BackA different yardstick for Iran
At a time when every nuclear power is upgrading its atomic arsenal, it seems like double standards to insist Iran agree to the most punitive verification regime
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An ominous cloud hangs on the US administration as it prepares to negotiate the final agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme. Based on the parameters for a joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA), the US, along with Russia, China, France, the UK (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, often called the P5) and Germany, will hold further talks with Iran to construct a legally-binding agreement by 30 June.
After eight days of marathon negotiations between the six nations and Iran, the JCPOA was hammered out in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 2 April. “What we were able to obtain was a political framework between the P5+1 and Iran," US President Barack Obama said at a press conference in Panama on Sunday. The framework provides for “unprecedented verification of what is taking place in Iran over the next two decades", he emphasized.
More importantly, Iran has to significantly cut back on its centrifuges to enrich uranium and the ways for making nuclear weapons. The so-called breakout time for making a nuclear weapon has been increased from three months to a year. In return, the six nations are required to roll back the nuclear-related sanctions they had imposed on Tehran, particularly the banking and trade sanctions. It also includes a so-called snap-back provision to clamp sanctions in case Iran fails to implement the commitments in the final agreement.
But Obama is visibly upset over the continued aspersions cast by Republican senators on the JCPOA, which was negotiated by secretary of state John Kerry. In the latest round of criticism, a ranking Republican senator, John McCain, has suggested that Kerry was “somehow less trustworthy" than Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in describing the deal.
For some time now, the Republicans who control the US Congress seem to be engaged in a rhetorical blitz with Obama on Iran’s nuclear deal as well as other foreign policy issues. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has played a crucial role by openly assisting the US lawmakers, particularly from the grand old party, to torpedo the framework agreement.
Even before concluding the framework agreement in Lausanne, 47 Republican senators wrote to Iran’s supreme leader, asking him not to enter into a deal with Obama without their endorsement. Subsequently, Netanyahu—who invariably prefers sabre-rattling against Iran—coined a new phrase called Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis, hinting at Tehran’s intentions to dominate West Asia because of the Lausanne deal. He also addressed a joint session of the US Congress without consulting the White House. Three days before the Lausanne agreement, senate majority leader Mitch McConell led a delegation of Republican senators to Jerusalem to oppose the framework deal.
“I do worry that some traditional boundaries in how we think about foreign policy have been crossed," Obama lamented in his interview with Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times. “I felt that the letter that was sent to the supreme leader (of Iran) was inappropriate."
But the biggest headache for the embattled Obama comes on 14 April, when the senate foreign relations committee debates an oversight bill. If that bill is passed, then Obama will not be able to waive the Iran sanctions imposed by the Congress for 60 days in case the seven countries reach a final agreement. Effectively, the senate wants to review the deal between Iran and the six countries before deciding whether to lift the sanctions against Tehran. In one stroke, the bill could weaken the administration’s negotiating authority on foreign issues.
On the other side of the fence, Iran’s supreme leader has issued a caution about wrong views relayed by the White House. Khamenei has drawn two red lines: sanctions should be lifted immediately after a final agreement is struck, and Western nations will not get access to the military sites. “What has been done so far secures neither the main deal nor its contents. It is not even clear whether the talks will bear fruit and lead to an agreement… But I will welcome a deal that preserves the honour of the Iranian people and we always say that a no deal is better than a bad deal," Khamenei has maintained. Whether his comments are an attempt to placate the concerns of the hardliners in Tehran or an explicit negotiating position that Iran will not accept an intrusive inspection and verification regime without immediate termination of sanctions is not clear.
Indeed, the hardliners in Washington and Tehran are now engaged in a war of nerves to prejudge the issues in the agreement framework. The blame for this has to be placed at the doorstep of the White House after it chose to issue a controversial fact sheet minutes after the Lausanne framework was unveiled. There was no formal understanding among the parties to issue separate fact sheets on what the agreement would entail for Iran on the one side, and the six countries on the other.
Perhaps, in a move to silence its critics back home and in Israel, the US administration chose to convey a messianic message. Washington wanted to spin the message, according to Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif, by pronouncing that it secured the most intrusive verification regime along with the substantial lowering of Iran’s nuclear enrichment activity.
In a matter of 10 years (2003-13), the US’s position has swung from one extreme to the other. Initially, the US said it will never accept any enrichment activity in Iran. Washington now maintains that Tehran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The sanctions may have hit the Iranian economy badly, but they were unable to prevent the nuclear enrichment programme, which increased to 22,000 centrifuges and a stockpile of 9,000kg of enriched uranium.
At a time when every nuclear power, including Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea “is spending lavishly to upgrade its atomic arsenal", (according to The Economist), it seems like double standards to insist on Iran agreeing to the most punitive verification regime or face more economic sanctions. Obviously, what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.
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