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Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (R) meets with Josep Borell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (L), at the foreign ministry headquarters in Iran's capital Tehran on June 25, 2022.

Atta Kenare | AFP | Getty Images

Iran appears the most optimistic it's been in years about finally clinching an agreement on a renewed version of the 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. and other foreign powers.

Iranian negotiating team adviser Mohammad Marandi said on Monday that "we're closer than we've been before" to securing a deal and that the "remaining issues are not very difficult to resolve." And the European Union's "final text" proposal for the deal, submitted last week, has been approved by the U.S., which says it's ready to quickly seal the agreement if Iran accepts it.

Still, there are obstacles to rescuing the Obama-era pact, which lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for a range of limits on its nuclear program. Iranian negotiators responded to the EU's proposal, pointing out the remaining issues that may yet prove impossible to reconcile.

And the stakes are high: the more time goes by, the more Iran progresses in the advancement of its nuclear technology far beyond the scope of what the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the 2015 deal's original signatories say is acceptable.

That could risk triggering an all-out war in the Middle East, as Israel has threatened military action against Iran if it develops nuclear weapons capability.

An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military personnel stands guard next to two Iranian Kheibar Shekan Ballistic missiles in downtown Tehran as demonstrators wave Irans and Syrian flags during a rally commemorating the International Quds Day, also known as the Jerusalem day, on April 29, 2022.

Morteza Nikoubazl | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Already in the spring of 2021, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said of Iran that "only countries making bombs are reaching this level" of nuclear enrichment.

With a revived nuclear deal, the U.S. and the deal's other signatories France, the U.K., Germany, China and Russia, known collectively as the P5+1 aim to contain the nuclear program and prevent what many warn could be a nuclear weapons crisis. Iran maintains that its aims are peaceful and that its actions fall within the country's sovereign rights.

Three main sticking points remain. Iran wants the Biden administration to remove its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its designated terrorist list, which so far Washington seems unwilling to do.

It also wants a guarantee that the deal will be binding regardless of future U.S. administrations. Biden cannot legally guarantee that, and the reality remains that another administration could cancel any deal just as former president Donald Trump did.

The third item is a long-running investigation by the IAEA into traces of uranium found at three of Iran's undeclared nuclear sites several years ago. Tehran wants it shut down, something the agency itself, as well as Western governments, are opposed to.

The regime appears to have found a winning formula: widening its nuclear footprint while narrowing the inspections and monitoring regime.

Behnam Ben Taleblu

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

The U.S. didn't seem to have much patience with Tehran's demands, with State Department spokesperson Ned Price saying this week that "the only way to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA is for Iran to drop further unacceptable demands that go beyond the scope of the JCPOA. We have long called these demands extraneous."

In the time since Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in May 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, the Islamic Republic's government has pushed ahead with rapid nuclear development.

Its stockpile of enriched uranium is now at 60% enrichment, its highest ever and a huge leap from the 3.67% limit set out by the 2015 deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.

The level required to be able to make a bomb is 90%. Commercial enrichment for energy use is between 2% and 3%. It's also slashed IAEA access to its nuclear sites for monitoring.

"The restoration of the deal is getting close to a now or never situation," Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States in Washington, told CNBC.

"We have little time to lose and about as plausible a framework for getting back to the 2015 deal as we are ever likely to have. So either it's going to happen in the near future or it's going to become increasingly difficult and of increasingly less value, at least regarding containing Iran's nuclear ambitions."

Much uncertainty remains and that's deliberately part of Iran's strategy, said Sanam Vakil, deputy head of the Middle East North Africa program at U.K. think tank Chatham House.

"This is the Iranians taking us down to the wire, dangling the prospect of the deal and trying to extract final concessions, guarantees from both the IAEA and the P5+1 part and parcel of the negotiating strategy," she said.

"They're both in a stalemate. And they're both actually in a position of weakness," Vakil said, noting the Biden administration's concern over Iran's nuclear capability if no deal is reached, its aim of achieving a foreign policy "win" before the November midterm elections, and Iran's suffering economy desperately in need of sanctions relief.

But, she added, Iran is known for its "strategic patience," waiting out the other side until they can get the most possible concessions out of them.

Meanwhile, Biden faces harsh criticism from political opponents fiercely opposed to any deal with Iran.

"Every quest for a guarantee is just another opportunity Tehran is taking to have Washington fight among itself and attempt to offer more in exchange for less," said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Under these circumstances, the only reasons Iran might agree to a deal like the JCPOA is to repair its economic armor in advance of another change in U.S. policy after 2024."

Indeed, many question why a deal that could be ripped up by the next U.S. administration is even worth considering for Iran.

Through this deal Iran would regain access to its foreign reserves, which are estimated to be well over 100 billion, Vakil noted. "That injection of liquidity into the Iranian economy will help in infinite ways from investment to paying government wages to supply chain challenges," she said. "So even if this deal is a two-year deal, as many see it to be, it's a two-year reprieve, and it stems a nuclear crisis."

Tehran's moves to escalate its nuclear activity have put it in the driver's seat for these negotiations, Ben Taleblu said. "The regime appears to have found a winning formula: widening its nuclear footprint while narrowing the inspections and monitoring regime."

Nonetheless, both the U.S. and Iran have an interest in continuing negotiations rather than ditching them altogether, some analysts say, arguing the alternative for both parties is worse.

"Those who have argued that no deal is better than the restored JCPOA have in practice unleashed Iran's nuclear program and failed to produce a better alternative,"said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group.

"Right now, the options are either to restore a deal that would put Iran's nuclear program in a box, acquiesce to Iran with a bomb or bomb Iran."

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A renewed Iran nuclear deal may be closer than ever, but problems remain

DUBAI, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Iran accused the United States on Monday of procrastinating in efforts to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal - a charge denied by Washington, which said a deal was closer than two weeks ago because of apparent Iranian flexibility.

After 16 months of fitful, indirect American-Iranian talks, with European Union officials shuttling between the sides, a senior EU official said on Aug. 8 it had laid down a final offer and expected a response within a "very, very few weeks".

Iran last week responded to the EU's text with "additional views and considerations" while calling on the United States to show flexibility to resolve three remaining issues.

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Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, said on Monday he hoped the United States would respond positively as early as this week to the bloc's proposal, adding that Iran had given a "reasonable" response. read more

"The Americans are procrastinating and there is inaction from the European sides. ... America and Europe need an agreement more than Iran," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, told a news conference.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price denied that, telling reporters in Washington: "The notion that we have delayed this negotiation in any way is just not true."

Price said the United States was encouraged that Iran seemed to have dropped demands such as the removal of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the U.S. foreign terrorist organization list.

Iran's and U.S.' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

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"That's part of the reason why a deal is closer now than it was two weeks ago. But the outcome of these ongoing discussions still remains uncertain as gaps do remain," Price said, adding the United States was working as quickly as possible to provide its response.

The United States has called on Tehran to release Iranian-Americans held in Iran on security charges. Iran has demanded that several Iranians detained on charges linked to U.S. sanctions be freed.

"The exchange of prisoners with Washington is a separate issue and it has nothing to do with the process of negotiations to revive the 2015 pact," Kanaani said, saying Tehran was ready to swap prisoners.

In 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump reneged on the deal reached before he took office, calling it too soft on Iran, and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin breaching the pact's nuclear curbs.

"We seek a good agreement which would ... be long-lasting," Kanaani said. "We won't be bitten twice."

The 2015 agreement appeared near revival in March after 11 months of indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Vienna. But talks then broke down over obstacles such as Iran's demand that the United States provide guarantees that no future American president would abandon the deal. U.S. President Joe Biden cannot provide such ironclad assurances because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid told French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone that Israel objected to a revived pact and would not be bound by it should one reached. Israel, widely believed to possess its own nuclear arsenal, has made veiled threats to take preemptive military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.

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Additional reporting by Christina Thykjaer and Inti Landauro in Madrid and by Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk and Costas Pitas in Washington;Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Arshad MohammedEditing by Toby Chopra, Will Dunham, Angus MacSwan and Catherine Evans

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Excerpt from:
Iran says U.S. delaying on nuclear deal, U.S. sees progress - Reuters

Iran appears to have declared open season on U.S. citizens that it doesnt like. The Aug. 12stabbingof the author, Salman Rushdie, in Upstate New York was just the latest in a string of recent attempts targeting Americans known to be on Irans kill list. Yet, President Biden has no evident plan, or even intention, to hold the Tehran regime accountable. To deter future attempts, demonstrate resolve and establish U.S. credibility, he needs to retaliate kinetically.

Starting in 2021, and accelerating in recent weeks, Iran has been implicated in plots tokidnap and (a year later) killthe Iranian-American rights activist Masih Alinejad,assassinateformer U.S. national security advisor John Bolton and murder Rushdie all on American soil.Tehran has denied its involvement in all three incidents.

The Biden administrations response to Irans state-sanctioned policy of working to murder Americans has been to express outrage, go after individual perpetrators and double down on its efforts to bribe Iran back into the 2015 nuclear deal. After the Department of Justice revealed the plot against Bolton, bothnational security advisorJake Sullivan andsecretary of stateAntony Blinken warned that Iran would face severe consequences but only in the event that an attack actually succeeded. The clear implication was that anything short of that was a matter to be handled by law enforcement, not national security policy.

Accordingly, both an armed man caught last month surveilling Alinejads home and Rushdies assailant are in custody, while five Iranian security officials involved in the various plots have been indicted in absentia, unlikely ever to be brought to justice. But as for the Iranian regime itself, responsible for encouraging or directing these attacks against American citizens as a matter of state policy, theres been no accountability whatsoever.

Basic common sense suggests this approach is deeply flawed and incentivizes the Tehran regime to keep trying to harm Americans. And such displays of U.S. timidity only undermine U.S. leverage in the nuclear talks, increasing the risk that any deal that emerges will be even worse for U.S. interests than the 2015 agreement.

Instead of inviting Iranian contempt, the U.S. should demonstrate a modicum of resolve. For starters, the Biden administration needs to immediately deny Irans president, Ebrahim Raisi, a visa to attend next months meeting in New York of the United Nations General Assembly. Allowing Raisi to set foot in the United States at the very moment his regime is actively scheming to terrorize Americans in their homeland would be an act of supreme national cravenness that would only heighten the threat not just from Iran, but from other U.S. adversaries as well.

More significantly, Biden could at long last walk away from the nuclear negotiations and make clear that any sanctions relief for Irans battered economy is off the table until it ceases all efforts to harm Americans anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, the United States should work with its partners to intensify diplomatic, economic and military pressure against the full range of Irans malign activities.

Further, Biden can seek to deter Iran not just by denying its regime benefits but by inflicting significant punishment on it in the only currency of power that its leaders understand military strength. To deter murders, societies severely punish attempted murder, and to deter attacks by a hostile foreign power, countries need to be willing to impose a high price for attempted attacks as well.

If Irans leaders were certain that every time they attempted to harm an American they would suffer a response, whether covertly or overtly, of greater lethality and higher cost, their enthusiasm for targeting the United States would quickly temper. Thats certainly been Israels experience to the point where the Iranian regime now feels safer attacking U.S. citizens and U.S. targets than Israeli ones. Thats hardly the position the worlds most powerful nation wants to find itself in.

No one should forget that Al Qaedas catastrophic attacks of 9/11 were preceded by a decades worth of smaller attacks against U.S. targets that went inadequately answered. In contrast, President Trumpskillingof Iranian leader major general Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 kept Tehran on its heels for the rest of his term.

After the armed man was arrested outside her home last month, Jake SullivantoldMasih Alinejad that the U.S. will use all tools at its disposal to disrupt and deter threats from Iran. President Biden needs to enforce that commitment, in order to deter future attacks against Americans on U.S. soil and to help restore Americas global position and deterrence.

Michael Makovsky, a former Pentagon official, is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). John Hannah, a former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, is the Randi and Charles Wax Senior Fellow at JINSA.

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Its time to make Iran think twice about harming US citizens - The Hill

In 1521, the Grand Duchy of Muscovy and the Safavids established formal diplomatic relations after centuries of Medieval commercial trade between the two Central Asian regions. Five hundred and one years later, Moscow and Tehran once again are forging ahead with a deepening of military and economic ties and into a strategic alliance that is morphing well beyond the mutually beneficial tactical coordination weve witnessed to date in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin, now effectively isolated from the West after launching his special military operation in Ukraine, is compelled to expand ties with existing allies and Iran is now, out of exigency, a Kremlin priority.

History does not portend a good ending to this renewed effort not for U.S. national security or for key U.S. allies in the Middle East, including Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Coinciding with Muscovys development of bilateral exchanges with Tehran spanning the 15th to 18th centuries was the rise of Twelver Shiism (also known as Jaafari). Today, Twelver is the predominant branch of Shiism, the second largest sect of Islam that was heavily radicalized by the ayatollahs who were led by Ruhollah Khomeini after the Iranian Revolution.

Once in power in Tehran after the fall of the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the ayatollahs seized upon this radicalization to solidify their hold on Iran and to turn a theological schism, simmering for 14 centuries, with Sunni Muslims, the largest branch of Islam, into a violent one. This has led to repeated deadly conflicts including in Syria and Iraq mostly recently, the Iraq-Iran War (1980-88), nonstop in Yemen, and the ongoing kinetic clash with Sunni Saudi Arabia for primacy of Islam.

Nor is this widening schism going away soon. Not with a militant Shia theocracy regime constitutionally firmly in control in Tehran. Chapter I, Article 12 of the 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran enshrined into law that The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Jaafari [doctrinal] school and that this principle is immutable. Radicalized Twelver Shiism theocracy has been solidly welded to militant Iranian nationalism ever since.

Enter Putin and the Kremlin. To date, Moscows need for Iran has been one of tactical convenience. Now it is one of dire strategic necessity given Putins faltering war in Ukraine. Putin underscored this new (and humiliating) reality by making a rare out-of-country trip to Iran on July 19 to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan and Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei rewarded Moscow by selling Putin drones for use in Ukraine likely, the Wall Street Journal reports, Irans Shahed-129, a [kinetic] Predator-style drone with a range of 1,000 miles and/or the Shahed-191 with a shorter range of 300 miles. But at what true cost? And to whom? According to the Biden administration and U.S. intelligence agencies, the Iranians are training Russian officials and it is a certainty that Khamenei demanded far more than just continued tactical cooperation in Syria in support of Bashar al-Assads regime.

Arguably, Washington, Jerusalem, Cairo and Riyadh already know the likely price. Tehran wants a free hand from Moscow in pursuing nuclear weapons, regardless of any agreements Iran may subsequently enter with the United States, Russia, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other affected parties.

The cost to the U.S. and its allies is that Putin, wittingly or not, might be setting the table in the Middle East for a future nuclear conflagration and/or elsewhere, including Los Angeles, New York City or Washington if you will, a Red Armageddon.

Israel may be Khameneis preferred first target, but President Biden must not overlook that the ayatollahs ultimate desired target would be Saudi Arabia and, by extension, the preeminence of Twelver Shiism over Sunni Islam. Israel and the U.S. are the short game; Riyadh, the long. In all Revolutionary Irans 43-year history, there has been one constant in Tehrans militancy: The intended overthrow of Sunni governments throughout the Middle East.

Nor should Biden assume that Putin was not willing to make that nuclear deal with Khamenei even if unwritten let alone blindly agree to a revived Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action currently being negotiated by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Vienna under the aegis of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Biden only needs to take Putin at his word. In a welcoming speech at the Army-2022 international military conference, Putin explicitly stated, [We] are ready to offer our allies the most modern types of weapons.

To those who would argue the Kremlin never would go down a nuclear path with Iran, Belarus is probative. In late June, Putin announced after a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that he would transfer to Belarus the Iskander-M tactical missile systems, which are known to use both ballistic and cruise missiles, both conventional and nuclear. The precedent is there and it begs the question: Will Putin say no if Tehran demands Iskander-M tactical missiles of their own, or at least the technology?

Meanwhile, Irans nuclear program grows unabated and largely outside of the range of the IAEAs cameras. In early August, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned that Irans nuclear pursuit is growing in ambition and capacity and that Tehran is telling him their program is moving ahead very, very fast. And in an interview with National Public Radio, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, acknowledged Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to build a bomb.

Biden and the U.S. no longer can wait to act. Israel will not wait. The time to act is before Putin, standing in Moscows Red Square, concocts a recipe for a Red Armageddon in the Middle East, or here in the U.S., and tempts Irans radicalized theocracy into believing a nuclear holocaust would accelerate the return of Shiisms revered Hidden Imam, Muhammed al-Mahdi.

Mark Toth is a retired economist, historian and entrepreneur who has worked in banking, insurance, publishing and global commerce. He is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, and has lived in U.S. diplomatic and military communities around the world, including London, Tel Aviv, Augsburg and Nagoya. Follow him on Twitter @MCTothSTL.

Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012-14, working with NATO partners in the Black Sea and Baltics. Follow him on Twitter @JESweet2022.

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Are Russia and Iran cooking up a recipe for a Red Armageddon? - The Hill

Diplomats from Europe, the US, and Iran are inching closer to a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal that was scuttled by former US president Donald Trump. The EUs top diplomat said on Aug. 22 that he received a reasonable response from Iran on a proposal to reinstate the deal, and that the White House might offer its own response this week.

Its clear why Europe is so keen to move the deal forward. Securing it would mean the lifting of sanctions on Iran and the flow of Iranian crude oil back into the market. That will provide relief to the global oil market, which has leveled out from several months of volatility following Russias invasion of Ukraine but is primed for more disruption. Falling gasoline prices in the US mean demand will likely rise there, just in time for the Gulf Coast hurricane season, a perennial threat to US oil production.

More importantly, Europe is staring down an approaching self-imposed deadline of Dec. 5 to fully ban the import of seaborne Russian oil, which accounts for two-thirds of what Russia has historically delivered to the continent. Germany and Poland are also instituting pipeline bans; altogether Europe will be about 2 million barrels per day (bpd) short by the end of 2022, equal to about 11% of demand.

When the Iran deal first came together, the countrys oil production rebounded quickly, reaching 1 million bpd within a year. Irans total production capacity is just shy of 4 million bpd. So while it could go a long way to filling the Russia deficit, Iran would need to see sanctions lifted as quickly as possible in order to get up to speed by December.

Its not clear if the US will play ball. With the gasoline crisis out of the headlines in the US, plus disagreements over potential prisoner swaps, the recent attack in New York on author Salman Rushie (which Iranian state media described as divine retribution), and other issues, the US has less than Europe to gain from negotiating with Tehran right now.

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Europe is running out of time to revive the Iran nuclear deal - Quartz