On Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he wanted to see “action” from the Biden administration to revive the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.
“We have heard many nice words and promises which in practice have been broken and opposite actions have been taken,” Khamenei said. Before taking office, President Biden pledged to work with Iran to restore the JCPOA, but so far, his administration has failed to act.
Khamenei restated Iran’s pledge that it would scale back its nuclear activity to the limitations set by the JCPOA if the US returns to compliance with the deal by lifting sanctions. “This time only action. If we see action from the other side, we will also act. The Islamic Republic will not be satisfied with promises of actions,” he said.
The Biden administration’s public stance is that it will only lift sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic reduced the activity of its civilian program to the JCPOA limits. But since the US is the party that violated the agreement, Tehran wants Biden to act first.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif offered a way out of the impasse, suggesting the EU could help coordinate the actions needed by each side to revive the deal. But the US is still deliberating on how to go forward and has yet to engage with Iran diplomatically. Meanwhile, Iran is still under the crippling economic sanctions left in place by the Trump administration.
Biden doesn’t want to be accused of ‘appeasement’ by the Right- or his own people- and will throw this whole thing under the bus to avoid that even though this is his chance to ace his first foreign policy test by rejoining the JCPOA without conditions.
The new cover for US ineptitude is “we must discuss it with our allies” even when the US solely caused the problem in the first place.
This just in….not action, but words…NYTimes
WASHINGTON — The United States took a major step on Thursday toward
restoring the Iran nuclear deal that the Trump administration abandoned,
offering to join European nations in what would be the first
substantial diplomacy with Tehran in more than four years, Biden
administration officials said. . .here
What really happened is not quite what the story said.
The US was invited to be an observer of the meeting. It is no longer part of it, and was NOT invited by the Europeans to participate as part of it, just to observe.
Meanwhile if the US doesn’t deliver Iran has other plans.
…from Oilprice. . .
Iran Plans Petrochemical Boom Despite U.S. Sanctions
FM Zarid is focused on actions, which he got from Khamanei who will only accept action not talk.
https://twitter.com/JZarif/status/1362485794502545409
US leaders demonize the Ayatollah, and then make him correct. What he says about the US is not just true, not just offensive, it is the deliberate choice of those who most attack him.
Iran agreeing to talk over the JCPOA again, would be a colossal tactical error. Reading a few op-eds from inside Iran indicates that Rouhani’s administration in its last few months in office is the least popular administration since the first president took office after the revolution. People have lost faith in the Moderates in Iran’s politics, because they simply could not deliver after the JCPOA deal. The Moderates (Rouhani, Zarif & partners) are now considered to be overtly pro-West for pushing Iran’s supreme leader to be more flexible, when it was indeed the US that reneged on the agreement. All indications point to the hardliners winning the next presidential election, easily. Their parliament is now controlled by the hardliners after the last election less than a year ago. there’s a consensus amongst the elites that perhaps a bigger role in politics should be given to the former IRGC personnel loyal to the ideals of the revolution. I hate to say it, but we could be tiptoeing to another endless war. A perfect outcome that would appease some of the most un-American Americans!