such a way that American interests are actually benefitted.
There is simply nothing wrong with this.
The only thing that seems to make it wrong is the pall of “guilt” for being American that the liberals have worked so hard to cast over our people and our nation for decades, culminating in the leftist free-for-all that was Obama and the liberal mainstream media in control.
President Trump smells a rat in the deal and he wants to address it. And what does Iran do?
They start threatening.
The bully, revealed
We saw one example earlier. There are others:
“Iran has several options if the United States leaves the nuclear deal. Tehran’s reaction to America’s withdrawal of the deal will be unpleasant,” State TV quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying upon his arrival in New York.
Iran’s foreign minister warned that Tehran was ready to resume its nuclear program “at a much greater speed” if the US violates the landmark 2015 agreement and re-imposes sanctions.
If the US violates the deal, Tehran will not adhere to it anymore, Zarif warned. “Obviously the rest of the world cannot ask us to unilaterally and one-sidedly implement a deal that has already been broken.”
Here is the final giveaway:
Our Atomic Energy Organization is fully prepared… for actions that they expect and actions they do not expect,” Rouhani said, without elaborating on the possible options. Iran has repeatedly warned against “fixing” the deal, urging the other parties to actually make it work as designed, since Tehran has not received all the benefits it expected from the agreement.
This is the definitely the bully trying to tell everyone else what to do. And this is utterly wrong. This last statement also reveals the motive behind this threatening rhetoric: Under the JCPoA, Iran is getting most of what it wants and it doesn’t have to do much to get it. US inspectors apparently cannot even go to Iran to check. Instead it is restricted to those countries that Iran has diplomatic relations with, and so the chance at objectivity is lost.
Now, part of the tension between Iran and the USA stems precisely from US foreign policy that is in dispute as to its fairness, and I am talking here about what it was like under the Shah, who was an American ally. Russia and Iran seem to get along just fine, and Iran is not the land of primitives that Western media often make it out to be. There are indeed human rights issues, and serious ones, but the country is also scientifically and technologically advanced and there are many fine people there.
But for the power that was historically causing problems on the world stage to think it can get away with THREATENING the rest of the world to adhere to a deal that it alone is benefitting from… this reminds me of Hitler in 1938 and the appeasement efforts dealing with Austrian getting annexed by Germany and later Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia. Hitler was supposed to be a leader of a demilitarized nation and yet he won a large piece of European territory by the use of strong rhetoric and a Europe unwilling to stand up to him.
It looks like Iran is playing the same game. The European nations all agree that the agreement should be left in place. Trump is not exactly saying otherwise. But he does have a problem with both the weakness of the current agreement since it only seems to benefit Iran’s aspirations (mostly economic) and further, the notion of Iran threatening action that it actually stated it was committed to never do (according to Khameini’s supposed fatwa never to develop a nuclear weapon or use it)…
No bully should not be allowed to dictate terms to the rest of the world. Iran needs commerce with the rest of the world. It was under heavy sanctions for decades, showing that the world did NOT need a rogue state doing whatever it wanted.
Trump won this gambit with North Korea, with Russian and Chinese efforts united together with his to force Kim Jong-un into a moment of pause. As stated elsewhere, I think all three powers share credit for this, and I do not think anything by any one nation would have succeeded in turning Kim without the other two.
In this event, of course, the media has already started its opposition to President Trump’s viewpoint on the JPCoA, with some really sensational pieces featuring stories like the one about 80,000 Iranian troops near the Israeli border, and all the war rumour pieces that are flying around the Internet. This is all a distraction.
Iran will not commit itself to any course of action that leads to an open war. They are not stupid. But they have also not gotten wise to the fact that threatening a bulldog doesn’t work. With the greatest respect for the European leaders, I must submit here that this notion of keeping the current deal in place may seem prudent now, but in reality this is something that only delays problems. It does not appear to actually remedy anything.
President Donald Trump speaks about Iran from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 13, 2017. Trump says Iran is not living up to the “spirit” of the nuclear deal that it signed in 2015, and announced a new strategy in the speech. He says the administration will impose additional sanctions on the regime to block its financing of terrorism. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
What does President Trump actually want to change?
CNN tried to mask the concerns but they didn’t quite succeed. Here they are in loose layman’s terms:
“We can work within the Iran nuclear deal to strictly enforce it, while working on all the aspects outside of the Iran nuclear program. … the range, the totality, of the threats Iran presents,” said Brian Hook, the State Department’s Director of Policy Planning, who led a team from his agency and the National Security Council.
Hook said US concerns not covered by the deal include:
- Tehran’s ballistic missiles
- Iran’s presence in Lebanon
- Iran’s backing for Hezbollah
- Cyberattacks and ‘maritime aggression,’
- The powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps that the US says is behind much of the Mideast’s destabilization.
Issues within the deal that Trump wants changed include:
- the so-called “sunset clauses,” or provisions that wind down after a few years
- a much stronger inspection regime
Brian Hook and his team also traveled to Berlin this week to meet counterparts from Europe, “to see if we can secure a supplemental agreement addressing the deficiencies of the Iran nuclear deal,” he said in Vienna.
The CNN piece actually admitted that European officials stress that they share the US concerns, and say they’re making progress with the US, particularly on measures to address Iran’s ballistic missiles. One European diplomat actually saying, “we are close. In the end, we’re pretty confident we can work on a critical mass where we can cooperate with the US.”
French President Macron has indicated similar thoughts, sometimes with greater force as shown here, and sometimes with a bit of resignation and willingness to work toward a common agreement with the US.
But at any rate, when we see what the concerns are that the US president has, some, if not all of them, are extremely legitimate. While the world’s media would rather attract readers attention through sensationalist claims that “war is just around the corner”, the reality is quite different. We have here, a nation trying to force the big guys to appease it, and we have the conflict between the easy approach of accepting the status quo or changing it for something that might actually be more beneficial than the bit of parlor tricks that have made Iran so happy.
Right or wrong, the “brotherhood of sovereign nation-states” that President Trump described as his vision of what the United Nations could and ought to be, needs to study history as well as the current situation and see if maybe a harder – but better – road should be trod in the effort towards restored relations with Iran.
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