Iran Ratifies Nuclear Deal After Approval by Guardian Council

Implementation of Deal Expected to Happen Quickly

Iran’s Guardian Council has approved the nuclear deal today, the last obstacle to the deal’s ratification by the Islamic Republic. This sets the agreement on the fast track to being implemented by them and the rest of the participants, the P5+1.

The Iranian parliament had already voted twice in favor of the deal, but before implementation they needed assurance from the Guardian Council, which includes high profile religious and legal scholars, that the pact didn’t violate the constitution or any religious precepts. They affirmed that it did not.

Several nations in the P5+1 are keen to fast track implementation of the deal, with countries like Germany seeing potentially enormous trade implications, as the easing of sanctions sets the stage for huge contracts modernizing Iranian infrastructure.

Iran and the US were the only two nations among the participants to vote on the matter in their respective parliaments. In both cases, the deal was split heavily along ideological lines, with conservative hawks in each country arguing the other can’t be trusted, and aiming to kill the deal at any cost. Ultimately, in both cases, they were unsuccessful.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.