Representatives from the US and Iran and the other nations involved in the indirect negotiations to revive the nuclear are returning to Vienna, and the talks are set to resume on Tuesday. Going into this round, the US State Department said a deal is “in sight,” but also warned time is running out on the talks.
“A deal that addresses all sides’ core concerns is in sight, but if it is not reached in the coming weeks, Iran’s ongoing nuclear advances will make it impossible for us to return to the JCPOA,” a State Department spokesperson said. US officials claim the JCPOA would no longer be relevant after a certain point, but Iran can always bring its nuclear program into the strict limits set by the deal no matter how advanced it becomes.
Meanwhile, in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said progress depends on whether or not the US is willing to lift the necessary sanctions. “We expect the delegations, including the United States, to return with clear instructions to fulfill their commitments under the JCPOA and remove the sanctions,” he said, according to Iran’s PressTV.
Khatibzadeh said giving Iran enough sanctions relief to reap the economic benefits of the JCPOA is “Iran’s red line in the talks.” According to AFP, Khatibzadeh also said there’s been “significant progress” made on other issues in Vienna, including on guarantees for sanctions relief.
On Friday, the US restored sanctions waivers on Iran’s nuclear program that were rescinded by the Trump administration. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said the move was “good but not enough.”
“The lifting of some sanctions can, in the true sense of the word, translate into their goodwill. Americans talk about it, but it should be known that what happens on paper is good but not enough,” Amirabdollahian said.
At the very brink of a deal, Israel will bomb Iran and entrain the US into the fray.
Well that is an awful thought but, with Israel anything is possible it seems, other than peace…
“A deal that addresses all sides’ core concerns is in sight, but if it is not reached in the coming weeks, Iran’s ongoing nuclear advances will make it impossible for us to return to the JCPOA”
They’ve been saying that for MONTHS. It was bullshit then and it is bullshit now. Shades of Netanyahu.
Even with the idiotic mishandling of the deal’s reinstatement by the Biden Administration, I have always considered it more likely than not that the JCPOA will end up being reinstated. The world’s largest institutions, supranational, national, and corporate, want this deal. The UN, the EU, European major powers, Russia, China, oil interests both suppliers (non-Arab, at least) and buyers, and, critically, the world’s airlines and airline manufacturers. Iran is a GIGANTIC market. There is so much money to be made
The Biden Administration’s heel-dragging is not due to their ultimate unwillingness to see the JCPOA restarted, but a foolish and futile effort to force non-nuclear matters into the deal, which will almost certainly die with a whimper.
I am not being flip about the dangers of war in general or the absolute nightmare a war with Iran in particular would be. But everyone knows that. The Navy knows they will completely fail to reopen Hormuz, losing the majority of the Fifth Fleet in the process. The Army knows that half a million troops at the very least would be necessary to actually invade Iran (on the other hand, 10,000 dead sailors might be quite a recruiting tool). Warmongering interests are powerful indeed, and war of course extremely profitable for the military industrial complex. But peace is also profitable. Time will tell, as always,
I agree with your analysis. The new deal would be basically the revival of the old one with some timeline adjustments….! As for war, the only war (most likely a covert one or the continuation of the current one) would be between Israel and Iran with no US involvement because US knows their involvement would result in significant loss in the region…!
The US State Department spokesperson who said a deal is “in sight” needs new eyeglasses. The problem is that the US will not remove sanctions as demanded by Iran.
Sigh… Once again: “That ain’t gonna happen.” If Biden intended it to be done, it would be done by now.
One reason that the original JCPOA happened is that Obama apparently realized the US was close to becoming odd man out. After more than a decade of “here’s what we want,” “OK, we can do that,” “no, sorry, now we want more,” there was a significant chance that the Iranians would swing a deal with everyone else EXCEPT the US, leaving the US with less influence and no chance of getting any of the things it wanted.
So the question is whether Biden will reach that same realization, or whether the other JCPOA parties will finally throw up their hands and say “OK, we’re doing this deal whether the US participates or not.” It was not just Iran which was negatively affected by the pre-JCPOA sanctions or by the US reneging on the JCPOA. And it’s not just the Iranians who are in a position to decide that ignoring US demands is more profitable than running back and forth trying to please the US.
There will be a deal. The only question is whether the US participates in that deal.
We’ll see. Since the US is still in control of the EU – for a while at least – I don’t see the EU doing a deal by themselves. Also, I suspect Iran doesn’t entirely care if they do – it is the US that has the sanctions control precisely because no EU company wants to go against the US, because the EU itself will not back those companies. That was tried and it failed. Until that changes, it is the US that Iran has to make a deal with.
I also don’t know what you mean by Iran swinging a deal with everyone else. On what? Sure, Brazil and Turkey got a deal in 2009 (or 2010, I forget) – and Obama killed it. Who else can make a deal with Iran over not sanctioning them and promising that Israel won’t attack them anyway? Only the US.
Once again, we’ll see. If there is a deal, I’ll admit I’m wrong. If there isn’t, trust me, I’ll be here to hear your admission. You made a specific prediction: There will be a deal, with or without the US. Like I said, they tried that before and it didn’t work.
As I stated below, the main reason that the Biden Administration has been dragging its heels has been in a silly effort to force non-nuclear issues into the JCPOA. This is the motivation for the petulant, artificial brinksmanship of US statements that the clock is ticking on the deal for reasons unexplained, as there are none other than what I just said. I could take your if-then and alter it to “if the Biden Administration had no intentions to re-enter the deal, it wouldn’t be engaging in negotiations at all.”
The fact that the US would even make a statement now like this suggests to me that they are giving up on that futile objective like the losers they are. Can we at least agree on that? That they are losers?
Please don’t mistake me, I very much appreciate your disdain for the Biden Administration, and for Biden personally, a career corporate pawn who entered the Senate joking that he was ready to “prostitute himself” for special interests. Creditor institutions loved him. He was a stooge of the prison-industrial complex. And there wasn’t an intervention from at least the 90s on he didn’t back. So I do share your contempt. Though I also question just how much of what is going on with the Biden Administration on any issue whatsoever is really based on the internal analysis and decision-making of Biden’s rapidly declining mind.
“I could take your if-then and alter it to “if the Biden Administration had no intentions to re-enter the deal, it wouldn’t be engaging in negotiations at all.”
Nope. Because as you said, he intended to use it to get more concessions from Iran that Israel wanted. Plus he made a campaign promise and if he didn’t at least fake it, he would have been called on it. And if he actually gets the JCPOA deal back, Israel will call him on it.
As to whether they are “losers”, that depends on what the goal is. If the goal is to eventually get a war started with Iran, they are not losers. And I find it hard to conceive of why Joe “I’m a Zionist” Biden would simply abandon any attempt to keep Iran down. Do you really think the US is going to hand back Iran’s billions, cut off all sanctions, and let Iran do whatever it wants? After what, forty years of trying to keep Iran down? And since Iran demands legally binding guarantees, do you think Biden will attempt to tie the hands of the next administration? The only reason Obama made the deal was for a foreign policy win – and because he knew the next administration, whether Clinton or Trump, would tear it up.
As for what is going on in the Biden administration, I suspect that half of it comes from his demented mind, and the other half comes from the Deep State that he has zero control over precisely because of his demented mind.
But as with the Ukraine situation, let’s wait and see. They can’t keep the negotiations going for another six months or a year because it starts to look stupid to keep saying “gotta finish this in a few weeks or we walk” without actually walking.
But as with the Ukraine situation, let’s wait and see.
…
Indeed, that’s all I’ve ever said after going over reasons to think the deal will be reinstated, because of the cumulative pressure of the disparate financial, commercial, and geopolitical interests that want it done. Do you find it insignificant that, after months of warning that the clock is ticking, they suddenly say a deal is in reach? It says to me that they are giving on up what we both have acknowledged, their attempt to force non-nuclear issues into the JCPOA, a fool’s errand.
They can’t keep
the negotiations going for another six months or a year because it
starts to look stupid to keep saying “gotta finish this in a few weeks
or we walk” without actually walking.
…
America always looks stupid when it comes to Iran. And if war ever breaks out, future military historians are going to make entire lectures on naval strategy and tactics regarding the destruction of the Fifth Fleet.
The whole concern over the Iranian nuclear program is stupid. The have no weapons program, have not had one since at least 2003, and more likely than not have not had one since the Islamic Revolution. The majority of Shia clerics accept Khamenei’s condemnation of nuclear weapons as Haram. Dissenters have basically no influence on policy, and have been in decline since the 90s . You needn’t lecture me on the decades-long oppression of the Iranian nation. I have studied it from grade school, over half my life. Our first CIA coup was, after all, Operation Ajax in Iran, a fact they now openly discuss (google all the shah’s men cia library).
And you needn’t lecture me on the Iran issue. I’ve been following that for almost twenty years. I was one of the main contributors to the Leveretts’ goingtotehran Web site while that was active.
But in history, countries with this level of enmity always end up in war. I’ve been predicting it for those twenty years – at least until I realized the issues that the 2007 and 2011 NIE’s caused Bush and the impact the 2006 Hezbollah defeat of Israel caused Israel. I still predict it, but only if Israel can figure out how to get the US to help it defeat Hezbollah (if that’s even possible.) Only if Russia or China somehow intervenes (which is possible) is a war not going to happen.
I don’t like this hostile tone between us that I probably instigated, and that I think we may have gotten into before. This was inadvertent. The situation is a powder keg to be sure. It takes only a spark to ignite. Put another way, I need to be right every day. You only need to be right once. When I appeal to the fact that the meltdown in Iraq after 2003 put a hard pause on neoconservative plans for Iran, and that this situation and the manifest inability of the American military to actual defeat Iran without a full scale invasion (or, nuking their cities I suppose) has not changed, but only worsened, I don’t mean that it’s not possible or that certain interests are not pushing for it. To wrap it up, I hope you’re wrong. And I’m sure you do too. Regards.
We’re in agreement perhaps more than either of us think. I agree that the failure in Iraq was part of the pause on the neocon plans for Iran. Even though neocons continued to press for that. I also agree completely that the US can’t defeat Iran at all, even with an attempt at occupation or nuking Tehran (the latter I don’t believe would happen by the US or even Israel – the geopolitical fallout would be devastating to either country.)
The point I’m making is that they will try – regardless. Anyone could see Iraq wasn’t going to turn out well – they did it anyway. Same with Afghanistan. Same with Libya. Might have succeeded in turning Syria into a failed, terrorist-controlled state except for Russia’s intervention, but that failed, too.
Almost all neocon plans fail. Doesn’t stop them from planning the next failure. That’s the difference between me and you. You think humans occasionally respond to reality. I don’t think they ever do. I think that’s the real lesson of history.
The bottom line is the US and Israel want Iran down and out and/or under control. They won’t stop until they get that. And they’re not going to get that without a war. Everything else in reality is just an obstacle for them to overcome. None of those obstacles are show-stoppers to people who don’t care about the consequences to the rest of the world because the instigators never suffer any of those consequences.
William S. Burroughs called this “Third Terminal Position” – the position from which you can influence but cannot be influenced. The neocons and the Deep State are in this position. And there’s nothing we can do about that.
Hi Richard and also James:
I enjoy the things you both have to say. Bury the hatchet please and try to move on so we can all enjoy each others company, thoughts and ideas. peace and thanks-donna
Image the total absurdity of the US, Russia and or China ever mutually agreeing to a deal where only one county is allowed to have a nuclear arsenal? It will never happen with the big three nor is it ever likely to happen between Iran and Israel. The latter deal will first require Israel to give up her NPT outlaw nuclear arsenal and for the Knesset to ratify the NPT. Until then, the JCPOA in any form will be dead on arrival in Tehran.
Those who fantasize the new Iranian leadership are either dumb or desperate enough to ever agree to any form of the JCOPA are dreaming US/Israeli domestic wet dreams. In the final analysis, any form of the JCPOA ends up punishing Iran by limiting her NPT enrichment rights while rewarding Israel by allowing her to keep her highly destabilizing NPT outlaw nuclear weapons arsenal that will continue to threaten Iran and every other ME nation.
The threat of nuclear weapons proliferation in the ME has been created by the existence of Israel’s don’t ask don’t tell” nuclear weapon arsenal. Its continued existence absolutely guarantees that sooner or later the proliferation of nuclear counter force weapon capabilities among Israel’s larger neighbors will occur because they all will be unwilling to live defenseless in the shadow of Israel’s regional nuclear weapons threat.
Yes, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) “is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament.” . .here
Do we see any disarmament from the wailing warmongers, including the US and Israel, who want to put limits on Iran? . .No.
What is in sight? A return to a deal, or US hopes for total surrender?
We know that what the US team wants is total surrender, and we know they won’t get it. So, we ought to know better than to believe a single word they say.
Exactly. And more concisely stated than my bloviations.
The ‘deal’ is simple. Fulfill the obligations that were entered into in the first place as if you entered into them with genuine human beings, because that is what you actually did.
This analysis seems realistic… tl;dr Major problems remain.
Iran nuclear talks are entering a critical stage. Here’s what to look out for
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/08/middleeast/mideast-summary-2-8-2022-intl/index.html
And then, of course, there’s this problem…
Republican senators threaten to block Iran deal
https://thehill.com/policy/international/593392-republican-senators-threaten-to-block-iran-deal