On the eve of resuming talks in Vienna with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], Iran’s new hard-line leadership called the agency “unprofessional” and “unfair” for wanting answers on why traces of enriched uranium were found at several sites not reported by Tehran as engaged in nuclear activity. Since former President Donald Trump cancelled June 18, 2018 U.S. involvement in the July 15, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA]. Signed by former President Barack Obama, the U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany, the so-called P5+1 have tried desperately to get Iran back in compliance with the agreement. Iran’s 81-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave the green light to for Iran to escalate its uranium enrichment program, going from the JCPOA’s 3.5% limit to over 60%, right below weapons grade material. Western powers fear Iran’s close to an A-bomb.
All the effort that went into the JCPOA was all predicated on Western intel agencies trying to estimate Iran’s break-out time to a nuclear bomb, something Iran denied, saying it was not compatible with Islamic law. Yet Iran’s fully aware that Pakistan, an Islamic country, has had the bomb since May 28, 1998, something it’s used as a deterrent against archrival India. When Obama neared completion of the JCPOA in 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke March 3, 2015 to a joint session of Congress, urging lawmakers to reject Obama’s agreement. Netanyahu saw no verification or enforcement provision to stop Iran from secretly pursuing weapons grade uranium to build its first A-bomb. Netanyahu was also concerned about Iran’s proxy war with Saudi Arabia, something Cruise missiles hit the Riyadh International Airport and other Saudi sites.
So for the past three years, the P5+1 has labored to figure out a way to get Iran back into compliances, despite strict economic sanctions re-imposed by Trump after canceling the JCPOA May 8, 2018. Trump found no other way to gain the upper hand with Iran while they launched proxy war against Saudi Arabia and Israel other than canceling the JCPOA and slapping Iran with new sanctions. Iran’s new negotiation team are far tougher that former Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif who spent two years working on the JCPOA with former Secretary of State John Kerry. Iran’s newly minted President Ibrahim Raisi has zero degrees of separation from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who didn’t like the JCPOA from the beginning. Iran’s new Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is also on the same page as Khamenei, unwilling to make concessions to the P5+1 or the IAEA.
IAEA officials want Iran to explain why traces of enriched uranium were found at least three separate sites that were banned from enrichment activities. “The statement of the Agency in its report is completely unprofessional, illusory and unfair,” said Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi to the IAEA’s 35-nation board. Gharibadi objected to a section in the IAEA report that said it could not determine whether or not Iran’s enrichment program was for peaceful purposes or for building an A-bomb. IAEA officials are trying to respond to Trump’s criticisms that the JCPOA was unverifiable and unenforceable When IAEA Chief Rafael Grossi and Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammed Slami meet in Vienna next week, Iran looks to take a tougher position, demanding that the U.S. drop all of its sanctions, limiting Iran’s oil sales, before Iran starts any kind of negotiations on a new deal.
Iran joined a new military pact with Russia and China, putting pressure on the West to make concessions. Neither Russia nor China have any objections to Tehran pursuing completion of an A-bomb, setting them more at odds with the West than every before. Since Biden took office Jan. 20, 2021, he’s alienated Russia and China, accusing China of genocide against Muslim Uyghurs and Russia of poisoning jailed Russian dissident Alexi Navalny. Only yesterday, Biden got into a beef with France, after Australia cancelled a $40 billion diesel-electric powered submarine deal. U.S., U.K. and Australia joined a mutual defense pact in the South Pacific, requiring Australia to patrol with its submarine fleet vast areas, including the South China Sea. Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he discussed ending the submarine deal with French President Emmanuel Macron in June.
Getting the JCPOA back on track, limiting Iran’s uranium enrichment program won’t b easy with Iran’s new hard-line leadership. Unless the P5+1 is ready to end all U.S. sanctions against Iran, it’s doubtful any progress will be made to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment back to the 3.5% compliance, if, in fact, that was a limit ever achieved. Khamenei isn’t about to let IAEA inspectors poke around in areas deemed by the regime as secret, making a farce out of attempt to restart a new nuke deal. “How is it possible that an insignificant amount of material belonging to two decades ago affect the peaceful nature of the nuclear program of a country, while that country is hosting more that 20% of the Agency’s inspections at the global level . . .?” Gharibabadi said. IAEA inspectors know that Iran has never disclosed secret uranium enrichment sites, not will they reveal them now.
