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Politics

Het atoomakkoord met Iran redden

Jul 14, 2020 Josep Borrell

BRUSSEL – Deze week exact vijf jaar geleden bereikten de E3/EU+3 (China, Duitsland, Frankrijk, Rusland, het Verenigd Koninkrijk en de Verenigde Staten, samen met de hoge vertegenwoordiger van de EU) en Iran in Wenen overeenstemming over het gezamenlijk alomvattend actieplan (JCPOA). Ter gelegenheid van de vijfde verjaardag van die gebeurtenis, valt niet te ontkomen aan de simpele realiteit dat Iran zonder dit akkoord inmiddels kernwapens had kunnen ontwikkelen, hetgeen nog een extra bron van instabiliteit was geweest voor een volatiele regio.

Het JCPOA staat momenteel op meerdere fronten onder grote druk. Ik ben er om minstens twee redenen van overtuigd dat maatregelen om het actieplan in stand te houden noodzakelijk én dringend zijn. Ten eerste heeft het meer dan twaalf jaar geduurd tot de internationale gemeenschap en Iran hun verschillen konden overbruggen en tot een akkoord kwamen. Als het JCPOA teloor zou gaan, ligt er niet zomaar een ander alomvattend of doeltreffend alternatief klaar.

De bezorgdheid van de internationale gemeenschap over het nucleaire programma van Iran gaat ver terug. De besprekingen die de grondslag legden voor een oplossing via onderhandelingen begonnen al in 2003, op initiatief van de Franse, de Duitse en de Britse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, bij wie de toenmalige hoge vertegenwoordiger van de EU voor buitenlandse zaken Javier Solana zich algauw aansloot. Solana en zijn opvolgers, Catherine Ashton en Federica Mogherini – allen gesteund door de Europese Dienst voor extern optreden – hebben te allen tijde de deur opengehouden voor een diplomatieke oplossing. Na vele ups en downs kwam het JCPOA uiteindelijk tot stand.

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Jul 16, 2020

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Henk Crop Jul 15, 2020

What is so interesting about the JCPOA? After 12 years of negotiations they only got a deal to postpone the development of a nuclear bomb. We need a deal that will make Iran stop the development, period.
- Robert Dx Jul 19, 2020
  
  Iran has few friends in the world, and many of their not-friends carry a nuclear weapon. Why would they ever stop development? In fact, with the JCPOA restrictions lifting anyways in 2025, it is easy to regard the JCPOA as an armistice, which allows Iran to regroup, resupply (they can still develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes) and restart the program on the road to a nuclear weapon.
  
  Truth be told, North Korea is an excellent example, a regime that is supposedly totally isolated from the world, yet has managed to create a nuclear weapon and continues to develop missile technology. Where there is a will, there most certainly is a way.
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j. von Hettlingen Jul 14, 2020

Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is still hoping to salvage the 2015 nuclear clear Iran signed with the E3/EU+3 – Britain, France, Germany, the EU, plus China, Russia and the US, after two decades of relentless negotiations. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is now on life support, since Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of it in May 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions against Iran.
Until June 2019 Iran “had met all its obligations” under the deal. Since then it has resumed its enrichment activities. European leaders have long doubted that Trump’s policy of maximum economic pressure will persuade Iran to renegotiate the deal. They rightly feared that Trump’s zero-sum game would instead strengthen the position of hardliners in Tehran. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for Iran to reopen sites to its inspectors.
The author is urging “all parties involved” with the deal to “step back from the precipice.” In the last two years, signatories have tried to salvage the JCPOA, hoping to curb Iran’s ability to resurrect its nuclear arms programme. They have not yet given up their hope. Although Iran has resumed activities forbidden by the deal, including stepping up uranium enrichment, it has kept the door open to a reversal. But a series of disputes has continued to undermine the agreement. Tensions in recent months have dimmed the hopes of salvaging the JCPOA.
European signatories had unsuccessfully sought to find ways to help relieve Iran’s ailing economy. Tehran had increased the pressure on Europe to help evade the US restrictions, by gradually walking away from its nuclear commitments. Iran justified its moves saying, the EU had not fulfilled its commitment to boost trade. The US has imposed sanctions making it quite impossible for European firms to trade with Iran and not risk US fines. A mechanism designed to circumvent sanctions set up by the EU has so far failed to facilitate a single transaction between European firms and Iran.
Russia and China have exploited Europe’s failure by forging closer bilateral ties with Iran for geopolitical clout. In recent years, Russia wants Tehran to cooperate with the IAEA to ensure that Iran’s nuclear behaviour does not become a diplomatic liability for Moscow. Both Russia and China may turn a blind eye to Iran’s "minimalistic" nonproliferation standards, while preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, because neither country has an interest in Iran being a nuclear power.
Trump’s reckless action has also driven Iran into China’s arms. Last month, Iran and China have quietly drafted a sweeping economic and security partnership that could see Beijing invest $400 billion over the next 25 years. China will help Iran develop its energy and other sectors – banking, telecommunications and transport – undercutting the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate Tehran, due to its nuclear and military ambitions, in exchange for discount oil.
This draft agreement with Tehran allows China to feel that unlike most countries, it is in a position to defy the US, powerful enough to withstand American penalties, as it has in the trade war waged by Trump. The Chinese investments in Iran could spur still more punitive actions against Chinese companies, which have already been targeted by the administration in recent months.
The daughter of Huawei founder, Meng Wanzhou, detained by Canadian authorities, is fighting extradition to the US on charges of fraud. The Trump administration says she lied to bank the HSBC about Huawei's relationship with its Hong Kong subsidiary Skycom, which is accused of secretly doing business in Iran.
Much hope is placed on the November election. If Trump is voted out of office, the US could still return to the negotiating table. Yet given the sunset clause in the 2015 deal, which sees restrictions on Iran's nuclear enrichment programme lifted after 2025, seen as a thorn in critics' side, the JCPOA will have to be renegotiated.
- Adler Pfingsten Jul 15, 2020
  
  A very impressive situational analysis best deemed an addendum to the article in question but entirely devoid of content and conclusions…what is the point?
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Robert Wolff Jul 14, 2020

If we nuclear scientists could be sure that our moral judgements were politically supported, then Russia and China and North Korea and the US and the other nuclear nations could eliminate nuclear weapons since a nuclear war would not solve any human problems, only make them worse.

The 'Problem' is not likely the Rationalism of our leaders, but the general populace that elects them which wants leaders that threaten their adversaries to overpower them for the benefit of their Citizens.

This is more a question of the mentality of political followers than the mentality of political leaders. Those in leadership positions are generally quite happy with their individual status, while their followers are not, and push their leaders to either scare or defeat their international adversaries in a way that benefits their followers.

I am a scientist who was involved in SALT II as an employee of the Rand Corporation, and met Soviet Scientists when I worked at JPL,

Nobody wants a Nuclear War; the question is how to avoid it. If only one nation has nuclear weapons (as in WWII) they are much more likely to use them (as Truman did against the Japanese), If all nations have nuclear weapons, the use of nuclear weapons becomes a question of murder-suicide, not of losing or winning a future war. MAD (mutual assured destruction) will stop "sane" nations with "sane" regimes (i.e. have the civilized support of their citizens) from using nuclear weapons.

It is those nations with dictatorial regimes, unpopular among the peoples they rule, who are willing to sacrifice their own citizens to remain in power who are the greatest threat.

Iran leadership has actually proclaimed it is willing to sacrifice its own citizens in order for it to remain in power, which is the ultimate threat to the French philosophy of MAD that a regime will give up its power in order to save its own citizens.

Not everybody or every national regime thinks like the French.
- Henk Crop Aug 1, 2020
  
  Robert. The issue is not the nuclear weapons that already exist, but that someone wants to increase the number.
  The difference between Iran and the existing nuclear powers is that, when Iran is being blown up they have the perspective of ending in a heaven full of virgins who will take care of them. In the other countries they will be just dead.
  If Iran would have a nuclear weapon, others in the region will also want a nuclear weapon.
  That in a unstable place like the Middle East.
  They must stop with the JCPOA.
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Petey Bee Jul 14, 2020

The Trump administration is responsible for the US unilaterally killing JCOPA (that is to say, it is dead), and they did so with notable support of a many long time anti-Iran Democrats, including Senate minority leadership.

There will still be future negotiations, but expectations of reversals by the US side now limit the de-facto meaning of any agreements to the duration of one or two presidential terms. There is not much more to say.
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Het atoomakkoord met Iran redden

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