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hassan rouhani
Biden's First JCPOA Hurdle
As simple as this formula is, it doesn’t resolve the question of who should take the first step.
Jan 31, 2021
He's only been president for a bit more than a week, but Joe Biden's promise to return to the 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) with Iran has already hit a roadblock. While the United States and Iran both publicly favor returning to the nuclear deal, they both also insist that the other must take the first step. As heated as some of the rhetoric has been between the two sides, the "who goes first" problem has been prevalent throughout diplomacy on Iran's nuclear program, so there are nonetheless good reasons to remain calm.
Logic dictates that the United States go first.
Both Washington and Tehran have accepted a mechanism for restoring the JCPOA: compliance for compliance. It is as simple and straightforward as it gets. Both sides simply comply with all of their JCPOA obligations with no preconditions. The Iranians drop their insistence that Washington compensate Tehran for having breached the deal in the first place, and the U.S. side refrains from using Donald Trump's sanctions as "leverage" to extract concessions from Iran before returning to the deal. Once both are in compliance with the deal, negotiations over disagreements and changes to the deal can begin.
As simple as this formula is, however, it doesn't resolve the question of who should take the first step.
Without providing any particular justification, Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken have stated that the United States will go into full compliance once the Iranians have done the same. In other words, the burden is Tehran to take the first step.
The Iranians argue that it was Washington that breached and left the deal --Iran has remained a party to the deal throughout this period, as acknowledged by the other five signatories (the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China)-- and, as a result, logic dictates that the United States go first.
Diplomacy seems stuck even before it has begun. Or is it?
Arguing about who should go first may well be more posturing than substance. The Biden team is not yet fully staffed; it may not even be in a position to take the first step. But presenting the "delay" as a tough negotiation position may make Biden look strong to domestic audiences.
Not surprisingly, neither side wants to appear too eager to get back into the deal -- even though both recognize how much they need the JCPOA. So, as part of the public negotiation, posturing and playing hard to get may be useful to both.
Tehran's firm public insistence that the United States go first may cause Iran to look overeager. But it also signals to domestic audiences in Iran that the Rouhani government isn't naive. Due to Trump's betrayal of the deal, coming across as soft or trustful of Washington won't help Rouhani or his foreign minister, Javad Zarif.
And even if this public fight is more than posturing, optimism is still warranted. There was plenty of "who goes first" drama in the JCPOA negotiations as well.
Each time, however, the drama was defused thanks to two factors. Both sides possessed enough political will. And they both had enough time to reach creative solutions to problems as they came up.
This time around, the political will exists as well. On the other hand, time is short.
Both countries have the political will because rejoining the deal squarely lies in their respective national interests.
For Washington, the JCPOA not only blocks Iran's pathways to a bomb, but it is also a necessary step to enable the United States to significantly reduce its military footprint in the Middle East.
Moreover, diplomatic efforts to deescalate regional conflicts -- from Syria to Yemen--can't begin in earnest until the JCPOA is restored and the nuclear dispute is removed as a major point of tension between the United States and Iran.
For Tehran, the JCPOA doesn't just lift sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. It also offers a pathway for Iran's political and economic rehabilitation regionally and globally. And ending Washington's 40-year-old campaign to contain and isolate the Islamic Republic.
So there is little reason to believe that either party lacks political will. Time, however, is a different story. Rouhani's hardline political opponents in the Iranian Majlis have passed a law that requires Iran to begin 20 percent enrichment of uranium if Washington fails to lift sanctions on Iran by the end of next month.
Moreover, the Iranian presidential elections take place in mid-June this year. Thus, the political season will begin in earnest by the Persian new year (Nowruz) in March, after which negotiations to revive the JCPOA will likely become a political football that will make impossible serious negotiations until a new president takes office.
So, while the political will exist, the time to find creative solutions is short.
Ultimately, however, there's more room for optimism than pessimism for one very simple reason: too much is at stake for both sides to risk losing what may be the last opportunity to revive an agreement that so squarely advances their interests and security.
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Rouhani to Biden: If US Comes Back to Nuclear Deal, So Will Iran
If Biden, on becoming president, lifts the US financial and trade blockade on Iran, Tehran will immediately return to scrupulously observing the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Dec 14, 2020
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani was asked Tuesday in an interview with a state-owned news outlet under what conditions Iran would return to the 2015 nuclear deal with the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5), including the U.S., plus Germany (+1)
He replied, "A thing we are saying today is that if tomorrow morning the P5 + 1 fulfills all its undertakings, we will without delay fulfill all of our undertakings."
What Rouhani means is that if Joe Biden, on becoming president, lifts the US financial and trade blockade on Iran, Tehran will immediately return to scrupulously observing the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Asked if he thought the new Biden administration would introduce changes into the belligerent Trump policies toward Iran, Rouhani replied,
"We believe that the situation in the new US administration will change and the old conditions will not remain the same."
The centrists in Iran are clearly eagerly looking forward to the change of administrations. Rouhani said, though, that he thought that even if Trump had remained in office, things would have had to change.
Rouhani added,
"We are interested in expanding relations with European and Western countries and with our neighbors, and on this basis we are engaged in this quest. In my view, in order to arrive at this outcome, if the other side, i.e., the P5 + 1 is ready and returns to 2017, we are also ready and we will return to it in a short span of time."
Rouhani was asked if he would seek reparations for the harm to the Iranian economy inflicted by the U.S. as a precondition for rejoining the JCPOA.
Iran's centrist president rejected the notion of such preconditions. He said that this approach could keep Iran in the vise of the current US sanctions for another five years. He wants them immediately lifted, though he hinted darkly that the hard liners would be perfectly happy to see US "maximum pressure" sanctions continue for another half decade.
Iran's hard liners whip up Iranians' resentments against the way the US has treated the country going back to the 1953 CIA coup against its government, and also play on religious sentiments. They benefit from an Iran that is isolated from the world economy and global culture. Rouhani is implicitly charging them with wanting to keep Iranians in poverty for their own political advancement.
Rouhani agreed that Iran has a claim on the US for reparations, given the damage Washington has inflicted on his country. He simply wants to uncouple such bilateral grievances from the nuclear deal. He pointed out that Europe had also stiffed Iran by not actually trading with or investing in it. He said it is unrealistic to refuse to talk to the Europeans unless they agree to pay reparations first. Such a stance, he said, would put Iran in the position of going to war with the whole world.
In the 2015 JCPOA signed between the UNSC and Iran, the world was supposed to end economic sanctions, boycotts and blockades on Iran. Because the US balked and then Trump threatened the rest of the world with massive third party fines if anyone so much as traded with Iran, Iran never received any real sanctions relief. This, even though the UNSC did revoke the sanctions it had imposed in 2007. The US is such a 900 pound gorilla in the world economy, and the Treasury Department is so willing to use extortionate means to impose Washington's will, that no big corporations with US investments and trade will dare buck it.
So Trump effectively destroyed Iran's economy, casting the country down to fourth world status.
In return for sanctions relief, Iran accepted a wide range of constraints on its civilian nuclear energy program. These included limiting centrifuges to only 6,000, agreeing to use unsophisticated centrifuges, bricking in its planned heavy water reactor at Arak, accepting spot inspections from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, and casting its stock of low-enriched uranium up to 19.5% in a form that made it impossible ever to enrich further. Iran faithfully did all that 2015-2018, as attested by the UN inspectors.
In the past year, as Trump crippled the Iranian economy and the Iranians were deprived of any reward for their compliance (they mothballed 80% of their civilian nuclear enrichment program), the Iranians have acted out in small ways. They weren't supposed to enrich higher than 3.5% for fuel for their Bushehr reactor. They began enriching to 4.5%. You can't really do anything with 4.5% enriched uranium. It has to go up to 95% and lots of other scientific advances have to be made to weaponize it. There is no evidence since 2003 that Iran has sought to weaponize or has diverted any material to a weapons program. In short, Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. So enriching to 4.5% is just a symbolic protest. Likewise, Iran has started using more centrifuges and better ones, violating the terms of the JCPOA. Again, that move would shorten the time it would take them to make a bomb if they wanted to make a bomb, but no intelligence service assesses that they have made that decision.
What Rouhani is signalling to Biden and to Europe is that if they want Iran to go back to observing the stringent stipulations of the JCPOA, they can have that, but they have to turn on the money spigots.
A lot of Washington interests want to squeeze Iran, over issues like its presence in Syria, or its ballistic missile program, or human rights, by tying them to a resumption of the nuclear deal. These are very bad ideas, since denuclearizing the Middle East should come first. Biden is said to agree, and this is the most promising news on the horizon. Iran can be more successfully pressed on those other issues if it depends on income from a Renault car factory and exports to the US, etc. Isolated states find it easier to be rogue states.
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Calling for End to 'Economic War,' Rouhani Says Iran Will Rejoin Nuke Deal If Biden Agrees
"Either everyone will implement the JCPOA as it is or they don't. If they do, we will too," said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Dec 14, 2020
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday committed to returning to the 2015 nuclear accord without even an hour of delay if U.S. President-elect Joe Biden fulfills his promise to do so, a vow welcomed by observers as an encouraging sign that the two nations could soon be on a path to restoring diplomatic relations torn to shreds by the Trump administration.
Speaking at a televised news conference in Tehran, Rouhani made clear that Iran is seeking a return to "the situation as it was in 2017"--prior to U.S. President Donald Trump's unilateral violation of the nuclear deal and reimposition of crushing sanctions--and will not accept any preconditions for rejoining the landmark agreement.
"I believe that the era of the economic war has come to an end."
--Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
"The U.S. tried for months to include the [ballistic] missiles program and we told them it's non-negotiable. They tried for months to include regional issues as well. They were all discussed and rejected," the Iranian president said. "What can be on the table is that everyone will return to their full commitments."
"Either everyone will implement the JCPOA as it is or they don't," Rouhani added, referring to the nuclear deal's formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. "If they do, we will too."
Rouhani went on to say that Iran, in turn, will not demand as a precondition for restoration of the deal any compensation for the damage inflicted by U.S. sanctions, which have crippled the Middle East nation's ability to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
"I believe that the era of the economic war has come to an end," said Rouhani. "This war cannot go on, not because Trump has been defeated and Mr. Biden has won. Even if Trump had won, he would be forced to do away with sanctions."
Sina Toossi, senior research analyst with the National Iranian American Council, called Rouhani's remarks "an important signal that his preference is to have a speedy return to the JCPOA by all sides."
During the presidential race, Biden vowed to revive the Iran nuclear accord, the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has continued piling on new sanctions and taking a militaristic posture toward Iran in line with the White House's disastrous so-called "maximum pressure" strategy, which has repeatedly pushed the two nations to the brink of all-out war.
Since Biden's victory last month, U.S. warhawks--including New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman--have been pressuring the president-elect to use the Trump administration's current sanctions as "leverage" to extract additional concessions from Iran at the negotiating table, instead of swiftly returning to the deal without preconditions.
Writing for Responsible Statecraft last week, former CIA analyst Paul Pillar warned that such an approach would be ineffective and potentially dangerous.
"There will be room for wider discussions and negotiations with Iran in the future," Pillar argued. "But to get to that land of broader negotiations will first require the United States to live up to agreements it already has made, rather than trying to wring advantage out of a patently failed policy."
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