– It may not be dead yet, but it is at least on artificial respiration, says Kristian Harpviken about the so-called JCPOA agreement from 2015. Harpviken is a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research, PRIO, with security policy in the Middle East as a special field. Senior researcher and Middle East expert at PRIO Kristian Harpviken. Photo: PRIO In 2015, the veto countries in the UN Security Council (France, China, Russia, Great Britain and the USA), together with Germany and the EU, entered into an agreement with Iran on the country’s nuclear programme. Fact: The nuclear agreement with Iran In 2015, the veto countries in the UN Security Council (France, China, Russia, Great Britain and the USA), together with Germany and the EU, entered into an agreement with Iran on the country’s nuclear programme. The background to the nuclear agreement was a fear that Iran would develop nuclear weapons. The UN Security Council had therefore previously introduced sanctions against Iran in an attempt to pressure the Iranian regime to dismantle what several countries believed to be the country’s military nuclear programme. The nuclear agreement with Iran is, in short, about the sanctions that had been introduced against Iran being lifted in exchange for Iran allowing access to, and limiting the scope of, its nuclear programme. When the nuclear agreement with Iran was concluded in 2015, it was Barack Obama who was president of the United States. Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, was clear from the start of his election campaign that he would remove or renegotiate many of the Obama administration’s decisions and agreements if he was elected the next president of the United States, which he became in the fall of 2016. In May 2018, the Trump administration chose to break the nuclear deal with Iran. The US then reimposed sanctions on the country. This was a trigger for the escalation of the conflict between the US and Iran. Source: The UN association On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that the country is willing to breathe life into the 2015 nuclear agreement, as long as the country’s integrity is respected. – The West must adopt a constructive approach and take the necessary political decisions to save the agreement, added the foreign minister from the security conference at the Dead Sea city of Sweimeh in Jordan. Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (left) smilingly walks with EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell (centre) and French president Emmanuel Macron during the security conference in Sweimeh in Jordan. Photo: KHALIL MAZRAAWI / AFP The move comes around the same time that a clip from the mid-term elections in the US appeared on social media. In the clip, President Joe Biden is asked to declare that the nuclear deal with Iran is dead. During the election campaign before the mid-term elections in the United States at the beginning of November, President Joe Biden was filmed saying that the nuclear deal with Iran is dead. (Source: @DamonMaghsoudi / Twitter) – It’s dead, but we can’t declare it yet, Biden replies about what was once the jewel in the crown of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. President Barack Obama stands with then-Vice President Joe Biden as he talks about the nuclear deal signed with Iran and five other global powers in 2015. Photo: POOL New / Reuters For several months, conservative commentators have compared the deal to the dead parrot in the Monty Python sketch from 1969. Conservative commentator Andrew Ghalili of the Jewish Institute for America’s National Security (JINSA) compares the Iran nuclear deal to the dead parrot in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Photo: Screenshot / Andrew Ghalili / Twitter Almost 45 years ago, more precisely on 7 December 1969, a very popular sketch by the comedy group Monty Python was broadcast for the first time. “The Dead Parrot Sketch” as it is often called, written by John Cleese and the now deceased Graham Chapman. In the sketch, an argument unfolds between the disgruntled customer Mr. Praline (John Cleese) and the con man of a grocer (Michael Palin) over a dead parrot (of the “Norwegian Blue” variety) that Mr. Praline has bought, after being convinced by the merchant that it is alive. Harpviken certainly believes that the US and the West will keep the negotiations with Iran going. Among other things, to be able to exert pressure on Iran and limit the development of the nuclear programme. But he does not have faith in any imminent breakthrough. How did it happen? And does that mean that Iran will now complete its nuclear weapons? Here are five reasons why a renewed nuclear deal with Iran is unlikely. An Iranian woman demonstrates in Tehran after the murder of Mahsa Amini in October 2022. Photo: AP The West will not negotiate with Iran because of the riots Few would have imagined that Iran’s streets would catch fire in the way they have in recent years the months. Millions of Iranians have protested against the religious regime since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed during an arrest on September 14 this year. The reason for the arrest was that Amini was wearing an “inappropriate hijab”. A protester stands by a picture of Mahsa Amini during a protest in Istanbul in December. Such demonstrations have been visible in many places outside Iran. Photo: DILARA SENKAYA / Reuters That was the final straw for many. Iranian security forces have struggled to control the protesters, who are calling for freedom and rights for women. So far, around 500 Iranians have been killed in connection with the protests, according to Iran Human Rights. More than 60 of those killed are said to be children. In this context, it is difficult for Western leaders to openly negotiate with the Iranian regime. Negotiations can be interpreted as legitimation. In addition, it will remove pressure from a regime the West would like to see fall. – The negotiation climate is now much worse. The riots have lasted much longer than most had thought. It didn’t take long before the US chose to tone down its desire for a new nuclear agreement, and instead directed sharp criticism at the regime, explains Harpviken. The nuclear program is Iran’s diplomatic trump card Many Iran experts point to Iran’s nuclear program as a diplomatic trump card more than an actual attempt to acquire nuclear weapons. So does Kristian Harpviken. – I think that for Iran, the nuclear program has been more of an attempt to acquire a diplomatic trump card than to acquire a military trump card, says the researcher. – We don’t need nuclear weapons. We have no intention of using nuclear weapons, said the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2006. By threatening to develop nuclear weapons, Iran can exert pressure on the United States and other regional adversaries such as Israel or Saudi Arabia. By promising that they will not enrich uranium above a certain percentage, they can, for example, demand that the United States withdraw forces from the Middle East. Engineers work at the Arak heavy water reactor in Iran in 2019. Photo: AP The problem with this strategy for Iran is that the trump card is weakened once Iran actually builds a nuclear weapon. A bit like a hostage taker who has shot his hostage. If Iran builds a nuclear weapon, it will probably trigger a strong counter-reaction from the international community, including from cooperation partners such as Russia and China. In addition, it could lead to other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia building their own nuclear weapons, or to Israel adopting a far more aggressive line towards Iran. – One of the things that many people are afraid of is that if Iran were to develop its own nuclear weapons, other countries would want to develop nuclear weapons themselves. It triggers a regional arms race which is also dangerous for Iran, Harpviken points out. All these arguments mean that few have faith that Iran will actually build nuclear weapons. Then no nuclear agreement is needed to stop Iran either. The remains of what is believed to be an Iranian Shahed drone in Ukraine lie on the ground in an undated photo from Ukrainian authorities. Photo: Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate / AP Iran’s arms exports to Russia in the war in Ukraine Since the revolution in 1979, Iran has been very isolated on the world stage. That is one of the reasons why the country is trying to strengthen ties with Russia. Russia is also heavily isolated. One of the few countries offering help in the war in Ukraine is Iran. Putin, Raisi and Erdogan hold hands during a summit in Syria in July 2022. Photo: SERGEI SAVOSTYANOV / AFP Among other things, Russia has started attacking Ukrainian cities with Iranian drones. – Iran’s role as an arms supplier to Russia, and in particular the delivery of drones that have been used against purely civilian targets in Ukraine, upsets the US and large parts of the world, says Harpviken. This is something the US and the West would like to put an end to, and yet another point of negotiation linked to the nuclear agreement. The more points of negotiation, the more difficult it is to reach an agreement. In addition, Russia is an important partner under the nuclear agreement. Among other things, it was to Russia that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium was transported, with Norwegian participation, when the nuclear agreement was first signed in 2015. Here, the nuclear negotiations can function as a substitute between the West and Russia. But they can also suffer from steep fronts between the parties. Protesters burn pictures of Donald Trump and Joe Biden due to the killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran in November 2020. Photo: WANA / Reuters The US withdrew under Trump One of the main obstacles in the sea for a new nuclear deal is Trump’s withdrawal from the original agreement in 2018. This withdrawal showed that agreements made with the US could fail only shortly after implementation. For Iran, it was therefore important to get stronger commitments from the US in a new agreement. Since 2018, the demands have also been more radical on both sides. – Iran has defined a number of “red lines” for a new nuclear agreement. These conditions mean that Iran must be able to have a nuclear program that is far more extensive than what was permitted by the agreement from 2015, explains Kristian Harpviken. Trump also introduced an even stronger sanctions regime than before, and the Americans seem to want to keep several of these sanctions in place. Iran’s uranium enrichment facility, Fordo, outside the city of Qom can be seen in this Maxar Technologies satellite image from 2020. According to the ISNA news agency, Iran has been using the facility to enrich uranium to 60 percent since 2019. Photo: Maxar Technologies / via AFP Iran denies international investigation access It has been known that Iran has a nuclear program since 2002, but several of the details surrounding the program have been unknown. The reason for this is, among other things, that Iran will not let the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigators into several facilities. This despite the fact that Iran has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty from 1968. The IAEA has occasionally allowed access to Iran and installed surveillance cameras at nuclear reactors and enrichment facilities, but the US and the West believe access has been insufficient. They believe it is necessary to be able to monitor Iran’s nuclear power plant in order to identify any deviations from the nuclear agreement. Iran, on the other hand, insists that the IAEA is politicizing the investigation, and that it must end before a possible new agreement. Anniken Huitfeldt in New York where Norway ends its term in the UN Security Council. Photo: Tove Bjørgås / news Huitfeldt: – Norway is a supporter of an agreement Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt (Ap) is in New York, where the UN Security Council among other things discussed the nuclear agreement with Iran yesterday. She tells news that Norway is in favor of renewing the agreement. – But we have to see what conditions Iran sets. They have come up with a proposal today, but we have to look more closely at what they demand. The important thing for us now is to express solidarity with all the brave Iranian women who are demonstrating for their rights now, Huitfeldt said on Wednesday.
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That is why there will be no nuclear agreement with Iran – news Urix – Foreign affairs news and documentaries
