It was in 2015, in an effort
to restrain Iran’s nuclear program, that the permanent members of the UN
Security Council together with Germany concluded an agreement with Iran known
as the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
No doubt all those
involved, including then-US President Barack Obama, had the very best of
intentions. They were convinced that with that deal, which incorporated a
substantial financial boost to Iran, they had put the regime’s nuclear
ambitions on hold for at least 15 years, making the world a safer place.
Moreover they believed that they had taken an important step toward normalizing
relations with Iran – a rogue state proved to have been behind terrorist
actions across the world ever since its foundation in 1979 – and bringing it back
within the comity of nations.
Donald Trump, soon to be
president of the US, disagreed. He
believed the deal was flawed and in effect gave Iran the green light to acquire
a nuclear arsenal in the comparatively near future. In May 2018 he withdrew the
US from the deal and, adopting instead a policy of maximum pressure, imposed
sanctions on Iran.
Speaking on January 8, 2020
he said: “They chanted "death to America" the day the agreement was
signed. Then Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal,
and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The missiles
fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made
available by the last administration.”
Much of the world,
including the EU and the other parties to the deal, opposed Trump’s
withdrawal. Biden certainly did. During his presidential campaign he promised,
if elected, to move quickly to rejoin the nuclear deal, provided Iran also
came back into compliance. In essence that remains the US position, as it
resumes the apparently endless rounds of talks with a regime notably more
hardline following the recent Iranian presidential election. The Iranian regime
has used the hiatus since June to place new limitations on the UN inspectors of
the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).
The obvious deduction is that Iran has been proceeding apace with its
nuclear program in defiance of the deal.
Iran under its new president, Ebrahim Raisi, has already signaled that it does not wish to resume the talks exactly where they left off. Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in October: “We don’t want to enter the Vienna negotiations from the deadlock point of the Vienna negotiations”.
Iran's already announced
position – which does not augur well – is that the US must compensate Iran for
its withdrawal from the deal, lift all the sanctions imposed since 2015 at once
rather than in phases, and provide assurances that no future US administration
will back out of the deal. Given that
list of demands, it seems clear that Iran is set on dragging out the
negotiating process.
On November 21 Israel’s
president, Isaac Herzog, traveled to the UK for a 3-day official visit. In a statement ahead of his trip Herzog wrote:
“One issue that demands British-Israeli dialogue is Iran’s race toward
nuclear weapons and regional hegemony. Iran does not want dialogue. It is
exploiting the world’s willingness to negotiate to buy time. Israel cannot
allow the fundamentalists of Tehran to acquire a nuclear bomb. The moderate
nations of the Middle East need their allies, including Britain, to engage them
in an urgent dialogue on how to stop Iran instead of wasting time on its games.”
For 42 years world leaders have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to acknowledge what motivates the Iranian regime – namely, the philosophy behind its Islamic revolution of 1979. Iran’s original Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, affirmed repeatedly that the foundation stone of his convictions, the very purpose of his revolution, was to destroy Western-style democracy and its way of life, and to impose Shia Islam on the whole world. He identified the United States and Israel, together with the USSR, as prime targets.
“We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, Capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world,” said Khomeini. “We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet.” By this he meant his strict Shia interpretation of Islam, for elsewhere he had declared that the holy city of Mecca, situated in the heart of Sunni Saudi Arabia, was in the hands of “a band of heretics”.
Ever
since 1979 the world could have recognized, if it had had a mind to, that the
Iranian regime was engaged in a focused pursuit of these objectives, quite
impervious to any other considerations.
Instead wishful thinking has dominated the approach of many of the
world’s leaders to Iran, and continues to do so.
“We shall export our
revolution to the whole world,” declared Khomeini. “Until the cry 'there is no
god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”
Pursuit of this
fundamental purpose of the Islamic Revolution has involved the state – acting
either directly or through proxy militant bodies like Hezbollah or the Houthis –
in a succession of acts of terror directed not only against Western targets,
but against non-Shia Muslims as well. For decades Iran has also made determined
efforts to develop nuclear power, with the aim, never openly acknowledged, of
producing nuclear weapons as a vital means of achieving its objectives.
The Sunni Arab world knows
its main enemy is Iran – the Abraham Accords attest to that. Western leaders want to believe in an
accommodation with the regime. A
clear-eyed look at the facts shows that this is simply not possible. This
Iranian regime is not, and has no intention of ever becoming, one of the comity
of civilized nations. To do so would be to
negate the fundamental purposes underlying the revolution, purposes to which
the ayatollahs remain unshakably committed.
To quote President Herzog: “Iran does not want dialogue. It is exploiting the world’s willingness to negotiate to buy time.”
Published in the Jerusalem Post, 2 December 2021, and in the Jerusalem Post on-line:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/irans-nuclear-strategy-opinion-687563
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