Down Memory Lane to 2014's Iran Nuclear Talks and Our Future

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

    Iran shows the world it's rockets, a threat against Israel.  

Of primary concern to the USA and Israel was Iran's domestic-enrichment program, completely superfluous to Iran's apparent civilian nuclear power intentions when the energy resource can be imported.  Iran is a hot country, needing little energy during winter months.  right now in April they are enjoying 80 degree F weather. In northern and western regions of Iran winter starts with wet snow and averages at 1 to 8 °C (34-46 °F). Southern coasts are usually warmer. Local temperature is 10 to 14 °C (50-57 °F) at daytime while in mountainous regions even daytime temperature are in negative range (below 32 °F). They could easily import oil for energy.  Why the need for nuclear power?                                      

  Iran's Revolutionary Guard Troops

Iran was the 6th largest Islamic country. with about 76,923,300 population  in 2011.  They were 98% Muslims of the Shi'a sect, and is an Islamic state with a military power of about 545,000 then  Saudi Arabia is the religious leader with the main sect being Sunni. It's the 14th largest population of Muslims, Shi'as being a minority religious group among Muslims.  

    Iran's hatred for USA, the Big Satan, while Israel is called the little Satan.

The size of their program- 20,000 centrifuges to spin uranium in multiple, heavily fortified, once clandestine  sites across the country, well beyond the grade required for any peaceful purpose.  They were establishing a 2nd path in nuclear weapons capacity by building a plutonium heavy water facility.

That, along with all the threats of hatred that Iran was bellowing out against Israel, had Israel's shackles up to the point where they knew what Iran was intending.  They were going to be the Islamic rulers, taking Saudi Arabia's place of leadership by ridding them all of Israel. They would drive Israel and its people into the sea. Israel knew enough to take Iran's threats seriously, as this is part of the Islamic code of warning an enemy first before striking.  Ever since the Shah of Iran had been ousted by the Ayatolah, they had hated the tiny Jewish country who was once a Dhimmi group along with the Christians (2nd-3rd class citizen) of Muslim countries.  Jews were under more duress than the Christians, however.

Wendy Sherman b: June 7, 1949, served under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2011 to 2015. She was the fourth-ranking official in the U.S. Department of State. In that role, Sherman was the lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, in the USA, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Jewish, a Democrat and political appointee, was the representative of the USA in a historical bilateral negotiation with Iran, the 1st of its kind in 35 years.  It was held in Austria, and in the Coburg Palace in the capital;  journalists from around the world gathered, and then were commanded to retreat by security forces.  At the negotiating table, one delegation had asked that the local police keep all this press outside, behind barricades, and never gave a reason why. Iran and its nuclear facilities is not her area of expertise, and is not an expert on sanctions financing nor nuclear science but considered capable as a negotiator.    She has said she does not expect to know Iran's true position until the 13th hour of the talks.   

The Baroness, Catherine Ashton, b: March 20, 1956, a busy woman, noted for  her P5+1 talks with Iran which led to the November 2013 Geneva interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme. She is  a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.

The US delegation was not flustered but took it well, as many went into a hotel bar.  One sharp reporter said she thought the order came from Catherine Ashton, the EU representative and foreign-policy chief, who was very stingy about giving out news from the conferences.  Her staff had declared, "What's the point?"  

It had been 8 months previously in Geneva, Switzerland after weeks of hushed talks that the USA, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany agreed with Iran to pause the talks for 6 months.  Sanctions were frozen and Iran promised to cap its enrichment of uranium. Naive journalists and reps thought Iran actually would diminish their stockpile of its most highly enriched uranium to date.  

This deal was called The Joint Plan of Action, and they had 6 months to deal with Iran's goal.  Some even actually suspected a military reasoning behind the uranium need.  The talks were extended 4 more months. so John Kerry, Secretary of State,  could get to Vienna to "gauge Iran's seriousness."  

For over the past 10 years, people had known where Iran stood.  They already had gone way beyond the grade standards for peaceful use.  They had been making a 2nd path to nuclear weapons capacity by building a plutonium heavy-water facility.  

The world powers at the table were there with the goal of dismantling much of the infrastructure.  There were inspectors to enforce this position.  

Journalists were kept from seeing what covert operations were being addressed.  Independent experts knew far more than the rest of the world, or what Western intelligence agencies had learned, or what Mossad had discovered.  

Netanyhu was made aware, and told the world in a UN conference, his speech ignored by USA heads walking out during his speech to go to lunch.  It's been 8-10 years since then.  This was in September 2012.  UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew his “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program on Thursday despite a U.S. refusal to set an ultimatum, saying Tehran will be on the brink of a nuclear weapon in less than a year.  To stall Israel's program, it is thought that Israel managed to get to their computer program and jam it up, stalling their progress.  

Israel has said that they will not allow Iran to attack them with their nuclear powerful weapons. Whatever it takes to protect its citizens, they are ready to do.   

July 14, 2015:  Earlier today in Vienna, international negotiators reached a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. The New York Times reports that the agreement will eventually lift oil and financial sanctions, “in return for limits on Iran’s nuclear production capability and fuel stockpile over the next 15 years.” The international restrictions on Iranian arms exports will remain in place for up to 5 years, and the ban on ballistic missile exports could remain for up to 8 years. 

In a televised statement this morning, President Obama defended his decision to engage in the negotiations “from a position of strength” and assured the American people that, under the deal, “Iran will not be able to achieve a nuclear weapon.” His opponents are sure to challenge both assertions. 

In July 2015, the Iran nuclear deal was reached by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union (EU), and Iran. The deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was supposed to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear program—but it did not.

Trump (2017-2021) quit a deal between the US, its European allies, and Iran and said he's going to hit Iran with the toughest economic sanctions he can.  There are lots of different theories about what could happen next. Some people think the US siding with Israel, and Saudi Arabia, over Iran could lead to war in the Middle East. Others think that Iran will now start making weapons again.  According to the Guardian, the deal led to a rapid reduction in Iran’s nuclear programme. It reduced its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98% to just 300lbs, not enough to make one bomb. But Trump's said the deal's failed, that it hasn't led to peace and that he is going to come down hard on Iran.

Although the other European countries involved are pretty desperate to keep the deal (politicians from France, Germany and the UK have all been in the US in the past few weeks to try and persuade Trump to stick to it) they're now going to have to fight pretty hard to keep it standing. One analyst said that with economic sanctions imposed from the US, global companies could leave Iran, further damaging its industry.

• By 2031, 9 years from today (or sooner, in some cases)—Iran will be permitted to:
  • produce highly-enriched uranium;
  • stockpile unlimited amounts of uranium;
  • use advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium more quickly;
  • conduct unlimited research and development on uranium-enrichment centrifuges;
  • build and operate facilities to enrich uranium without restrictions;
  • enrich uranium, without restrictions, at its underground, hardened, previously secret Fordow nuclear facility;
  • reprocess spent fuel—which can be used for nuclear weapons—from heavy-water nuclear reactors; and
  • build new heavy-water reactors, which would annually produce enough plutonium to fuel several nuclear weapons.
• The international community is therefore only ‘renting’ Iranian arms control for a time, after which Iran will have a virtually unrestricted, internationally validated, industrial-scale nuclear program. By giving political approval to that program, the JCPOA therefore makes military action the only option left to prevent a nuclear Iran.

What's happening to today's talks?    Iran will not go back to the original deal that Trump broke away from which was a bad deal anyway, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican: 

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian part of International Conference on Syria, a political solution in 29 th May 2013.  

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s Foreign Minister stressed the need for the US to abandon its excessive demands in the talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, saying the current US administration should have the courage to correct its predecessor’s mistakes.  “The United States’ current administration should have the audacity to rectify the White House’s past mistakes,” Hossein Amirabdollahian told European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrel during a phone call on Friday.

                                   

 Iran's Hossein has strong ties with China and Russia as well as Syria.

(New York, N.Y.) – Speaking to reporters at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters, as Patrick Wintour of The Guardian recalled on “The Iran Podcast”, that if Iran were to agree to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) then Tehran would need a legal guarantee that any business agreements with an Iranian company formed after implementation of the deal would be, as Wintour said, ‘sacrosanct’ and shielded from sanctions.

Such a demand, if made at the Vienna nuclear negotiations, would align with a provision in Tehran’s so-called ‘Revenge Act’ of 2021. That bill not only requires punitive financial penalties on companies that comply with sanctions requirements set forth by the United States and other governments, but also creates a criminal penalty for doing so, specifying a mandatory prison sentence. Article 10 of that legislation explicitly states (emphasis added): 

Companies that violate their contract due to sanctions against Iran, if they wish to return to cooperate in a new contract with an Iranian entity again are required to comply with the following conditions: The termination payment agreed by the foreign party in the new contract must be set at least twice as high as in comparable contracts. The foreign party in the contract must bear all the cost of the equipment and production lines until the final product is reached. The foreign party will be subject to twice the amount of taxes as would be the case in comparable contracts. If the foreign party has submitted a tender that is equal to other competitors, the tender of the foreign entity will be treated with a lower priority. In case of violation of any of these conditions in the agreement, the offender will be sentenced to a sentence between 1 to 5 years in prison. 

An international Atomic Energy Agency inspector visits the Natanz enrichment facility, south of Tehran, on Jan. 20, 2014.KAZEM GHANE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGESinspector

Despite U.S. Sanctions, Iran Expands Its Nuclear Stockpile, two years after Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran has cut in half the time it would need to produce enough weapons-grade fuel for a nuclear bomb.

Resource: The Jerusalem Report, August 25, 2014,p. 34-37

https://seasonsyear.com/Iran#:~:text=Winter%20in%20Iran,(below%2032%20%C2%B0F).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Sherman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Ashton

https://www.cato.org/blog/pros-cons-iranian-nuclear-deal?gclid=CjwKCAjwx46TBhBhEiwArA_DjL9ro92I4UpnAoegRJm3I6kJZps1I8ZqJveRQlH6zKMDM8-lLSNkcxoCrpgQAvD_BwE

https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/iran-nuclear-deal?gclid=CjwKCAjwx46TBhBhEiwArA_DjOkjWWwXvikLYPVJyj1_GO4UaO6ZmqfTJgc4TAZFsJriObyva50yWRoCPW4QAvD_BwE

https://www.ecnmy.org/engage/donald-trump-just-backed-iran-nuclear-deal/?gclid=CjwKCAjwx46TBhBhEiwArA_DjAKijw1eCY112An0OkgXRjMdV6u8C-EkUV40qv8bYdQqiTB_uhQVqxoCLToQAvD_BwE

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/08/iran-advances-nuclear-program-withdrawal-jcpoa/