Locked in an epic 11th hour battle with 54-year-old Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to complete a nuke deal to slow Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and end punitive sanctions, last minute talks ground to a halt. Resisting inspections at Iran’s sensitive nuclear sites, including its Fordo underground nuclear facility, Zarif and now hobbled 70-year-old Secretary of State John Kerry resumed screaming at each other, prompting staff to step in. While a deal’s not yet inevitable, German Foreign Minster Frank-Walter Steinmaier, French Foreign Minster Laurent Fabius and Britsh Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond jetted to Vienna with hopes of nailing down a last-minute deal. “It’s doable tomorrow night [Thursday] if talks advance this evening,” said an unnamed Western diplomat, cautiously optimistic that a final deal was within reach.
Iranians have much incentive to reach the deal July 9 to meet a deadline that triggers an automatic 60-day Congressional review that could scuttle all the hard work by the P5+1, including the U.S., U.K, France, Russia, China and Germany, though the U.S. has certainly plays the lead role. Since extending the deadline since Nov. 2013 and missing two crucial deadlines, including the most recent June 30, the P5+1 extended it again until Thursday, July 9. After July 9, the fate of any agreement rests in the GOP-dominated U.S. Congress for approval. Zarif claims Iran wants a deal but refuses to compromise its national pride related to “sensitive” inspections at Iran’s nuclear sites. Without accepting inspections at military sites, the International Atomic Energy Agency can’t do its job of assuring Iran isn’t engage in A-bomb research. Thwarting the IAEA inspections defeats the entire agreement.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hinted that the Persian economy already anticipates an end to punitive economic sanctions. “Negotiations with the P5+1 group are at a sensitive stage and the Islamic Republic of Iran is already preparing its economy for the lifting of sanctions,” Rouhani told reporters at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport boarding a flight to Moscow for a meeting with the Shanghai Cooperation Council. Like Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister does nothing without approval of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei’s said that if the P5+1 don’t accept Iran’s nuke deal with all its limitations, the Islamic Republic would ramp up its enrichment program beyond current levels. While denying that Iran’s had any military component to its enrichment programs, Khamenei threatens the West—indeed the whole Middle East—with an arms race.
Like Greece’s leftist 40-year-old Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who’s pushed Greece near financial abyss, Khamenei too push’s Iran close to the brink. If the nuke talks fail in Vienna, Iran faces an uncertain future with the U.S. and its allies committed to ending any military component to Iran’s nuke program. When Khamenei threatens to ramp upon Iran’s nuke program, the West counters with threats of military action. Whether or not Iran thinks it nuke program is impregnable or not, rejecting the Vienna nuke talks enhances the prospects of military action. “Never threaten an Iranian,” Zarif told Kerry on Monday, practically coming, as before, to fisticuffs. Zarif admitted in a recent oped in the Financial Times that a deal was “within reach” but not guaranteed. Judging by Rouhanis’ remarks, it looks like Iran has pushed as far as they could go before signing a deal.
Silvery long-haired 70-year-old U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi continue hammering out more inspections details. Both know that realistic capability of Iran’s enrichment program to produce enough enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. Since former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Iran a “nuclear state” Feb. 11, 2010, he wasn’t talking about reactor fuel or medical isotopes. Ahmadinejad referred to the military dimension to Iran’s nuke program, despite official denials to the contrary. Even as late as July 2, while meeting with IAEA Secretary-General Yukyo Amano in Tehran, Khamenei threatened to escalate Iran’s nuclear activities if diplomacy fails. Khamenei’s threats don’t relate to Iran’s peaceful program of generating more reactor fuel or medical isotopes but obvious bomb-making capabilities.
Despite tough talk from Tehran, Rohani hints that Iran already anticipates an end to the punitive sanctions crippling the Iranian economy. Iran needs the nuke deal more than President Barack Obama needs a foreign policy victory. With Congress controlling the fate of any agreement, it’s possible the Congress won’t sign onto any deal that doesn’t insist on intrusive IAEA inspections. “It’s important to get it done as soon as possible, because the longer it takes, the more money and opportunities we lose,” to stimulate the economy, said 31-year-old Mohammad, a computer engineer. Iran doesn’t want the P5+1 poking into its past military work, or, for that matter, sensitive military facilities. Khamenei insists that any deal must immediately end U.S. and U.N. sanctions, also ending the arms embargo preventing Iran to beefing up its conventional weapons capability.
