{"id":255833,"date":"2022-02-16T03:54:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T08:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=255833"},"modified":"2023-02-02T23:41:59","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T22:41:59","slug":"for-the-sake-of-western-security-and-the-iranian-people-halt-concessions-to-tehran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/blog\/op-ed\/for-the-sake-of-western-security-and-the-iranian-people-halt-concessions-to-tehran\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Sake of Western Security and the Iranian People, Halt Concessions to Tehran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Iran-nuclear-001-1\"<\/p>\n

Each of the parties currently participating in negotiations in Vienna has insisted that efforts to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are now in their final stretch. However, it\u2019s not entirely clear what this means, since the US, Britain, France, and Germany have been insisting for weeks that the window for an agreement was closing and that Iran would be subject to additional pressures if it didn\u2019t change its posture. There\u2019s no indication that it has done so, yet Western interlocutors<\/a> seem to be scaling back their expectations.<\/p>\n

Officials from the US State Department previously set late January as an unofficial deadline for the Vienna talks to conclude, but now that deadline has been pushed to the end of February. There\u2019s no guarantee that the US or its allies will stick to this new timetable, even though it appears to be generally understood that the regime is only weeks away from advancing its nuclear program to the point at which the original terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA<\/a>) will no longer be sufficient to extend its \u201cbreakout time\u201d to more than a year.<\/p>\n

That being the case, one has to wonder why the US decided, early this month, to waive the sanctions that prevented foreign countries from collaborating with the regime on \u201ccivilian nuclear projects.\u201d Although the White House has made downplayed this, there can be little doubt that it constitutes a concession to the Iranian regime and an unearned one at that.<\/p>\n

The waivers demonstrate an obsessive commitment to restoring the JCPOA regardless of the security and strategic cost. European leadership generally appears to be just as committed to that outcome, perhaps more so. As I and many of my colleagues in the European Parliament emphasized in a conference<\/a> and subsequent statement on Wednesday, the Iranian regime has never reciprocated concessions, only exploiting them to accelerate its malign activities.<\/p>\n

It would be bad enough if those belligerent activities were limited to the enrichment of uranium to near-weapons grade levels or the production of uranium metal, a substance with virtually no function other than being part of the core of a nuclear weapon. The regime’s strategy includes the proliferation of militant proxies across the region, too, in addition to the development of vast stockpiles of ballistic missiles and conventional weapons, and the violent suppression of dissent both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

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.@iran_policy<\/a>:We have to make sure the regime in #Iran<\/a> is held accountable for its UN resolution breaches as well as the #JCPOA<\/a> It has enriched ten times more the amount agreed https:\/\/t.co\/ndtPDkpY87<\/a>\u2026
Keep following #GiulioTerzi<\/a> .@GlobalCRL<\/a><\/p>\n

— Giulio Terzi (@GiulioTerzi) September 24, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n