November 19, 2021
by Warren L. Nelson
The Islamic Republic is struggling to figure out what it will do when it returns to the nuclear talks, which it says it will do November 29.
It has spent weeks laying down various demands, many of which make little sense and many of which change with the week, although the demand that Washington lift all its sanctions on Iran remains constant.
The Raisi Administration’s most-often made new demand is that the United States pledge that if the two countries return to the nuclear deal the United States will never again withdraw from the agreement.
This is an impossibility. No American president may bind a future president. So, Joseph Biden cannot make such a commitment. The two countries could elevate the agreement to a formal treaty. But 1) that would require a two-thirds majority in the US Senate, which is not achievable with the Republican Party holding half the seats in the Senate and 2) all treaties contain exit clauses allowing either party to leave, usually after giving advance notice of months or years before leaving.
President Biden tried a gesture to please Iran, saying in October that he was personally pledging “to stay in full compliance, so long as Iran does the same.” But that simply underscored that all Biden could do was commit himself for the duration of his time as president.
If that was supposed to please Tehran, it failed. The Islamic Republic did not reject what Bush said, it simply ignored it. The Raisi Administration appears to be demanding that Washington promise it will not leave the agreement again mainly to impress the Iranian public with its toughness, but doesn’t want the public to know that the demand is an impossible one.
More recently, Ali Bagheri-Kani, the new deputy foreign minister who will lead the Iranian delegation in the talks, has said the resumed talks will not be about Iran’s nuclear program, but confined entirely to the question of how Washington will rejoin the agreement and remove sanctions. He said there will be no talks on the nuclear issue “because the nuclear issue was fully agreed upon in 2015 in the form of an agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1,” the other major powers.
He didn’t bother to mention that the issue of removing sanctions was fully agreed upon in 2015 as well.
One could almost hear the European powers groaning when Bagheri made his comments.
Iranian officials are trying to argue that it is not hard for them to return to the 2015 agreement, but it is hard to prove that Washington has returned by truly lifting all sanctions and ending their enforcement. Actually, it is not difficult for Iran to return to the original agreement but impossible. One part of the 2015 agreement barred Iran from doing much research and development work on nuclear issues, but Iran has done much such work in the last three years. Such knowledge cannot be walked back. Iran can sell the excess uranium it has enriched to come back into compliance with the caps in the agreement. But it cannot eliminate the knowledge it has gained from research. Iran has avoided talking about that to the consternation of the European parties.
US and EU officials suggest that some new codicil must be added to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to account for that. But no one has publicly said what exactly they will seek.
Iran has also been demanding that Washington remove all US sanctions. But the 2015 agreement did not require the US to remove all sanctions, just nuclear sanctions. Sanctions for human rights violations, terrorism and other US complaints were allowed to continue. But the Islamic Republic ignores that in its repeated demands.
For example, when the US sanctioned four Iranians a few weeks ago for terroristic actions by plotting to kidnap Massih Alinejad from her Brooklyn home and carry her back to Iran, the Islamic Republic said these sanctions violated the 2015 agreement. But as sanctions for terrorism, they did not violate the agreement.
Iran has complained that some of the sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration were disguised as non-nuclear sanctions but were actually aimed at hobbling the nuclear program. Some news reports say that Washington told Iran last spring that it agreed that was true and would be prepared to lift those Trump sanctions—but not the Trump sanctions that legitimately targeted human rights violations and other such activities.
CNN reported October 29 that the Biden Administration is very skeptical that the resumed talks will lead to any breakthrough and are “actively” looking at proposals for new penalties to be imposed on Iran.
Another problem with resuming the agreement is the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA officials complain that Iran has seriously circumscribed their ability to monitor Iran’s compliance and suggested some needed information may never be recoverable.
Rafael Grossi, the Argentine who is the director general of the IAEA, recently said the problem is not just a lack of Iranian cooperation but its unwillingness to even discuss the problems. He has complained the new foreign minister has refused even to talk with him. In a public appearance in Washington October 21, Grossi was asked if it would a good idea to “censure” Iran for stonewalling. After a pause, Grossi said, “Yeah.” The stunned moderator asked if he heard Grossi right and Grossi nodded in assent.
An unmentioned problem is that it is never clear what the Islamic Republic’s bottom line is. Several weeks ago, Deputy Vahid Jalalzadeh said the Supreme Leader has set down three conditions for resuming the agreement: 1) the removal of US sanctions, 2) verification by Tehran that sanctions have been removed and 3) Iran’s return to its obligations laid out in the 2015 JCPOA.
But on November 8, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh laid out what he said were Iran’s three demands: 1) acknowledgment by Washington that it left the agreement; 2) the lifting of all US sanctions on Iran; and 3) guaranteeing that no one will be able in the future to abandon the agreement.