It took years of a geopolitical tussle to bring Iran to the table for negotiations to sign Iran Nuclear Deal, but in 2018, President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Agreement. Moreover, the Trump administration imposed all the sanctions again which were lifted earlier by the means of the accord. President Donald Trump termed the deal a fiasco because of its sunset provisions wherein, all the pointers are stipulated for a temporary period starting from the day of adoption, like for 10 years, operating centrifuge should be dwindled to 5,060 IR-1 machines of the total being 6,104 IR-1s, for 15 years level of uranium enrichment is limited to 3.67% uranium-235, there will be incessant monitoring and investigation of undeclared sites from IAE, for 15 years, approximately, by 2031, Tehran will be able to produce highly enriched uranium; stockpile vast amounts of uranium; utilize advanced centrifuges; perform unrestrained research and development on uranium enrichment and centrifuges; build new heavy-water reactors which can further produce plutonium to produce nuclear weapons. According to the critics, Iran has conceded to temporary provisions of JCPOA in exchange for permanent compensation through the waiver of some sanctions imposed on the country by other nations. After the fallback, from the side of the US for the deal, there are some pertinent scenarios which can one anticipate from the current roadblock: 1) Reviving the original deal signed on July 14, 2015; 2) A de-facto deal that lacks compliance which is also the present condition; 3) No JCPOA.
The deal was finalized in 2015 and the Security Council will discontinue its Resolution 2231, in October 2025, while disbanding all the considerations of the United Nations Security Council vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear program and by 2040, Iran will no longer be obligated to other provisions of the deal. The driving condemnation against the agreement has been from the regional stakeholders concerned with the issue. They are disappointed with the framework of the deal and instead demanded to involve them in the negotiation process. The Persian Gulf States are less concerned with the structure of the deal but rather, with the sanction waiver which would allow Iran to divulge its financing into its militant proxy networks including Hezbollah and Houthis. Israel is pressing on its need to restrain Iran’s missile program and making it part of the JCPOA which is not been included in the original deal.
For a year, Iran duly complied with all its provisions, even when President Trump applied the strategy of “maximum pressure” by single-mindedly deciding to pull out of the deal. Trump’s policy was furthered by economic sanctions on Iran which left deep fissures within the economy of Iran but the intention to imply the strategy was to bring Iran back on the negotiation table which didn’t occur and instead, Iran countered Trump’s approach with “maximum resistance”.
The thinking behind the Iran nuclear deal was to prevent Iran’s nuclear program and its conflicts with the Persian Gulf States to bring stability to the Middle Eastern Region but Iran resumed its nuclear activities at an alarming speed after the United States announced its withdrawal from the deal and the series of attacks on some important figures in Iran which came from Israel and the United States. Also, the U.S. Intelligence officials envisaged that, in the scenario of having no such deal, Iran could produce fissile material for nukes. Under the deal, Iran’s capacity to stockpile uranium was around 20% but now it has around 17.7 kg of uranium which is almost 60% and it takes 25kg to make one nuclear bomb. Despite being restricted within the framework of the deal, Iran has produced uranium metal which is an important move to further create a bomb and upon observations from the experts, all the nations taking this step have eventually ended up developing nukes. Iran has also stopped IAEA to carry out its sudden investigations at undeclared sites under the Additional-Protocol.
Under a special deal, IAEA was able to install cameras at the sites for the recording of the activities with the clause of giving the recording only if the deal is salvaged. The attack on the premises of the Karaj facility made Iran remove four cameras from the site while Iran held Israel responsible for the “sabotage attack”. The IAEA report confirmed that Iran deployed new centrifuges at its Natanz and Fordow facility in September 2021. All such incidents restricted the flow of required information from the IAEA to the stakeholders involved but a step taken by then President Donald Trump with the series of attacks from Israel and the U.S. on facilities and prominent individuals of Tehran, cautioned Iran to make themselves stronger as a nation in a bid to revive its economy and protects its territorial integrity.
Iran was also disappointed with Europe choosing to 9 under the decision made by the U.S. to withdraw from the deal. Meanwhile, to keep the deal intact, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom founded INSTEX in 2019 to continue trading with Iran. The agreement focused on trading food and medicine which is already not covered under the ambit of the U.S. sanctions. At present, there are ten shareholders in the agreement. Iran’s economy is largely reliant on its oil export but the sanctions imposed by the U.S. halted Iran to export oil completely. The wide range of sanctions imposed by the U.S. caused Iran’s economy to suffer at a time when Iran was already dealing with years of recession. Oil and Petroleum products accounted for 80% of Tehran’s export and thus adding to Iran’s revenue. The covid-19 crisis exacerbated the economic situation in Iran but they still managed to contain the crisis.
Impact of the deal on West Asia
The deal remains a crucial determinant in advancing peace and stability in West Asia. There are many critical implications considering the geopolitics of the Middle East. Iran has already placed its foot on Yemen, Syria, and Israel by waging a proxy war by backing militant groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Palestine. These groups in return assist Iran to plug their power in the region by fighting against its archrivalry like Israel. The posturing of Iran in the region is also posing a threat to the Arab States like UAE and Saudi Arabia due to the activities of the militant groups in the region. Last year, despite the friction between Arab States and Iran, both Saudi Arabia and Riyadh took forward a step to meet Iran which also shows the attempts to work on viable solutions instead of flaring up the conflict. It also indicated that both the Arab States are dependent on the U.S. for military aid and political security but the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan made U.S. allies and the Arab States rethink their clinginess to the U.S. support.
Israel and Iran share years of animosity ranging from covert attacks from Israel to Iran waging a proxy war in Israel or targeting its strategic facilities. The deal is of critical concern to Israel but they opposed the original deal too as Israel was not involved by the enforcers to be part of nuclear diplomacy. Furthermore, they called the deal a futile one as all the provisions are temporary, and further, the deal has nowhere outlined the restriction on the ballistic missile program of Iran. Israel has been plain-spoken about dealing with military force with Iran to completely obstruct its nuclear activities.
The Way Forward
Israel asserts the need to use military force as a punishment to restrict the nuclear activities of Iran and those negotiations will not provide the expected result. Military attacks or coercion in the form of sabotage attacks to inflict punishment has been used by Israel but it has not stopped Iran to pursue its nuclear activities, instead, they have come to a stage of preparing a bomb. Military force will also close the leeway for diplomacy and it would incite the hardliners in Iran to hype up its activities and any attempt to attack its nuclear sites to completely clear out its trace is nearly impossible as some sites are undeclared and further even after locating the sites, it is nearly impossible to completely obliterate its facilities because Iran being at a progressed stage of preparing a bomb is likely to use all the fortifications to safeguard its nuclear centres. Thus, Negotiation seems to be a credible option to revive the deal and all the stakeholders are on their way to a rickety road to salvage the deal. Though Russia opposed the deal for the time being in a demand from the West for the withdrawal of sanctions imposed on Russia due to its recent invasion in Ukraine which Putin calls a “special military operation”. Eventually, Russia backed the deal after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey stated, “sanctions would not impede its future dealing with Iran”.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell has assured that the deal will be restored in the coming days but U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley does not believe that the deal is about to happen since with each passing day it would become difficult for the World Powers and Iran to rescue the deal. The negotiations are being carried out for 11 months now and Tehran’s push for the withdrawal of sanctions and other demands like removing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. One of the branches of IRGC named Quds Force assists Iran to build up power in Middle East Region. Experts are relying more on the political will of the United States to restore the deal.
The four future scenarios are 1) Reviving the deal whilst withdrawing the sanctions imposed on Iran. 2) Iran compromises some of the proposals made by the U.S. and sticks to the original deal whilst accepting the sanctions to be waivered on the middle ground, benefiting both parties. 3) No JCPOA. 4) A de facto deal that lacks compliance.
REFERENCES
1) https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/JCPOA-at-a-glance
3) https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/re-negotiating-the-iran-nuclear-deal/
6) https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-iran-nuclear-deal
7) https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-10/features/iran-deal-scenarios-regional-security
8) https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/iran-nuclear-deal
9) https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/17/iran-deal-jcpoa-israel-saudi-emirates-houthis/
Leave a Reply
You must belogged in to post a comment.