TEHRAN (FNA)- Kaveh Afrasiabi, author and political scientist, says neither the International Atomic Energy Agency, nor even the US intelligence community ever backed White House allegations against Iran’s nuclear program.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with FNA, Kaveh Afrasiabi mentioned US isolation resulted by its hostile Iran policy, saying “by scrapping the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration has put itself in the defensive mode”.
Kaveh Afrasiabi, PhD is an Iranian political scientist who served as Iran’s nuclear negotiation team advisor. He taught political science at Tehran University, Boston University, and Bentley College. He has authored several books on Iran nuclear deal, and other topics including Iran, Islam, ecology, Middle East and UN reform.
Below is the full text of the interview:
Q: Washington withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Deal); yet again, in its recent move, it is pressuring the International Atomic Energy Agency to renegotiate the deal. What is the Trump Administration trying to achieve?
A: This is not new and I recall when the then US envoy to UN Nikki Haley visited the IAEA in August, 2017 and reportedly pressured the agency on Iran to no avail. Bad habits die hard and, clearly, the US is intent on influencing the IAEA in order to gain some traction for its flagging hostile Iran policy. By scrapping the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration has put itself in the defensive mode and to turn the situation around has to convince others that its non-proliferation policy toward Iran is rational and logical, when in fact it is neither. As a result, as indicated by US media, US efforts at the IAEA have hit a tall wall.
Q: John Bolton, US National Security Adviser, says there is “substantial evidence” that Tehran had lied to IAEA inspectors. On what grounds does he make such a claim?
A: Bolton has not provided any evidence to corroborate his wild claim against Iran, nor his claim is backed by any US intelligence report. In fact, the US intelligence community has gone along with the reports of the IAEA regarding Iran's full compliance with its JCPOA obligations and to this date, no US intelligence has backed the Israeli propaganda against Iran. Bolton's agenda is, therefore, divorced from reality and pushes a jingoistic line against Iran that lacks legitimacy.
Bolton has substituted ideological demagoguery for rational policymaking on Iran, by habitually presenting a caricature of Iran and misrepresenting facts in order to sustain a failed Iran policy that has won few allies around the world. His Iranophobic approach is even dysfunctional for other dimensions of US foreign policy, such as US's South Asia Policy, that has resulted in exemptions for India on Chabahar project. Fortunately, Bolton's opposition was overruled in that case and that alone shows the limits of his influence in setting the White House's Iran policy that is in dire need of reconsideration.
Q: Considering the fact that Tehran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Tel Aviv not only has never signed the NPT, but also is believed to already possess nuclear warheads, why should there be any demand for more aggressive inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities?
A: Israel is opposed to the Iran nuclear deal, because it raises the prospect of Israel's denuclearization and regional nonproliferation, which runs contrary to Israel's nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. It is, of course, a sign of Western duplicity and double standards that they completely ignore Israel's nuclear arsenal and press countries such as Iran, which is a member of the NPT and in good standing. By smearing Iran, however, Tel Aviv hopes to deflect attentions from itself and inflate the threat of Iran in the region, so that it can pursue its alliance strategy. The problem is that as long as Tel Aviv refuses to respect the rights of Palestinians and to open its nuclear facilities to outside inspections, as requested by the IAEA, there are structural limits to how far it can achieve its alliance strategy.
Q: How do you find the European special purpose vehicle designed to protect EU companies from US sanctions? Do you believe if it will be put into operation?
A: It appears that the SPV is in the final stages of being formulated as a limited "humanitarian" mechanism to facilitate the transactions on food, medicine, and the like. Due to US pressure, European officials have stepped down from the initial promise of including oil trade in the SPV, and that certainly limits the utility of this mechanism from Iran's perspective, that counts on Europe's living up to the provisions of JCPOA calling for normalization of Iran trade. Still, despite its limitations, the SPV initiative is a right step in the right direction, with a political significance that outweighs the economic significance, and, perhaps, can be the springboard for bolder European stance vis-a-vis the unjust US sanctions in the future.
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