Drones, Protests, JCPOA, Israel: US Faces ‘Complex’ Iran

Axios quoted three US officialsas saying that Blanc is returning to his home agency after nearly two years on detail to the Department of State.

US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday that it is a “normal move”.

“The Department of Energy is a critical partner in shaping US policy on Iran’s nuclear program, and in his new role, Jarrett will remain involved in this issue, and returning to his home agency after two years is a normal personnel move,” noted Price.

Blanc was the deputy of US Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley and a key player in the indirect talks with Tehran over its nuclear program within the last two years.

Axios says Blanc's departure shows that the Biden administration thinks there is no path forward for a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran at this juncture.

After 18 months of talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, or JCPOA, negotiations reached a deadlock in September. There have also been calls for Malley’s resignation.

In late October, Malley stated that the US government is not going to "waste time" on trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal due to Tehran's clampdown on protesters, its support for Moscow's war on Ukraine, and the Islamic Republic’s positions on its nuclear program.

The former head of parliament’s (Majles) foreign relations and national security committee Heshmatolah Falahatpisheh told Nameh News in Tehran January 3 that "The United States will return to the JCPOA, but first, Iran needs to do four things: Settling domestic differences and reducing tensions, bringing about relative stability to the country's economy, making those who prevented the revival of the deal during the past two years accountable, and sending a new team to continue the negotiations."

Since negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal or JCPOA broke down in September, the Biden administration and its European allies have put the talks on the backburner and even President Joe Biden said in early November that “JCPOA is dead.”

According to Nameh News, Falahatpisheh is one of those politicians who believe diplomacy should be given yet another chance before pronouncing the JCPOA dead. Falahatpisheh reiterated that Europe and the US will certainly return to negotiations in 2023 and Iran should welcome this.

100%

Falahatpisheh said whatever that has been done so far to save the JCPOA were tactical moves rather than strategic changes, adding that both the United States and Europe are trying to weaken Iran's bargaining power.

Referring to the ongoing uprising in Iran, Falahatpisheh said, the United States and Europe assume that the protests have weakened Iran's bargaining power. That is why they pretend that they do not need to continue negotiations. On the other hand, the positions of anti-JCPOA political figures in Iran contribute to the Western apathy for more talks.

"Under the current situation, it is better for those who always opposed the JCPOA to stop further weakening Iran's diplomacy by commenting on the issue," Falahatpisheh said. He added that "Iran should change its nuclear negotiators and get rid of those who go to the negotiations to disrupt previous agreements rather than reaching a deal."

Falahatpisheh’s was clearly referring to Ali Bagheri-Kani, the chief Iranian negotiator, who is a protégé of Saeed Jalili, a hardliner anti-West ideologue.

100%

In another development, Jalili, one of the staunch opponents of an agreement with the United States, has accused former President Hassan Rouhani of “tying Iran economic development to the JCPOA” and contributing to the current crisis. Jalili and other hardliners know that they being blames for the continuation of US sanctions by preventing a nuclear deal and are twisting facts to blame others.

Jalili, who is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative to Iran's Supreme National Security Council, further charged that "the enemy started instigating major protests in Iran and began to make Iran insecure after it found out that its immense pressure on the country's economy will not work." He called the JCPOA "an imaginary" achievement for the previous government.

Meanwhile, hardline lawmaker Ahmad Rastineh advised Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi to "escape the trap of the JCPOA," and called the 2015 nuclear deal "A deceit by the United States."

Repeating a fallacy Iranian ultraconservatives have been trumpeting about the US allegedly sanctioning the export of medicines to Iran, Rastineh said: "When they sanction medicine sales to Iran, how can we expect them to recognize the rights of this oppressed nation." The lawmaker's comment is contrary to Iranian officials' statements denying US sanctions on medicine.

Rastineh charged, "every time US officials talk about starting or stopping the negotiations, in fact, they wish to disrupt Iran's economy and hurt its currency."

In fact, economists and even many regime insiders say that in the absence of an agreement with the West people are sending tens of billions of dollars abroad and no one is investing in the economy.

Joint drills of Israeli F-35 jets and six US F-15 jets were based out of the Nevatim air base, where Israeli squadron commanders briefed Jerusalem Post military correspondent Jonah Jeremy Bob on training “for hitting targets in ‘deep’ enemy territory.” Bob wrote that the terminology was “often a euphemism for Iran and other countries who do not have immediate borders with Israel” and therefore should be seen a “signal to Iran.”

The return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, heading a right-wing and pro-Jewish settler coalition, has fed speculation of an Israeli military attack on Iran. While outgoing prime minister Yair Lapid left office claiming Israel was better capable of striking Iran than ever, outgoing defense minister Benny Gantz told graduating air-force personnel late December they should be ready within “two to three years.”

Implying greater urgency, the Jerusalem Post’s report quoted a commander involved in Wednesday’s air drills that Israel’s three squadrons of US-supplied F-35s, even with some planes grounded for technical reasons, were “plenty, along with other Israeli fighter aircraft, to accomplish any mission that would need to be assigned.”

Netanyahu, whose warnings of an imminent Iranian nuclear bomb go back to the 1990s, is keen to stymie efforts by world powers to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). The Likud leader strongly backed President Donald Trump pulling the US from the JCPOA and imposing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions impeding Iran’s access to international markets.

But Netanyahu and his ministers now stress their closeness to the administration of President Joe Biden, which took office pledged to restoring the JCPOA but has been unable to agree terms with Tehran. Netanyahu’s call this week to win ‘global opinion’ against Iran suggests he thinks he can shift Biden in the direction he wants.

According to Israel Hayom, the Israeli newspaper owned by the Adelson family, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, told Eli Cohen, Israel’s foreign minister, by phone January 2 that the JCPOA was finished. But the State Department read-out of the call referred only generally to a “threat from Iran,” did not mention the JCPOA, and stated Blinken had “emphasized the continued US commitment to a two-state solution [for Israel-Palestine] and opposition to policies that endanger its viability.”

US concerns over the likelihood of the Netanyahu government speeding up Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank are not just that demographic changes under what rule human rights groups have called ‘apartheid,’ doom the ‘two-state solution’ that Washington still formally backs. The recent World Cup in Qatar highlighted popular Arab support for Palestinian rights.

Netanyahu has also said he wants to extend Israel’s Trump-brokered ‘normalization’ agreements with some Arab states, stressing an Iranian threat. But even the United Arab Emirates, which signed a ‘normalization’ agreement with Israel 2020 and has perhaps little to fear from public opinion, stressed at the time its support for a Palestinian state.

100%

‘Keep your friends closer’

There is also nuance in the US-Israel military relationship. Washington’s 2021 shift of Israel from its European Command (EUCOM0) to CENTCOM, its Middle Eastern command, has been followed by talk from leading US officials of closer military cooperation.

But some analysts pointed out this works in two ways, and may help the US rein Israel in. Newsweek magazine in December quoted a senior US intelligence official that Israel “was coming out of the closet, allowed now to openly associate with the [US] military while at the same time being denied access to another closet.” One third of Hebrew linguists in the US government “work in intelligence collection and analysis specifically related to spying on Israel,” including its nuclear arsenal, Newsweek reported.

“The more that Israel is a credible military opponent of Iran, the very reason for this shake-up, the more that they are also suspect for the very capabilities that we are helping to create and improve,” the official told Newsweek. “This is a case of ‘Keep your enemies close and your friends closer.’”

Ali Shirazi, the former representative of Khamenei in IRGC's Quds Force said Wednesday that “when the Supreme Leader ordered former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani to go to Syria, he did not argue. He went and resisted firmly.”

“However, [other] officials including then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not believe we should go to Syria and fight against ISIS,” he added.

Shirazi’s comments about fighting ISIS contradict the fact that when Iran intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2011 the Islamic State group did not exist yet. Iran sent thousands of fighters and weapons to defend the government of Bashar al-Assad.

ISIS gained a foothold in Syria after the group seized large swaths of territory in Iraq in mid-2014.

Soleimani intervened in Syria as opposition to Assad was gaining momentum. He first played the role of an advisor to the government, but later he spearheaded Iran’s large-scale military intervention in the civil war. Many believe he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and call him the child-killing commander.

Soleimani was killed in Baghdad along with nine others in 2020 by a drone strike ordered by then-President Donald Trump.

The Qods Force under Soleimani became deeply involved in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Trump claimed that the general, who was Iran’s main operative in the Middle East, was killed because he was planning attacks on US troops.

Spokesperson Ned Price said the United States has not observed any change from the Iranian side to warrant a resumption of negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear accord known as the JCPOA. The Biden administration’s 18-month-long diplomatic effort to reach agreement with Tehran arrived at a deadlock in early September.

"We continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but we’ve always been clear we’re not going to remove options from the table, and we’re going to discuss all options with our partners, including, of course, Israel," Price asserted.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly said that they will use any means for stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“The point we’ve made is that the Iranians killed the opportunity for a swift return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA,” he said referring to what the US in September called “extraneous” demands by Tehran.

He also repeated earlier assertions that the Biden administration’s focus is no longer on the nuclear talks, but on the twin issues of protests in Iran and Tehran’s supply of kamikaze drones to Russia, which have been used by hundreds to attack Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

“Since September especially, our focus has been on standing up…for the fundamental freedoms of the Iranian people and countering Iran’s deepening military partnership with Russia and its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine,” Price maintained.

Asked if the US has discussed the issue of stopping Iran from supplying UAVs to Russia with Israel, which in the past has been able to sabotage Iran’s nuclear plants, Price said: We have absolutely had discussions with our Israeli partners regarding the threat presented by Iranian UAV technology and the proliferation of Iranian UAV technology to countries around the world, including to Russia.

The Biden administration has been quick in starting discussion with the new Israeli right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, a staunch opponent of the JCPOA. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held discussion with the new Israeli foreign minister Elie Cohen in recent days. He told new Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen in a 40-minute phone-call that the JCPOA was finished, and that the US wanted the European Union to step up sanctions against Iran.

Blinken’s reported statement about JCPOA being “finished” echoed President Joe Biden’s remark during an election stomp in early November, when he was heard in a video saying the JCPOA “is dead.”

Biden's remark was welcomed by Israel's former government members who took credit for the failure of the talks. In a tweet on December 20, former prime minister Neftali Bennett said, “Great achievement by our government! Quietly, and through a series of diplomatic and other wise actions, we managed to stop the return to the nuclear deal without confronting the United States.”

Price was also asked during his Tuesday briefing if the administration will support a possible Iranian opposition coalition against the Islamic Republic.

He evaded a direct answer, saying, “first and foremost this is a question for the people of Iran, how or if they want to organize themselves.” But he went on to praise the anti-regime protest movement which “has been sparked and in many ways carried by the women and girls of Iran, but also the fact that it has been organic, it has crossed ethnic lines, it has crossed geographic lines inside of Iran, and it has in a sense been leaderless. That has allowed these protesters to continue and to persist with their efforts in ways that previous movements in Iran have not been able to.”

Price also reaffirmed US support for the movement. “It is our role and responsibility to support their freedom of expression, their freedom of assembly, every single other universal right and freedom that belongs to the Iranian people.”