US waiver of sanctions on Iran crucial turn

On  Friday, the United States restored sanctions waiver over Iran’s nuclear programme as the “indirect” – that is unofficial – Iran-US talks enter the supposedly final phase in Vienna. The waivers are not final. These are seen as a prelude to an agreement between the two sides over restoring the 2015 deal called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and which involved China, Russia, Germany, France, and Britain.

Former US president Donald Trump pulled his country out of the deal in 2018. Iran went back to its uranium-enrichment programme, arguing that it needed to do so to keep its civil nuclear programme going. The return of Democrat Joe Biden as president in January 2021 marked the revival of talks between Iran and the US to restore the JCPOA. The waiver report, signed by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, was sent to Congress. The report said, “It is also designed to serve US non-proliferation and nuclear safety interests and constrain Iran’s nuclear activities. It is being issued as a matter of policy discretion with these objectives in mind, and not pursuant to a commitment or as part of a quid pro quo.”

The American move should ease the atmosphere at the Vienna talks between the two parties. But it is not clear whether the Americans want new guarantees from Iran to go back to the 2015 agreement, or the talks are just a pretext to restore the agreement. The waiver will now allow Russian and Chinese private companies to deal with Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Iranian nuclear programme is viewed with suspicion by the United States, the Gulf states and Israel. It is Israel that has been most belligerently opposed to Iran’s nuclear programme because Tel Aviv believes that the programme is intended to make a bomb which targets Israel because of Iran’s unequivocal opposition to the Zionist state.

But Iranians insist that they would not ever weaponise their nuclear programme, with the deal or without the deal. Iran’s ability to produce uranium-enriched centrifuges is seen as technically a step away from making the bomb. Apart from its nuclear programme, Iran raises concerns among its neighbours because of its indirect support, and quite often direct, support to political and militant organisations, in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. It is an important power tussle in the region, and there are no easy solutions because Iran is quite ambitious to assume the role of a regional power.

The American approach to contain Iran as a political power faces the same kinds of challenges that it does with Russia and China, though on a smaller scale. The Americans swing between two positions, one is that of uncompromising hostility – mostly under pressure from the Israeli lobby in the United States – and the other of reconciliation and accommodation.

The 2015 JCPOA deal is all about reconciliation and accommodation. But the Americans cannot be seen to be moving from policy extreme to the other. It must hold on to a steady line. Ultimately, sanctions regime does not help much. It is a strategic choice to be engaged with Iran. The Iranians are not exactly ecstatic about the American waiver. They are demanding the waiver should result in Iran’s international trade earnings ending in Iranian banks in foreign currency. This should compel America to revise its sanctions policy in general, whether it is aimed against Russia, against China, or against Iran. It cannot be used as a negotiating weapon. Iran on its part will have to do more to win the confidence of the international community, and it should understand that it cannot be seen as playing a covert, or not so covert role, in the internal affairs of other countries.