Sticking it to 74-year-old President Donald Trump, 78-year-old President Joe Biden and his 58-year-old Secretary of State Tony Blinken have committed to rejoining former President Barack Obama’s July 15, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] AKA the Iranian Nuke Deal. Negotiated over two years by former Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s 61-year-old U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Mohammad Java Zarif, the agreement handed Iran $1.6 billion in cash and $150 billion in sanctions relief in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Israel’s 71-year-old Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposed the agreement, speaking to a joint session of Congress March 3, 2015, begged Congress to reconsider. Netahyahu didn’t believe there was any verification or enforcement provision to the JCPOA, letting Iran violate terms of the agreement from the get-go.
Haggling with Iranian officials in Vienna, the U.S. isn’t directly involved in the talks to reinstate the JCPOA because Iran wants nothing to do with the U.S. delegation. Holding a grudge against Trump, Iran’s Foreign Ministry should welcome direct talks with Blinken and 44-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, both of whom were involved in the original agreement and strongly opposed Trump’s May 8. 2018 cancellation. Representatives from the P5+1, including the U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China, are now doing the U.S. bidding, since Iran foolishly refuses to sit at table with the U.S. Zarif knows that he’s with familiar faces, negotiating a new deal with Blinken and Sullivan. Yet Iran stubbornly resists dealing directly with the major architect of the JCPOA. Haggling over which sanctions would be removed, Iran knows it gets back to where they were before Trump.
Zarif knows that he’s got the U.S. back in the same negotiating corner they had when they closed the deal in 2015. While there are different types of sanctions, Iran wants all of them removed before returning to compliance with the agreement, permitting Iran to only enrich uranium to 3.5%, way under the current level of 60%, one step below weapons grade uranium. Whatever “baskets” of sanctions, Iran wants all of them removed, including any on Iran’s nuclear scientists or companies connected with its high-speed centrifuges. Most important to Iran are an unfettered return to selling its petroleum and refined products on the world market, all else is less significant. Whatever the current negotiations with the P5+1, Iran demands that the U.S. end all sanctions, including ones for state-sponsored terrorism, including sanctions on finances, shipping, manufacturing and energy.
Biden officials want to return to the JCPOA to return to Obama’s past agreement, something cancelled by Trump May 8, 2018. Whether admitted to or not by former Obama officials, there was no real enforcement or verification mechanism to the old JCPOA, other that Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] inspectors, not permitted to inspect enrichment facilities in Iran’s sensitive military sites. If there’s no verification, what good was the agreement, other than perpetuating a charade that Iran was abiding by terms of the JCPOA? Trump cancelled the agreement because there was no verification but, more importantly, that Iran was running amok with all its newfound cash, starting a proxy war using Yemen’s Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia. Before the ink was dry July 15, 2015, Iran was shooting Cruise missile at Saudi Arabia’s International Airport.
Re-entering the JCPOA, Biden, Blinken or Sullivan have no intention of linking the agreement to Iran’s malign activities in the Middle East, including its proxy war with Saudi Arabia. Only March 19, Houthi rebels, supplied with predators drones and ballistic missiles by Iran, struck again at the Kingdom. Gulf Arab State oppose Biden’s new effort to rejoin the JCPOA unless Washington expands the agreement to stop Iran’s proxy war against Saudi Arabia and other mischief in the Gulf. U.S. Navy determined June 19, 2019 that fragments from a Limpet mines found in bombed oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman had Iranian markings. Before Biden, Blinken and Sullivan sign any new agreement, Iran should agree to stop its proxy war with Saudi Arabia. Progress toward a new agreement favors Iran since the get to resume the JCPOA without any change to their malign behavior in the Gulf.
Biden’s negotiators, working mainly through the U.K. and France, have raised no objections to Iran’s proxy war and attacks on maritime shipping in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. State Department spokesman Ned Price said he saw “signs of progress” but cautioned that “we probably have a longer road ahead of us that we do in the review mirror at this point. And that is because of the inherent challenge in the this process. And many of those challenges, at least, are not going away.” Despite recessing in Vienna April 20, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Abbas Araghchi told Irain’s IRNA news agency that the talks were “moving forward despite difficulties and challenges.” No matter how much Biden wants to pay back Trump, he should not enter into any new agreement with Iran unless there’s (a) verification, (b) enforcement, and, most importantly, (c) Iran must stop its proxy war with Saudi Arabia.
