US after toppling, EU not capable of holding talks with Iran

By: Hossein Mousavian

Madrid, Dec 12, IRNA - Iran's ex-diplomat and former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian referred to Iran's capacity for holding talks with the European Union, and said the EU should get permit from the US.

'Iran has political will and has capacity to engage with Europe on broad issues. But even if the Europeans have the political will they do not have the capacity,' Mousavian said addressing a panel which was held with the attendance of Cornelius Adebahr, German Political Analyst and entrepreneur.

'If the EU is going to engage with Iran on regional issues like Yemen, Syria, Iraq, the ISIS and terrorism I promise you that Iran would be ready to shake hands, but Europeans need to get permission from the US and the US is not going to give permission,' he added.

'This is the reality, why you are blaming Iran on regional dialogue its your weakness,' he reiterated.

'However, let's mention two experiences we had after the nuclear deal on regional issues before the nuclear deal Americans, Saudis said Iran should not be invited to international negotiations on Syria.'

'In 2015 July the deal was agreed and John Kerry invested a lot to convince that Iran should be invited.' 

'If you look at the history of the international Syrian negotiations, you would see that only once there has been a very comprehensive agreement about the principles to resolve the Syrian crisis and this is October 2015 when Iran attended,' he noted.

In response to another question as regard Iran's approach toward Iran nuclear deal, he said 'the nuclear deal created a hope that there would be possible approach between Iran and the world powers on the regional issues'.

'The nuclear deal from the beginning was a non-proliferation deal. The negotiations were only about non-proliferation issues that perhaps after the deal if there was any hope of the non-proliferation issues in the Middle East,' Mousavian added.

He went on to say that 'the deal achieved the most comprehensive achievement in the history of non-proliferation. We have never has such a comprehensive agreement and this is a really big asset for non-proliferation'.

'The second during president Ahmadinejad the Iranian side offered EU3+3 to discuss other regional disputes but Americans and Europeans were insisting on only nuclear negotiations and the third even during president Rouhani Iran at very high level publicly announced if there is a deal if the US would comply precisely, Iran would be ready to negotiate on other disputed or regional issues and all three have practically failed and I believe none of these three you can blame Iran if you want to blame you should blame Europe and the US because Iranians have fully complied with every commitments within the deal.'

'In 2013, 2014, 2015 there was a great hope on the Iranian population not because the deal on non-proliferation is reached but perhaps there would be a greater approach between Iran and the West and the Iranian foreign policy would be normalized then Iran would have advantages and development in technology, foreign investment, Iranian ex-diplomat said.

'But important issue is that [Iranian] people are not blaming their own authorities or government because everyone in Iran know that Iran has fully implemented the deal and the problem is with the Western side for there is nothing to blame the Iranian government and authorities,' he added.

'If you read the Iranian papers since 2003, you would see that the nuclear issue has been the most important foreign policy issue during 15 years in Iran before and after the deal.'

'We have had always very powerful opponents to negotiations with the US and world powers, because the opponents have been insisting that you cannot trust the US.'

'If you read the Iranian Supreme Leader's statements during 2012-2017, at least monthly he has been reiterating that you cannot trust the US and before the deal he was saying if there is a deal, the US would violate and after the deal he said the same. Therefore not opponents have something very legitimate and very reasonable to argue.'

'Otherwise I think we have declined after President Trump withdrawal from the nuclear deal on economic indicators,' he said referring to negative consequences of the US walkaway from JCPOA.

'I mean the inflation during President Ahmadinejad was 40% and after the deal it came down to 10% and after President Trump withdrawal again the figure was 38% therefore you can imagine how the domestic economic situation.'

'Nevertheless I should say 50% of the Iranian economic problems are because of the sanctions, US, JCPOA at least 50% is because the dysfunction of Iranian economic institution in the country.'

'It is at least 50% domestic problems whether it is corruption or banking system, regulation,' Mousavian noted.

'I agree that the Europeans have done really their best after Iraq-Iran war in order to engage with Iran in diplomacy and to prevent US-Iran military confrontation and this has been the European constant strategy. Because I have been involved in Iran-Europe relations from 1986.'

'During the critical dialogue this was the reason to push back the US for possible military strike during the nuclear crisis in 2003.'

'We really need to appreciate the EU foreign policy which is more based on diplomacy rather than American policy which is based on bullying but at the same time after the deal when you mentioned billions of contracts or big companies came to Iran.'

'To be fair, Europeans lifted the sanctions and Iran-Europe economic relations increased 30-50 percent.'

'I think Europeans share before the nuclear deal in Iranian trade and economy was 15% but after the deal it decreased to 30-35 percent.'

'However none of the big banks were ready to exchange one dollar with Iran even after the nuclear deal and even before President Trump withdrawal.'

'Only small banks, neither Deutsche Bank nor Commerce Bank, none of the big European banks.'

'The European big companies signed 40-50 billions agreements but 90% was on paper and they signed and finalized and they wait for the final decision of the US to see whether they would be punished or not.'

'After President Trump withdrawal, again I appreciate the fact that Europe has kept its good political intentions to preserve the deal, but economic benefits of Iran, Europe has been practically able to do anything and promises are more on words and papers.'

'We have almost zero on practice,' he reiterated.

Elaborating on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's recent address naming the Zionist regime of Israel as cancerous tumor, Mousavian said 'I think if Israel has so much influence in the US and Europe, you should not blame Iran.'

'Netanyahu is making the same rhetoric threatening Iran every week, but there is no news here, nobody cares neither here nor in the US,' he added.

'He says Iran should be dismantled, we have to bring regime change in Iran, the US should attack Iran, but nobody cares but if Iran says something even less here is like a nuclear bomb and it is the same if anyone is going to have a judgment about the Iranian rhetoric or statement you have to look at the Israeli statement and Iranians are responding however definitely as much as pressures, sanctions increase, the Iranian radical policies would increase it is the equation it is not new.'

'Iran has been more ready to engage in dialogue, cooperation when there is less pressure, sanctions and respectful language but when the bullying language threatening language, sanctions, threatening Iran will get more radical in order to show their identity, integrity and independence.

To show that they are a very powerful nation and they would resist and they are not going to capitulate.'

'For example President Trump said two or three times during the last two or three months that we thought US support kings of Saudi Arabia, Emirates they cannot stay in power in more than two weeks.'

'If such a statement would have made against Iranians, this would have a big explosion in Iran because they cannot tolerate humiliation,' he said.

'Radicalism is a response to sanctions,' Mousavian noted.

Protect this historic nuclear deal

By Ameen Izzadeen

by ameenizzadeen

Finally a win-win situation for Iran and the P5+1, said reports last Thursday from the Swiss holiday city of Lausanne after a decade of haggling and eight days of painstaking bargaining during the last round of talks which went beyond the March 31 deadline.

Reading the fine print of the four-page document, one wonders why such a deal could not have been reached years ago. The answer is that on the one hand, the United States had not realised the strategic importance of Iran, and, on the other, Israel and Saudi Arabia had resorted to covert moves aimed at scuttling any deal. Many were the occasions when the P5+1 and Iran were close to a deal, but due to reasons now understood to be political, the negotiators came back to square one on the snakes-and-ladders board.

Throughout, Iran, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has been saying it has no intention to build nuclear weapons. Even the intelligence outfits of the United States and Israel have said there is no evidence to indicate that Iran is building a bomb. But the West kept on adding pressure on Iran and shifted the goalposts when Iran fulfilled its obligations while Saudi Arabia and Israel called for military action and tougher sanctions which they thought would weaken Teheran’s economy and trigger a regime change when the hungry people become angry. They also believed that economic sanctions would kill Iran’s ambitions to emerge as the most powerful country in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia and Israel became more alarmed after Iran’s involvement in the 2006 Lebanon war. Iran-made weapons supplied to Hezbollah took Israel by surprise. Israel’s death toll was 122 soldiers and 44 civilians – a high casualty figure in Israel’s reckoning. Israel accepted a ceasefire and withdrew from South Lebanon, prompting Hezbollah to claim a moral victory. Iran was economically strong then owing to the high oil prices. It granted more than one billion US dollars towards the rebuilding of the war-ravaged South Lebanon and became popular on the Arab street.

Ever since, weakening Iran’s economy became a top priority for Saudi Arabia and Israel. This they achieved by projecting Iran as a terrorist state and promoting economic sanctions. Not stopping at that, Saudi Arabia resorted to other desperate measures as Iran’s influence grew in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria. Its decision to bomb Houthi rebel positions in Yemen was probably one such measure. Another measure it took brought down drastically the world oil prices. Iran which depends on oil exports suffered heavily.

But the US looked at Iran from a different angle. Washington knew that military action against Iran would only lead to a region wide war, sending oil prices soaring and the world’s economy into recession. The Barack Obama administration has apparently realised that a deal with Iran is in the best interest of the United States. Washington believes that the nuclear agreement could avert Iran’s bid to join an informal alliance with China and Russia — an alliance that could deal a blow to the US’s pivot to Asia policy aimed at containing China. Moreover, the US sees that it shares many goals with Iran, especially with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. The common goals range from defeating ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) and preventing the Taliban from capturing power in Afghanistan to finding solutions to the Syrian crisis, the conflict in Yemen and the unrest in Bahrain, home to the US’ Fifth Fleet.

So, much to the chagrin of Israel and Saudi Arabia, Washington pushed for a win-win deal at the Lausanne talks between Iran and six world powers — the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Israel’s hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the agreement claiming that the deal would legitimise Iran’s nuclear programme, bolster Iran’s economy, and increase Iran’s aggression and terror throughout the Middle East and beyond.

But President Obama, for whom Netanyahu is more a problem than an ally, has given hardly any ear to his grievances. Instead, Obama has welcomed the deal describing it as an historic understanding that would make the world safer.

There is still more time for Israel and Saudi Arabia to scuttle the agreement which is to be formally signed only on June 30. If the final agreement is signed, it will indicate a significant shift in US-Iran relations. Though the leaders of the two countries resort to rhetoric for public consumption, there have been many positive signs to indicate that ties between the two countries have been improving since the election of President Hassan Rouhani in Iran in 2013, with telephone calls at president-to-president level and meetings at official level.

The agreement has been shaped in such a way that it can be sold to the skeptics in the United States, especially the Republicans. Giving room for further fine-tuning if the Obama administration faces difficulty in obtaining the support of Congress for the deal, the first paragraph of the agreement says, “Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon.”

Polls show that a third of the Republicans support the deal while about 40 per cent say they are undecided. This gives an indication that the deal may find passage in the Republican-controlled Congress despite pressure from Israel. But can it be sold to the hardliners in Iran?

Under the agreement, Iran is required to open the doors of all its nuclear facilities for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency while it will curtail its capacity to enrich uranium and slash its existing stockpile. Iran has agreed to operate only 5,060 of its 19,000 centrifuges for the next ten years. These moves will delay a bomb-making effort by one year, if Iran ever wishes to do so.

In return, the sanctions that have halved Iran’s oil exports and kept Iran out of the international banking system would be suspended but resumed if Iran fails to honour its pledges.
In Teheran, the people came out in their thousands to celebrate the deal with Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif receiving a hero’s welcome at the Mehrabad airport when he returned from Lausanne.

President Rouhani yesterday noted that the deal was a triumph for Iran because the US had now realised that Iran would not surrender to bullying, sanctions and threats while spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there was “no guarantee” of a final deal with world powers.

Rhetoric apart, the biggest challenge to both Iran and the United States is to protect the hard-fought deal from those planning to sabotage it.