The melancholy anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal

Iran Map

Last week on July 14, the world moved past the first anniversary of the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement between the P5+1 nations and Iran.

It is not unfair to write that the signing of this agreement and the rapprochement-of sorts – with the Islamic Republic of Iran that the agreement was intended to underpin, have been the centerpiece of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Obama repeatedly argued that, with the agreement signed, Iran would eventually grasp the western hand extended towards it. With patience for evolving Iranian international policies, deference to the country’s proud, ancient culture and understanding for its geopolitical aspirations, Iran could be tenderly tugged, if not assertively yanked, into a sphere of behaviour more closely aligned with the West.

Despite his years as a community organizer on the gritty streets of south Chicago and nearly eight years of countless meetings with foreign leaders and diplomats, Obama has not proven to be an astute judge of character.

The Iranian regime has indeed complied with a minimum of the JCPOA provisions relating to the slowdown (note: not the elimination) of its nuclear program. But in every other respect of its foreign and military policies, its dangerous, destabilizing, hegemonic actions have continued unabated.

In this respect, former U.S. senator Joseph Lieberman is a better judge of character than Obama. Along with Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, the former foreign minister of Italy, Lieberman recently wrote: “There is no greater proof, no more revealing time, for the world to understand the true nature of the Iranian regime than on Al-Quds Day.”

Contrived in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Al-Quds Day in Iran is the day for orchestrated demonstrations of hate against Israel. Last year, the protests occurred only two days before the Iranian nuclear pact was actually signed. Yet the repulsive insults and threats against Israel, and, indeed, also against America, did not affect the execution of the agreement.

And what did the Iranian government assert at this year’s Al-Quds Day on July 1? 

The words of Hossein Salameh, deputy head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, speaking for his government, were quite definitive.

“Today, more than ever, there is fertile ground – with the grace of God – for the annihilation, the wiping out and the collapse of the Zionist regime. In Lebanon alone, more than 100,000 missiles are ready to be launched.

“Tens of thousands of other high-precision, long-range missiles, with the necessary destructive capabilities, have been placed in various places throughout the Islamic world. They are just waiting for the command, so that when the trigger is pulled, the accursed black dot will be wiped off the geopolitical map of the world, once and for all.”

Benjamin Weinthal, an expert on human rights in the Middle East sheds further light on the “true nature of the Iranian regime.” He recently reported that German intelligence sources have accused Iran of flouting the JCPOA. The inference was that Iran’s minimal compliance with certain contractual provisions is a cover for its ongoing subterfuge.

“Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said in its annual report that Iran has a ‘clandestine’ effort to seek illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.”

The problem, as former American Mideast envoy Dennis Ross and William Davidson, former senior Middle East adviser to Obama have recently noted, is that the JCPOA “has constrained the nuclear program temporarily without requiring Iran to forsake a nuclear weapons option, since Tehran is permitted to build a large nuclear infrastructure.”

The melancholy anniversary of the signing of JCPOA is an appropriate date to make the point: the regime in Iran is not to be trusted. If only the White House shared this view.