Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, right, and Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, left, meeting in Tehran, Aug. 25, 2020. Iran agreed to allow the agency access to possible nuclear sites even as it has accumulated 10 times the amount of low-enriched uranium permitted in the 2015 nuclear deal.
Abdou Abbary, Niger’s envoy to the UN, assumes the Security Council presidency for September 2020. It is the first time the nation has been in the Council for almost 40 years. JOHN PENNEY
Niger hasn’t been a member of the Security Council for almost 40 years, and now that it has a voice on one of the world’s most visible platforms, it intends to use it to build more alliances with influential world powers while furthering a regional agenda.
More than two years ago, in May 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally walked away from the international nuclear accord with Iran signed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. President Trump derided the deal as the “worst ever” and proceeded to re-impose crippling U.S. sanctions on Iran.
In New York City at the UN, Ambassador Kelly Craft with Talal Alhaj of Al Arabiya TV, Aug. 11, 2020, discussing the US effort to extend the Iran arms ban. Craft tweeted: “Allowing Iran to gain access to new, more powerful weapons would only fuel new terror, chaos & bloodshed in the region & beyond. The choice for the UNSC should be obvious.”
What new plans does Washington have for Iran?
This week, one of President Trump’s longest serving foreign officers, Brian Hook, announced his departure from the State Department position as special envoy for Iran.
This move is not particularly encouraging for Iran, considering that his replacement will be rabid neoconservative relic and Iran hard-liner from the Bush Administration, Elliott Abrams.
Brian Hook, the US envoy for Iran, with Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah, Kuwait City, July 27, 2020. Hook has left his job just as the US wants the UN Security Council to vote on a resolution extending the arms ban embedded in the Iran nuclear deal. Elliott Abrams, US envoy for Venezuela, is to replace Hook.
Iran, due to its geopolitical position, has always been considered a jewel in the crown of the colonial powers. Attempts to conquer it through proxy started with Operation Ajax in August of 1953 at the behest of the British and were ultimately carried out by the CIA and not abandoned even with the ousting of America’s man, the Shah. Although the Islamic Revolution reclaimed Iran’s sovereignty in 1979, America was not ready to abandon its plans of domination over Iran, and by extension, the Persian Gulf.
Ted Galen CARPENTER
Akey lesson from the coronavirus pandemic is that the United States needs to terminate unnecessary expenses and wasteful, unworkable policies. The cost alone entailed in dealing with the crisis—some $4 trillion and counting—makes such reforms imperative. The need to focus on core security challenges, especially Beijing’s increasingly worrisome behavior, reinforces that urgency on the international front.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, May 2020. One new report from the UN agency expresses concern about Iran’s blocking access to certain sites and another report confirms the country’s increased uranium enrichment activities. DEAN CALMA/IAEA
VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency issued an alarming report on June 5, voicing “serious concern” over Iran’s refusal to allow the agency’s inspectors to investigate two sites where the country is suspected of having conducted undeclared nuclear activities in the past.
