Joe Biden's Iranian Deadline

Europe has one last chance to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) on Tehran's nuclear program, stated the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif the other day.

“During the ministerial meeting on the actions remaining in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, I emphasized that the European Three (Great Britain, France and Germany) of the European Union had the last chance to preserve the JCPA,” Zarif wrote on Twitter. He added that that it was the European side that violated the agreements reached earlier; therefore, it bears responsibility for "irreparable damage done to the Iranians."

The reason for such a loud statement was the videoconference of the foreign ministers of the countries participating in the nuclear deal (Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) held on Monday, following which the parties expressed their readiness to support a possible return to the US deal.

The next US administration under the leadership of Joe Biden may resume participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) on the Iranian nuclear program. This is confirmed by the fact that even during his election campaign Biden declared such an intention, seeing it as an important element in the settlement of US relations with their European allies, who were not happy with Trump's policies.

Biden has pledged that the United States will rejoin the JCPA, which was signed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany with Iran in 2015, if Iran returns to full compliance with the agreement. In early December, in an interview with the New York Times, Biden confirmed his intention to return the United States to the JCPA format and to conduct further negotiations with Tehran on this issue.

It is not excluded, therefore, that Tehran perceived Biden's election rhetoric, as well as the results of the video conference of the foreign ministers of the countries participating in the nuclear deal, as a preparatory stage for the United States to return to a nuclear deal with Iran.

However, not all players share these intentions. The countries of the Persian Gulf and, first, Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel, see a challenge and a direct threat in the possible settlement of differences over Iran. Because of strong Israeli lobby in Congress and the hostile position of some of the Republicans, it will not be easy for Biden to find understanding on this issue. Iran, for its part, is also raising the stakes, threatening to launch the uranium enrichment process at full capacity.

On December 1, in response to the assassination of nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was considered one of the leading developers of the country's nuclear program, the Mejlis (parliament) adopted a document titled "Strategic actions to lift sanctions." Two-hundred and forty eight out of 290 MPs voted “for” the plan.

The bill provides for:

- production and accumulation in the country of 120 kg of uranium per year with a 20% enrichment level, as well as providing the country with uranium with an enrichment level above 20% (“highly enriched uranium” according to the IAEA classification) for “peaceful industrial tasks”;

- increasing the production of low-enriched uranium in the amount of up to 500 kg per month;

- launching in the near future a thousand of IR-2M uranium enrichment centrifuges at Natanz and 164 IR-6 centrifuges at Fordow, with a gradual increase in their number to a thousand;

- the opening of a plant for the production of metal uranium in Isfahan and the restoration of a 40 MW heavy water reactor in Arak in its original form.

Iran will also end the voluntary application of the Additional Protocol to the IAEA safeguards agreement, which provides international inspectors with many opportunities to monitor the country's nuclear activities.

This bill almost completely negates the terms of the JCPA. Tehran has previously abandoned part of the deal. This happened after the United States withdrew from it in May 2018 and reinstated its sanctions on Iran. As a result, now the uranium enrichment level, instead of 3.67% specified in the FDP, is about 4.5%. According to the restrictions stipulated by the agreement, it would take Iran about 12 months to develop the material needed for one nuclear charge. The actions that Iran has already taken so far have reduced this period by at least half. If the new bill were implemented, the Iranian nuclear program will return to the state before the conclusion of the JCPA, when, according to American government agencies, it would take Tehran two to three months to develop materials for one bomb.

Parliament gave the president and the government a month after the ratification of the bill to abandon the implementation of the additional protocol, unless, of course, other JCPA participants, despite US sanctions, decide to resume cooperation in full despite US sanctions, thereby fulfilling their obligations to Iran.

True, for the bill to enter into force, it must be approved by the Council of Guardians of the Constitution (obviously, the Council will be guided not by parliament, but by the opinion of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei).

However, Iran's adoption of "Strategic Action to lift the sanctions" is unlikely to help lift the sanctions. Before the nuclear deal, Tehran did not apply the additional protocol and had hundreds of kilograms of uranium enriched in over 20%, but this did not prevent the UN from subjecting it to tough sanctions.

Therefore, conservative circles in Iran (opposed to the “reformer” President Hassan Rouhani and his entourage) have long raised the question of the effectiveness of the JCPA, which continues to defend Rouhani. Now we are talking not only about sanctions against Tehran, but also about murders on the territory of the country, violation of its sovereignty. In particular, the murder on December 3 of "the father of the Iranian nuclear program" Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. However, burying the "nuclear agreement" with Iran is not worth it. In fact, the adopted bill sends a reverse signal to the world - Tehran wants to revive the nuclear deal.

Iran did not intend either to bury the SVDP on January 3, when the United States killed Lieutenant General, commander of the Al-Guds Special Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qasem Suleimani, or to kill Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Just under the current conditions the negotiation process can resume. The situation resembles exchange trading. After winning the election, Biden confirmed that he was determined to return to the "nuclear deal", but at the same time he made it clear that he did not intend to re-sign the previous agreement. The United States has all the mechanisms of pressure (it must be admitted - largely thanks to the policies of Donald Trump) to push Tehran into negotiations on adjusting its regional policy and partially curtailing its missile program.

What opportunities does Iran come into play? Obviously, a new bargaining will have to be carried out in a situation where the economy is weakened by sanctions and a pandemic, and the country's leadership has already cut the nuclear program.

Iran's only trump card is the adoption of "Strategic actions to lift sanctions." In this case, escalation from Israel and the United States is quite possible, up to strikes on Iran.