Senators’ Call For Zero Enrichment Highlights Fears Over Iran Talks

In September 2021, Truss, just appointed foreign secretary, sat down quietly with her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly. Truss reportedly assured Amir-Abdollahianthat London was serious about repaying the £400 million debt owed by Britain since the 1970s for undelivered weapons.

Truss had told senior civil servants on promotion to the foreign office days earlier, moved by Prime Minister Boris Johnson from international trade secretary, that her “number one priority” was securing the release of three Britons detained in Iran – Nazanin Zeghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori and Morad Tahbaz.

Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Zeghari-Ratcliffe who was freed along with Ashoori March 2002, praised Truss in a July newspaper article. “Despite me camping angrily on her doorstep, and our sometime fractious relationship, she delivered on her promise to us to get Nazanin home,” Ratcliffe wrote. “After five foreign secretaries, that matters. She did the one thing everyone knew would work: she paid the UK’s debt.”

Not everyone was pleased. Mike Pompeo, who as secretary of state under President Donald Trump launched maximum pressure as the US left the 2015 Iran nuclear deal condemned the £400 million ($460 million) payment as “blood money.”

Truss has a long record of pragmatism. President of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats when a student, she was opposed the UK leaving the European Union (EU) during the 2016 referendum but later became a ‘Brexiteer.’

‘Not dealing with a perfect world’

Pressed in a House of Commons committee in June, Truss fielded a question on human rights in the Arab Gulf states. “We are not dealing with a perfect world,” she said. “We are dealing in a world where we have to make difficult decisions…”

As foreign secretary, Truss has worked along with the Biden administration in line with the British and European policy of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Along with French and German counterparts, she has increasingly placed the onus to Iran to make compromises as the talks have become US-Iran contacts, mediated by the European Union, since Vienna multilateral meetings between Iran and six world powers paused in March.

100%

Hopes for the talks have risen and fallen in recent weeks. In comments made Monday to reporters in Brussels, Josep Borrell, head of EU foreign policy, said he was “less confident today than 28 hours before on the convergence of the negotiation process,” and that without convergence, “the whole process is in danger.”

Borrell: Nuclear talks ‘in danger’

While France and Germany, and the European Union, may look to Truss to hold the UK’s current position, Monday’s news that Truss had been elected leader of the British Conservative Party and therefore prime minister designate, prompted celebrations among many conservative commentators.

“To leave the past few years of Chamberlain Conservatism and reclaim Churchill’s mantle, Truss must act boldly from day one to break the FCO’s [foreign office] hold on No 10 [the prime minister’s residence],” tweeted Richard Goldberg, senior advisor to the Federation for Defense of Democracies. In calling Johnson an ‘appeaser,’ Goldberg referred to Neville Chamberlain, British prime minister 1937-40, who explored options for stopping Nazi Germany short of war.

‘No need to tread on eggshells’

Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom at Heritage Foundation and frequent contributor to Fox News, wrote August 31 that Truss would challenge the Biden administration over aspects of US foreign policy, “such as its weakness on Iran.” Truss, wrote Gardiner, would “not be afraid to take on the liberal establishment at home and abroad.”

The Daily Telegraph ran a leader August 28 headlined ‘Truss must bloc Iran deal,’ which it said was “likely to offer at best nothing more than a trivial delay to the ayatollahs’ atomic ambitions, even as it unlocks cash likely to fund attacks against the very Western governments which sign up.” With Zeghari-Ratcliffe freed, the paper opined, “there is no need to tread on eggshells.”

Towards the end of the Conservative leadership election, United Against Nuclear Iran speculated in the US that her rival Rishi Sunak’s “domestic emphasis on Britain’s finances might sway him toward a pro-trade rationale and attendant support for the JCPOA…A Sunak government would suggest a continuation of his former boss’s [Boris Johnson] Iran policy: ongoing support for the JCPOA as a ‘least bad’ option to restrain and possibly moderate Iran in the long term.”

Among other JCPOA opponents, Israel Prime Minister Yair Lapid congratulated Truss as “my new friend, a true friend of Israeli.” The Jerusalem Post, highlighting Lapid and Truss overlapping as foreign ministers, cited “sources close” to the Israeli prime minister that Truss “has shown an understanding of the threat Tehran poses to the Jewish state and is closer to Israel’s view on Iran’s prevarications in the talks.”

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Qatar’s Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani talked on Sunday night to review bilateral relations and some consular issues as well as the latest status of the negotiations to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – or JCPOA.

According to Qatari sources, Al Thani reiterated Doha’s hope for Iran and the US to reach a consensus to revive the nuclear deal and reaching a fair agreement for all, taking into consideration the concerns of all parties. Al Thani also stressed that this agreement is in the interest of the security and stability of the region.

This was the second phone conversation between Amir-Abdollahian and Al Thani as the agreement on the JCPOA revival seems at a critical stage as Iran has hardened its position in recent days with insisting on demands, such as compensation if the US leaves the agreement or a pledge not to reinstate sanctions, but the Biden Administration has responded that it can only offer assurances to Tehran for the duration of its current term.

On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani reiterated Tehran’s harder position in the nuclear talks, insisting on guarantees and an end to a probe into its past activities, that Tehran has once again transmitted its latest to the European Union, which acts as a mediator, and is awaiting a response from Washington. 

The United States on August 31 called Iran’s latest response “not constructive”, as soon as it was delivered on the same day.

The ministry’s spokesman Nasser Kanaani told reporters that Tehran has once again transmitted its latest to the European Union, which acts as a mediator, and is awaiting a response from Washington.

United States on August 31 called Iran’s latest response “not constructive”, as soon as it was delivered on the same day.

Kanaani said that Iran’s demands regarding guarantees from the United States had some success in terms of “strengthening” the existing draft agreement text circulated by the EU. He stressed that the foreign ministry’s most important task is to secure guarantees.

Iran has been asking for US guarantees not to leave a new nuclear agreement, as it did in 2018 when former President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA. Reports in recent weeks have indicated a variety of Iranian demands, such as compensation if the US leaves the agreement or a pledge not to reinstate sanctions, but the Biden Administration has responded that it can only offer assurances to Tehran for the duration of its current term.

Almost all Republicans in the US Congress and many Democrats have serious reservations about a new nuclear deal with Iran that would lift sanctions and provide hundreds of billions of dollars to a government that they believe poses a danger to US interests and its regional allies. Republicans have vowed to “tear up” any agreement President Joe Biden concludes with Iran short of a complete dismantling of its nuclear program and a major shift in its regional policies.

Kanaani also highlighted another demand that Tehran has put forth in recent weeks. He insisted that a probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should be shelved before a deal is implemented. The IAEA is investigating uranium particles its inspection uncovered at three Iranian nuclear sites used prior to 2003, when Tehran was pursuing an undeclared research and development program.

Iran’s public pronouncements in the past two weeks have been shifting between emphasizing ‘guarantees’ and stopping the IAEA investigation as pre-conditions for a deal.

The foreign ministry spokesman also emphasized another argument being pushed by Iranian officials that Europe is facing an energy crisis this winter and is desperate for a nuclear deal with Iran. Presumably, if US sanctions are lifted Iran can supply energy to Europe in the wake of the crisis created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, this is a false proposition built on the premises that Iran can supply natural gas to Europe in the near future.

First, Iran’s gas production is not enough even for its domestic consumption, because of a lack of Western technology and capital. Natural gas output is gradually declining while domestic consumption is rising.

In fact, Iran might soon be forced to import gas if it does not invest $50 billion in its production fields, which need technology only Western countries can provide.

Second, even if Iran had additional gas to export to Europe, there are no land pipelines ready and no LNG infrastructure to ship the gas via the sea.

Kanaani claimed that Europe has asked Iran for help to resolve the energy crisis and also mediate with Russia to stop the war in Ukraine, but so far there have been no statements by European officials in these regards.

At the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Lapid said Israel will continue to pressure the US but not to the point that it will cause a crisis in relations. “The correct policy is the one that we have been leading in the past year: To continue the pressure, without causing a rupture, to present credible intelligence, to be part of the process without destroying the special relationship with the US.”

Lapid said to “those who say that we are not shouty enough or blunt enough” should recall that, in 2015, when then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “insisted on an unnecessary confrontation [with the US], it was an utter failure. The Americans simply stopped listening to us.

“The reservations we presented to the US were taken into account. We also spoke to other partners and presented demands [they should make of] Iranians. We can’t say everything, but not everything should be subject to fights and speeches,” he added. 

President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid last week that the United States will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. Israel opposes a return to the 2015 deal, which would lift sanctions on Iran and would limit its nuclear program for a few years.

Lapid made the remarks one day before the Mossad chief is set to depart for Washington to attend closed door classified meetings of House and Senate intelligence committees about the Iranian threat and the dangers of a nuclear deal. 

Marandi published a series of tweets from his interview with Al Jazeera news channel on Saturday, saying, “Iran will be patient. The US under Obama systematically violated the deal and under Trump/Biden it imposed maximum pressure against innocent citizens... Winter is approaching and the EU is facing a crippling energy crisis.”

Emphasizing that “Iran won't accept ambiguities or loopholes in the text,” he said, “There should be no loopholes that can be used to undermine a deal. There are problems with a few words and the US can easily fix them.”

“The US domestic situation is a key reason why a nuclear deal has been allusive (elusive). While some EU governments have already asked Iran about oil as well as natural gas exports, Biden is fearful that foes will depict him and certain allies as weak,” he added.

Tehran is trying to sell the agreement as beneficial to Europe's energy crunch, regardless of the fact that even with no sanctions or restrictions on Iran’s exports, the country is unable to provide European countries with natural gas. 

Iranian media repeatedly talks about ‘Europe’s freezing winter” while it has almost nothing to do with Tehran’s crude oil exports, except generally helping to bring down oil prices. Europe’s need to replace Russian gas is a specific issue on its own that Iran cannot help with due to its own shortages. A nuclear agreement now cannot impact Iran’s ability to export natural gas for the foreseeable future mainly due to Iran’s huge domestic need.