May 20, 2022
by Warren L. Nelson
Opposition in the US to the revival of the nuclear agreement is growing by leaps and bounds, while in Tehran fears that the deal won’t be revived are shaking the establishment, which realizes that Iran’s leverage with the US and Europe is fast disappearing.
On the surface, the sticking point is Iran’s demand that the US remove the Pasdaran from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). But the problems go much deeper.
Many Democrats in the US no longer see much to be gained from reviving the agreement. First, Iran has dramatically expanded its mastery of nuclear technology in the four years since President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing from the deal. Second, the restrictions in the agreement start to come off as soon as 2025, less than three years away. Consequently, many US politicians no longer see much benefit from the deal and they also see a political penalty to be paid as Iran’s actions draw even more ire from the public, which increasingly views the Islamic Republic as desirous of building a nuclear weapon.
The changed attitude among Democrats became apparent May 4 when the Senate voted on a Republican resolution opposing any agreement with Iran that was limited to Iran’s nuclear program or that allowed removal of the Pasdaran from the FTO list. One-third of the Democrats in the Senate voted for the language, which then passed 62-33 with five members not voting. (Only one Republican voted no Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.)
The language, which is non-binding, said that any agreement with Iran should include provisions “addressing the full range of Iran’s destabilizing activities,” including missiles, terrorism and sanctions evasion, must not lift any sanctions on the Pasdaran and must not take the Pasdaran off the FTO list.
That looks like a list of all the things the Islamic Republic has said it objects to.
As Democrats in Washington shift from support for a revival of the JCPOA as written to support for only a tougher agreement, hardline politicians in Tehran are having an “ooops” moment. For months, they have acted as if President Biden was willing to back any agreement that would earn Iran’s signature. Now, they are coming to recognize that Washington isn’t ready for any such thing. Biden has made clear that he still wants an agreement, but he has also made clear he won’t take the Pasdaran off the FTO list.
What’s more, Europe is clearly losing interest is backing the old JCPOA agreement. As more Democrats in Washington have become critical of the old deal with Iran, the Europeans have begun to shrug their shoulders. (They are also far more focused on Ukraine as a much more important issue than anything to do with Iran.)
The US media has focused on reports that Iran is only a few weeks at most from having enough enriched uranium to make one nuclear bomb. The fact that Iran is not believed to have the knowledge on how to actually make a bomb with a functioning trigger, to make it small enough to fit on an Iranian missile, or make the warhead capable of surviving a plunge through the atmosphere generally is ignored, although all are crucial to making a working warhead. The reality is that Iran is generally believed to be a long way from having a functioning bomb although intelligence specialists caution that the work on making a functional bomb would be done is a small room and could go undetected.
As for the terrorist listing of the Pasdaran, the Biden Administration has used Iran’s demand to hit back with a swift left jab to the jaw. US officials point out that the terrorist list is not a subject of the talks, which have been limited from the start to nuclear issues at Iran’s insistence. When the Europeans wanted to address Iran’s involvement in Syria and Yemen, Iran responded that that was beyond the scope of the talks. When Iran started calling for the Pasdaran to be taken off the terrorist list, American officials said if that is to be part of the talks, then Iran’s involvement in Syria and Yemen must be part of the talks.
A letter signed by 500 Iranian-American academicians was sent to Biden opposing the delisting of the Pasdaran. The letter said delisting is “unquestionably against the will and interest of the Iranian people, and a direct threat to the advancement of democracy.” It said the Pasdaran are a “tool of terrorism abroad and repression of people on the streets of Iran.”
The letter was from the Iranian Professionals Ad Hoc Committee on Iran Policy, a group coordinated by Kazem Kazerounian, dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut.
But the fact is that the de-listing demand is really almost meaningless as a practical matter. The Pasdaran are subject to many sanctions imposed over the years. The designation of the Pasdaran as an FTO simply duplicates many of those sanctions, so a delisting won’t stop any of those sanctions. The Iran Times has been able to find only a solitary “punishment” imposed by the FTO designation that wasn’t already imposed. The FTO law says no present or past member of an FTO can receive a US visa. That is a unique sanction on Iran. Its impact has been to deny someone who was drafted into the Pasdaran decades ago a US visa; that is not even a sanction on the Pasdaran as an organization.
Another element that has raised ire in the US is Iranian reported efforts to kill former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Trump Administration’s point man on Iran, Brian Hook. Leaked news stories say the Biden Administration has detected such killing efforts and now spends $2 million a month to protect those two men.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken linked the assassination effort to Iran’s listing as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. “The only way I can see it [the FTO listing] being lifted is if Iran takes steps necessary to justify the lifting of that designation. So, it knows what it would have to do in order to see that happen.”
In Tehran, meanwhile, the tough talk and tough demands levied on the US has faded in recent weeks. Previously, major Iranian political figures clearly believed the Biden Administration was weak and would cave to Iranian demands if Iran just stood firmly. Now, more people see the negotiations as endangered and the chances of sanctions being lifted receding. Many are having second thoughts about Iran’s hardline tactics.
But none of that has translated into any serious movement by either side. The US has essentially just been siting on its hands the last few months. Diplomatic reporter Laura Rozen wrote April 8 that the Administration had even decided not to send a reply to Iran’s last proposal but just to ignore it. The Islamic Republic almost daily says the next move is up to the US, which, Iran says, should just agree to Iran’s stated positions.
In Iran, Reformists are already laying the blame for the continuation of sanctions at the feet of the Raisi Administration, saying it blew its opportunity to reach an agreement with Washington that would have lifted the sanctions.
The EU, which oversees the talks, has been trying to re-start them and thinks it has some solutions. But Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, recently said, “We cannot continue like this forever, because, in the meantime, Iran continues developing their nuclear program.”
Mohammad Marandi, an adviser involved in the talks, told the Entekhab news website that even if the US were to agree to lift all sanctions on the Pasdaran, the nuclear agreement still would not be revived because it hasn’t addressed other remaining issues, of which he named just one a US pledge to stick with the agreement and not withdraw in the future.
The US has said multiple times it cannot constitutionally commit a future administration to anything. Marandi appeared to accept that but complained that the Biden Administration has failed even to pledge it will abide by the agreement as long as it holds office. But that is false. Biden officials have repeatedly committed to sticking with the agreement as long as Biden is president.
Marandi then complained that the Biden officials are not focused on Iran’s main concern removing sanctions but seek to divert public attention by bringing up other issues such as the Pasdaran FTO listing. That is a strange complaint since it is Iran that has brought up and continues to harp on the FTO listing.
The State Department, meanwhile, announced that 80 percent of the 107 sanctions imposed by the Biden Administration have applied to the Pasdaran or its proxies.
Former President Donald Trump, who has been strangely quiet about Iran the past year, finally weighed in on the issue April 13 in a telephonic appearance on Fox News. Trump said the original nuclear agreement was “a terrible deal, but it was better than the deal” Biden now wants to sign with the Islamic Republic ignoring the fact that there is no such deal. He then said, “Israel is in tremendous peril, tremendous danger … because there is a very quick roadmap for them [Iran] to have a nuclear weapon and a lot of nuclear weapons.”
Yet another impediment arose May 10 when Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), complained publicly that Iran was dragging its feet on providing information about uranium particles found at locations that Iran said had never been involved in its nuclear program.
Speaking to the EU parliament, Grossi said he had told Iran he found it difficult to believe the nuclear deal could be revived if the the IAEA had real concerns about issues Iran should have been honest about. “I am not trying to pass an alarmist message that we are at a dead end, but the situation does not look very good. Iran has not been forthcoming in the type of information we need from them.”
It should be noted that the Majlis itself has made some firm demands for a revived agreement demands that would make it impossible ever to revive the agreement. Those demands, laid down February 20 in a letter signed by 250 of the 290 deputies, require that:
1) The European parties as well as the US must commit that they will never withdraw from a revived agreement a legal impossibility;
2) The Majlis will only agree to a deal that lifts all US sanctions not just those imposed for Iran’s nuclear program, which were lifted by the original JCPOA, but also those imposed for human rights violations, missile work and terrorism, which were left in place by the JCPOA a change the Americans could never agree to.
3) The Majlis will not allow the government to come back into compliance with the old JCPOA until the Majlis has first “verified” that the Americans have come back into compliance and Iran is once again receiving payments for its exports as well as foreign investments a provision that would allow the Islamic Republic to drag out non-compliance indefinitely; and
The other parties to the agreement must pledge that they will never trigger the “snapback” provision, which allows for sanctions to be reimposed on Iran if it violates any provisions of the JCPOA. In other words, the Majlis is demanding that the West agree not to enforce the JCPOA.