by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi
With Iran’s July 7 deadline rapidly approaching for Europe to live up to its obligations under the nuclear agreement or face consequences, there is little evidence that European governments are willing to meet Iran even halfway. Instead, European governments are hoping instead that Iran will deem satisfactory their token gestures, such as the launching of a special financial mechanism for Iran trade with a credit line of a paltry few million euros.
Iran, however, has insisted steadfastly that, unless Europe fully implements its obligations, it will reciprocate with incremental non-implementation of its part of the agreement. Iran’s exceeding the ceiling on stashed enriched uranium and heavy water has already caused alarm in European capitals. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has made it abundantly clear that Iran’s next move will be to forgo the limit on the level of enrichment, presently capped at 3.67 percent, which is a major proliferation concern.
Other Iranian challenges to the nuclear agreement remain in the offing, such as reducing transparency, limiting short-notice inspections, and perhaps even halting the voluntary adoption of the intrusive Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In the end, if U.S. sanctions continue and Europe fails to address Iran’s concerns, the nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) will be destined for history’s dustbin and Iran may even exit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether, as Zarif and other Iranian officials have repeatedly warned.
Currently, the nub of Europe’s problem with Iran is “INSTEX reductionism.” INSTEX (Instrument For Support of Trade Exchange) is now operational after a six-month delay. But few Iranians are willing to attach too much importance to it, primarily because it is expressly limited to the exchange of “humanitarian goods,” which are exempted from the U.S. sanctions in the first place. The European Three (France, England, and Germany), which are the powerhouses behind the INSTEX, pledged billions of euro to assist Iran over a decade ago when it initially agreed to halt its nuclear fuel cycle. Despite Iran’s great advance in its nuclear technology, which have since raised proliferation concerns, Europe’s stingy response has been one of diminishing returns, offering less and less for the sake of reaching a grand bargain.
This Eurocentric attitude of bargaining on the cheap is destined to backfire. Europe has much to lose from the demise of the JCPOA and the return of the Iran nuclear crisis. Europe’s reduction of its JCPOA commitments to token gestures under the guise of INSTEX, while insisting on Iran’s full compliance with the accord, speaks of a hypocritical double standard as well as failure to take Iran’s warnings seriously. As Iranian Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi has put it, Iran cannot be expected to be a unilateral party to a multilateral agreement. The INSTEX initiative, moreover, has no tangible effect on Iran’s economy. Its purview must be immediately expanded to include major oil contracts as well as other participants—China, for instance, has expressed interest in joining—and the limited credit line should be vastly increased.
Although the Western media has interpreted INSTEX as a European mechanism to “bypass US sanctions,” Tehran believes it to be a mechanism to “contain Iran” and indirectly rationalize the U.S. sanctions. Yet, U.S. sanctions on Iran violate international law and the will of UN Security Council, and there is no justification for the failure of JCPOA parties to take the United States to the UN Security Council over its violation of Resolution 2231. Instead, Europe has limited itself to expressions of “regret” over the unilateral U.S. exit from the JCPOA, an international binding agreement, while in the same breath warning Iran not to breach the agreement.
Iran has made it clear that it will continue with selective non-implementation of the JCPOA but is willing to reverse its decisions if Europe implements its written commitments under the terms of JCPOA. In other words, the ball is entirely in Europe’s court. The Europeans should learn from China, another JCPOA signatory, which has explicitly denounced U.S. bullying on its oil trade with Iran. Indeed, Europe ought to file a complaint against the United States in the World Trade Organization, arguing that U.S. sanctions on Iran violate the norms of global free trade and introduce serious trade distortions. But Europe is unlikely to pursue these tactics, neither at the UN nor at the WTO, and thus the crisis will only get worse.
Kaveh Afrasiabi has taught at Tehran University and Boston University and is a former consultant to the UN Program on Dialogue Among Civilizations. He is the author of several books on Iran, Islam, and the Middle East, including After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran’s Foreign Policy (Westview Books, 1995) and most recently Iran Nuclear Accord and the Remaking of the Middle East (2018). He is the co-author of the forthcoming Trump and Iran: Containment to Confrontation.
Kooshy & FYI,
Your Khamenei cult fascism has NOTHING to do Islam, Shia, morality, justice, Iran’s national interests, etc. which is why the war-criminal Trumpo-Zionist-Saudi barbarism NEEDS Khamenei’s savage despotism, in order to justify its colonial savagery.
The fact that Khamenei “delvapas” goons LOVED the killing of JCPOA (and bringing back sanctions, and now war) in COLLABORATION with Trump-Netanyahu-MBS war criminals is a fact that you cannot change no matter how much you demonize lovers of Iran’s democracy, i.e., sovereignty.
As for “kooshy’s” claims about Dr. Mossadegh, we know that Khamenei goons (like their Trump and Netanyahu collaborators) have a “sacred duty” to LIE, as needed–per the savage anti-Islamic dictum: End justifies the means.
This is why Trumpo-Zionism war criminals LOVE your ilk (who kill Iran’s sovereignty, i.e., democracy for your LOGHMEY-E HARAM) because Israel’s racist claim is that its colonial barbaric regime “is the only democracy in the region.”
So, quit serving Zionism, Kooshy & FYI.
Instex requires action on the part of Iran and the EU. The fact that it is now operational is a major step forward even if trade for now is limited to medicines and other humanitarian goods. Instex can function whether or not Iran remains compliant with JCPOA and it is in the interest of both Iran and the EU to expand the scope of the vehicle and to include non-EU states.
The EU is a union of democracies beset by populism and nationalisms whose destructive power can be amplified by divide and conquer approaches by a U.S. administration more interested in short term advantage than in long term values and benefits. Tariffs against the EU auto sector could result in rising unemployment in Germany threatening the power of centrist parties.
The problem is less with the EU than the U.S. Congress. Why and how did Congress let Bolton get away with pushing his plan for regime change in Iran and hijacking the decision-making responsibility of Congress? In 2010 following the IAEA’s alert to the Security Council that Iran was in violation of the Safeguard agreement between the IAEA and Iran the Security Council authorized sanctions against Iran via UNSCR1927. The U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010. In contrast in 2018 the IAEA certified that Iran was fully compliant with JCPOA and the CIA confirmed this and that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. This was widely known and the reason why Mattis, McMaster, Tillerson and others strongly opposed exiting the JCPOA while Iran remained compliant. Trump chose to not seek the consent of Congress for his decision to exit JCPOA and to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran designed to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero, collapse Iran’s economy and topple the regime. Trump knew that if the matter had been submitted to Congress even the Republican controlled Congress in 2018 would have demanded evidence for such a momentous decision. Bolton’s plan instead used the Emergency Economic Powers Act despite the fact that there was no emergency and Iran was fully compliant with JCPOA.
Bolton’s regime change plan has damaged U.S. relations with Europe, fundamentally weakened the capacity of the Security Council to address crises, significantly increased the threats of war in the Middle East and widened the arc of instability and violence that threatens to engulf the region reaching into Europe and threatening the global economy. The EU needs to maintain the course, continue to urge compliance with JCPOA and expand Instex with full cooperation with Iran regardless of Iran’s decisions regarding compliance with elements of JCPOA as long as Iran remains fully committed to honor JCPOA if JCPOA is also honored by the other signatories. Congress needs to undertake a full scale investigation of the decision to launch this regime change campaign against Iran that has no plausible positive outcome and demand corrective action. A good first step might be to demand that John Bolton be fired perhaps by passing a law that Trump would need to veto to keep Bolton in power.
VIDBELDAVS,
Thank you so much for your clear-sighted analysis and peace-building morally consistent recommendations.
As to your beautiful central question:
“Why and how did Congress [also under “centrist” Democrat control] let Bolton get away with pushing his plan for regime change in Iran and hijacking the decision-making responsibility of Congress?”
In my opinion, the answer is a COLLABORATION (as “enemies”) between the following vociferous opponents of the JCPOA:
a) The Israeli lobby–with Saudi/UAE money, i.e., the “military industrial complex” or “external colonialism” in Dr. Mossadegh’s immortal words,
and
b) The “internal despotism” of the Iranian “hardliners” (inside–and outside Iran) who in order to maintain their ugly ANTI-ISLAMIC dictatorial grip (with a superficial religious sheen on the outside) on naked brutal power over 80% of the Iranian population, who desperately NEEDED to bring back savage sanctions (from which they benefit economically, politically–and socially) and an atmosphere of (if not actual) war.
Both so of these CO-DEPENDENT so-called “enemies,” deeply FEAR (and hence collaboratively undermine) a democratic pluralistic Iranian government–that is supported by the 80-90% of the currently repressed Iranian people–which is thus able to protect Iran’s sovereignty (per Dr. Mossadegh’s legacy) because of the democratic (and therefore just) legitimacy–not the illegitimate power of brutal guns.
This is why you see the naked joy, of even some of the regime-supporting persons who leave English language comments under these Iran-related Lobe Log essays here, at Trump’s barbaric Iran policies.
As for Kaveh Afrasiabi, he has been (desperately–over the years) trying to have his cake and eat it too–victimizing moral consistency, of course.
Moji Agah
Do you really have anything logical to say to counter the logic FYI uses, or you think innuendo, and rhetoric suffice for changing the informed mind on this site. If the latter, this has been tried for last forty years by US, his western “goons” and Iranians didn’t buy that. Your problem is with Islam as politics that governs Iran, if you were informed you would know that’s not that different with was is realistically being practiced by west, meaning the west in content has a political religious format to protect her western identity. Iran is no different and shouldn’t be.
VIDBELDAVS,
Thank you so much for your clear-sighted analysis and peace-building morally consistent recommendations.
As to your beautiful central question:
“Why and how did Congress [also under “centrist” Democrat control] let Bolton get away with pushing his plan for regime change in Iran and hijacking the decision-making responsibility of Congress?”
In my opinion, the answer is a COLLABORATION (as “enemies”) between the following vociferous opponents of the JCPOA:
a) The Israeli lobby–with Saudi/UAE money, i.e., the “military industrial complex” or “external colonialism” in Dr. Mossadegh’s immortal words,
and
b) The “internal despotism” of the Iranian “hardliners” (inside–and outside Iran) who in order to maintain their ugly ANTI-ISLAMIC dictatorial grip (with a superficial religious sheen on the outside) on naked brutal power over 80% of the Iranian population, who desperately NEEDED to bring back savage sanctions (from which they benefit economically, politically–and socially) and an atmosphere of (if not actual) war.
Both so of these CO-DEPENDENT so-called “enemies,” deeply FEAR (and hence collaboratively undermine) a democratic pluralistic Iranian government–that is supported by the 80-90% of the currently repressed Iranian people–which is thus able to protect Iran’s sovereignty (per Dr. Mossadegh’s legacy) because of the democratic (and therefore just) legitimacy–not the illegitimate power of brutal guns.
This is why you see the naked joy, of even some of the regime-supporting persons who leave English language comments under these Iran-related Lobe Log essays here, at Trump’s barbaric Iran policies.
As for Kaveh Afrasiabi, he has been (desperately–over the years) trying to have his cake and eat it too–victimizing moral consistency, of course.