July 29, 2022
by Warren L. Nelson
The White House Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, thinks that the leadership in Tehran is deeply divided over whether to renew the nuclear deal with Washington or jettison it.
Publicly, a number of Foreign Ministry officials have spoken repeatedly in support of the deal, while hardliners have generally been dismissive. The Foreign Ministry appears to be successful in stopping the hardliners from having the deal declared dead and moving on. But that just leaves policy stymied and nothing happening.
In a think tank gathering in mid-July, McGurk said the Iranian policymakers are unable to agree on how to proceed in the nuclear talks. He said he has a theory that the deal’s supporters in Tehran want Washington to “add something to the pot” to help them convince the Supreme Leader to approve revival of the deal. But McGurk said, “We aren’t going to do that.”
The Axios news outlet reported on what McGurk said, quoting three sources who were at the think tank gathering.
Axios also reported that McGurk said the Biden Administration was planning to impose more sanctions and use diplomatic isolation in order to pressure Iran, “but not needlessly escalate the situation.” McGurk said the US would only use force “as a last resort.” President Biden used that same term a few days later while he was visiting the Middle East.
McGurk also said there is a divergence of views with Israel over whether the US should continue trying revive the nuclear deal. But he said there is no divergence over a possible military strike.
McGurk also said it was “highly unlikely” that the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) would be revived.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, wrote in a Financial Times op-ed that after 15 months of talk—with nothing changing since shortly before Now Ruz—“the space for significant compromises has been exhausted.”
He said that early in July he presented Iran and the United States with a complete text he thought should be acceptable to both sides. “The text represents the best possible deal that I, as facilitator of the negotiations, see as feasible. I see no other comprehensive or effective alternative within reach.” US chief negotiator Robert Malley said Washington accepts the EU text. Iran, however, ignored the EU text and said it had some new ideas it would offer. It didn’t say when it would offer them or why it has offered nothing since March.
Malley also said, “The discussion that really needs to take place right now is not so much between us and Iran…. It’s between Iran and itself. They need to come to a conclusion about whether they are now prepared to come back into compliance with the deal.”
One major problem is that the Islamic Republic turned off 26 video cameras belonging to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in June. The cameras gave the IAEA full view of what Iran was doing in its nuclear program. IAEA director Rafael Grossi said in June that if the cameras stayed shut down for more than three or four weeks there would be no way for the IAEA to guarantee that Iran wasn’t up to any hanky-panky. Five weeks later, in late July, he said it might take some new oversight agreements to get the IAEA back in a position to know what Iran has been doing. In other words, he was saying that just reviving the JCPOA was not enough for the IAEA to say if Iran was in compliance.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry may be thumping for revival out of fear that the death of the JCPOA won’t just mean sanctions will remain and Iran will forfeit all the billions of dollars of its money frozen around the world. It will likely mean that the EU will add its own sanctions and help Washington enforce sanctions harshly. It may well mean that the noose around Iran’s neck will be tightened significantly.
Majlis Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf suggested he wanted to dump the JCPOA overboard. He said there are two views in Iran on how to approach the negotiations. One is that Iran must submit and the other is that Iran must “resist and stand on its own feet.” He added, “Experience has shown that resistance, relying on the people and precise economic planning is the only path to save us.”
A different view on what Iran is doing was given July 21 by Richard Moore, the head of MI6, the British intelligence service. “I don’t think the Supreme Leader of Iran wants to cut a deal,” he told CNN.
But Victoria Nuland, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, said she believes Iran is not ready yet to give up on a deal. “They haven’t thrown over the table yet” and “they haven’t walked away when they could have done that over these many months.”
Back in Tehran, Foreign Minister Hossain Amir-Abdollahian said, “There’s still an important flaw in the text.” He identified that flaw as the absence of a guarantee that Iran would enjoy “the full economic benefits” of the JCPOA,” presumably meaning that European firms will invest in Iran and trade extensively with it. But the EU can’t guarantee that private business firms will do anything of the kind—and private business is more than a bit gun shy of dealing with such a difficult customer as Iran.
It is noteworthy, however, that Abdollahian did not say that the US listing of the Pasdaran as a Foreign Terrorist Organization was a flaw. It appears Iran has dropped that issue.
The issue of economic guarantees rests with Europe, not the US. Under the JCPOA, the United States neither traded with Iran nor invested in it. The issue is European firms dealing with Iran, not American.
Meanwhile, former President Hassan Rohani, who has been largely silent since leaving office one year ago, said he could have gotten a deal that would have ended sanctions in March 2021 if the Majlis had not butted in and passed a law that required Iran to increase the scale of enrichment, limit IAEA inspections and demand the lifting of more sanctions than were lifted by the 2015 JCPOA.
The United States has continued to impose new sanctions on individuals and firms. But few of those sanctions target Iranians. Most of those sanctioned are foreign-based firms that are helping Iran evade sanctions. It is clear that the US emphasis now is to find and shut down the front companies Iran is using to move its oil around the world pretending it is not Iranian oil.