Peace With Iran Is Tricky. Is Biden Making It Impossible?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
30 March 21
American policy toward Iran has long been stupid and self-defeating. Anyone
here not see that? Anyone here think that's a necessary state of affairs?
OK, it's true that stupid, self-defeating policy toward Iran is an American
tradition of more than 70 years standing. And yes, it has had some
short-term benefits, enriching the Shah's thugocracy and its American
supporters like the Rockefellers and other oil interests. That's a plus in
some books, just not in Iranian books. There it looks more like colonial
exploitation laced with crimes against humanity.
Wait a minute: didn't they take our diplomats hostage in 1979? As well they
might. Get over it. Some of you should be particularly grateful for that
hostage-taking, since Iran did the US the great "favor" of holding the
hostages till their captivity helped elect Ronald Reagan. Ever since then,
most Americans have been the hostages of the American right.
Once in power, Reagan showed US gratitude by supporting Saddam Hussein's war
on Iran. Iraq had invaded Iran in September 1980 and the Reagan
administration backed Iraq's eight-year war against Iran. Iraq sometimes
used chemical weapons, with US blessing.
Over the last thirty years, US policy has largely consisted of a cold war
typified by demonization of anything Iranian and by repeated sky-is-falling
cries of Iran getting nuclear weapons as soon as next month. That it never
happened has done nothing to quell the cries of wolf. From time to time the
US and Israelis assassinate Iranian officials and nuclear scientists, but we
don't call that terrorism. What we call terrorism is any Iranian support for
its allies in the region.
The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979 and has not attempted to
restore normal diplomatic dialogue since then. No wonder, then, that
American policy toward Iran has long since lost touch with anything
resembling intellectual integrity, never mind moral authority. American
policy toward Iran is little more than chauvinistic resentment supported by
tenacious bigotry against non-white Shia Muslims with a civilization
millennia older than ours.
The present moment, the early Biden administration, presents the US with a
rare opportunity to re-think our Iran policy and at least attempt to create
a relationship with Iran based on mutual respect, honesty, and a recognition
of our own historical culpability. This is an opportunity that is not likely
to last for long. And it will likely lead nowhere unless the US takes the
initiative. So far, that appears unlikely.
At the core of the present moment is the Iran nuclear deal, formally known
as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed on July 14, 2015,
by the US, China, France, Germany, Russia, UK, the European Union, and Iran,
after almost two years of negotiation. The joint treaty established limits
on Iranian nuclear development, enforced by inspections by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In exchange for signing the agreement, Iran was
to be relieved of various sanctions imposed by the other parties. (Only
three countries in the world opposed the JCPOA at the time - Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Republic, and Israel.)
In October 2017, the Trump administration unilaterally violated the
agreement by refusing to lift agreed-upon sanctions. In May 2018, the Trump
administration violated the agreement again, by unilaterally withdrawing
from it despite opposition from all the other signatories. No other
signatory has withdrawn from the JCPOA. The US has acted in bad faith toward
Iran at least since 2017, and that bad faith continues under the Biden
administration.
According to the IAEA, Iran remained in compliance with the agreement
through May 2019. Two months later, Iran announced that it had breached its
limit on low-level enriched Uranium, which the IAEA confirmed: Iran had 205
kg of enriched Uranium, 2.2 kg above the agreement's level of 202.8 kg. This
is not a significant difference, it was self-reported, and it is meaningless
in relation to nuclear weapons.
In January 2020, the Trump administration assassinated an Iranian general at
the Baghdad airport in Iraq, deemed a violation of international law by the
UN. In response, Iran said it would not continue to comply with the
agreement without US assurance that it would rejoin the agreement and lift
the sanctions it had previously agreed to lift. The Trump administration
maintained its hard line. The IAEA has maintained a partial verification
with Iran through March 2021. The Biden administration has maintained the
Trump administration's hard line. Despite President Biden's expressed
intention to rejoin the JCPOA, he has taken unilateral inaction to maintain
President Trump's unilateral action to disrupt the agreement.
In addition, in late February, Biden used disputed assertions of "Iranian
influence" to launch a dubiously-legal attack on a base in Syria said to be
the source of attacks in Iraq on US mercenaries there. The US attack came in
the midst of intensified Israeli bombing of "Iran-backed" forces in Syria,
along with Israel's announced contingency plans for bombing nuclear
facilities in Iran. For more than two years, Israel has carried on an
undeclared war on Iranian shipping (according to Haaretz and the Wall Street
Journal): "several dozen attacks were carried out, which caused the Iranians
cumulative damage of billions of dollars, amid a high rate of success in
disrupting its shipping." Haaretz has also reported two unconfirmed "Iranian
missile" attacks on Israeli ships in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.
US intelligence on Iran has been politicized and unreliable for decades.
Iran is a country of fifty million people on the other side of the world,
ringed by US military bases and the US Navy. Iran is under the threat of
nuclear attack from US forces every minute of every day. Iran is struggling
under crippling economic sanctions imposed and enforced by the US. Despite
this longstanding reality, US senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey
Graham (R-SC) recently wrote to President Biden affirming the deep-seated
lie that "Iran continues to pose a threat to US and international security."
Whatever sliver of truth may lurk in that assertion, it's minuscule compared
to the threat the US continues to pose to the rest of the world.
Official American paranoia about Iran became hilarious on March 21, as
dutifully and uncritically reported by the Associated Press (AP) under the
headline:
AP sources: Iran threatens US Army post and top general
The breathless lead gave no clue that the "threats" were already two months
old, as well as virtually impossible to carry out:
Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the U.S. capital,
and against the Army's vice chief of staff, two senior U.S. intelligence
officials said.
The most serious question raised here is why the AP, much less anyone else,
should take seriously a story leaked by anonymous sources offering no
evidence of any credible military threat by a country thousands of miles
away from a US fort on an inland waterway in Washington, DC. How scared are
we supposed to be? Intelligence agencies refused to respond to press
queries. The local military commander, Gen. Omar Jones, had already managed
to reduce the threat to absurdity: "The only specific security threat he
offered was about a swimmer who ended up on the installation and was
arrested."
In a rational world, a story like this would go unpublished. Or it would be
written in its real context: a local zoning dispute between the city and the
Pentagon.
The same day that the AP was indulging in Iranophobia, Iran was reiterating
its position with regard to US sanctions and entering new negotiations. As
reported by Al Jazeera, Iran said that, first, the US should restore the
JCPOA to its pre-Trump status and lift all Trump-imposed sanctions, then
Iran would return to full compliance. In an hour-long address marking the
Persian new year that coincides with the spring equinox, Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in part:
. that previous fool [Trump] . went away in that infamous way, bringing
disgrace to his country.. [The US] must know 'maximum pressure' has failed
so far, and if the current US administration wants to continue, it will also
fail.
This was not widely reported in US media. Reuters omitted mention of Iran's
stated position on the JCPOA, but mentioned Biden's empty gesture of sending
the Iranians greetings and hope for the new year.
Loss of trust in the US is the crux of the Trump legacy. The US has
demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to abide by international agreements.
The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to protect its own
citizens from a pandemic. Biden cannot evade this multifaceted reality by
pretending it doesn't exist. Restoring trust is not likely to be quick or
easy, but it won't be possible without determined effort.
The Biden administration has made some progress on the pandemic front. So
far, some of the Biden administration's cold war mentality hardliners seem
to have stymied progress on Iran. There can be no break with the past as
long as the US continues Trump's policies, which are themselves breaks with
the past.
Biden's special envoy to Iran provides reason for hope. Robert Malley is
generally respected for his nuanced understanding of Middle East politics.
He is a veteran diplomat and mediator who served in both the Clinton and
Obama administrations. His appointment sparked right-wing accusations that
he has too much sympathy for Iran and an "animus towards Israel," even
though he is of Egyptian Jewish descent. Malley has a record of challenging
Washington orthodoxy. In a lecture in 2008, Malley acknowledged that US
actions abroad have often been "destructive," and that the US:
. anoints preselected leaders, misreads local dynamics, misinterprets local
balances of power, misuses its might, misjudges the toxicity of its embrace,
encourages confrontation, exports political models and plays with the
sectarian genie.
Although that analysis has been true since long before 2008, it still raises
hackles in that part of US leadership still guided more by ideological
fantasy than complex reality.
That reality added a new complexity March 27, when China and Iran announced
a new economic agreement for the next quarter-century. Five years in
negotiation, the pact provides $400 billion in Chinese investments in Iran
in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil at a discounted price. At a
minimum, this agreement seems to offer Iran some breathing room and
stability as well as real relief from economic sanctions.
The Biden administration continues to take positions designed to assure
failure to resolve the issue. Maybe that's the Biden goal, in which case all
the posturing is time-wasting theatre. When the US Secretary of State is
publicly saying, "The ball is really in their court," he sounds like he's
mired in mindless denial, not making any gesture to restore broken trust.
But if Biden actually wants rapprochement of some balanced nature, he has to
decide just how long it's in US interests to continue to accept the damage
of prolonging Trump policies. How is that such a hard choice?