US position on how to revive Iran nuclear deal ‘preposterous’: Analyst

The Biden administration’s position that Iran must return to “full compliance” with the 2015 nuclear deal before the United States would consider removing the economic sanctions is “nothing short of preposterous,” says an American political analyst, adding that sanctions relief is the “only plausible starting point” in any attempt to revive the landmark accord.

“Removing the sanctions imposed after the US repudiated the accord is the only plausible starting point for negotiations intended to revive the JCPOA. This is the only logical starting point. There absolutely cannot be any other,” foreign affairs journalist Patrick Lawrence told Press TV in an interview, referring by abbreviation to the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday that US President Joe Biden has spurned predecessor Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure policy” against Iran only in words, but has so far pursued the same course of action in practice.

“Nothing has changed. Biden claims that Trump's policy of maximum pressure was maximum failure... But for all practical purposes, they are pursuing the same policy,” the top diplomat said in an exclusive interview with Press TV.

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Lawrence said that Biden administration officials have acknowledged that the maximum pressure policy has been a failure, yet they are making demands they know Iran would never accept.

“Maximum pressure has proven a failure, as anyone who knows Iran and Iranians could have predicted. It has accomplished nothing other than to cause very many Iranians to suffer, and Iranians will never give into it,” the journalist said.

“The Biden administration is now trying to cover past US mistakes by announcing it wishes to recertify the JCPOA, but on conditions it knows very well Iran cannot accept. This is sheer posturing. As to what will happen next, in my view the answer is, ‘Nothing,’” he continued.

President Biden, who condemned Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA on the campaign trail, has signaled his intention to bring the United States back to the multilateral agreement, which was clinched when he was vice president under former president Barack Obama.

However, since taking office on January 20, Biden and his foreign policy team have been demanding to see changes from Tehran before Washington would consider lifting the sanctions. The Islamic Republic says as the party that has abandoned its international obligations, the US should make the first move by removing the sanctions in a verifiable manner and then rejoining the JCPOA.

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A top Iranian diplomat says Tehran would have to verify every step regarding the removal of US sanctions on the Islamic Republic. 

In his remarks to Press TV, Foreign Minister Zarif reminded that Paragraph 36 of the JCPOA enables Iran to take “remedial action” against failure by other sides to implement their obligations. 

Following the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran waited for an entire year for the European signatories to hold up their end of their bargain and secure Iranian business interests, guaranteed by the deal, in the face of US sanctions. However, as the Europeans failed to deliver under US pressure, Tehran began to scale back its commitments in several phases in retaliation.

“At the very least, Washington must, as Minister Zarif frequently states, remove the sanctions imposed after the Trump administration withdrew from the accord,” Lawrence said.

In a symbolic gesture that US officials framed as a major step toward reviving the JCPOA, the Biden administration told the UN Security Council on Thursday that the United States was rescinding a Trump administration assertion that all UN sanctions had been reimposed on Iran in September-- a claim that was repudiated by Tehran, the European signatories of the deal and the Security Council.

They argued at the time that the United States was in no position to invoke a provision in the 2015 Security Council resolution endorsing the JCPOA that allowed the “snapback” of international sanctions because it was no longer a party to the deal.

“The US position on the JCPOA is nothing short of preposterous at this point,” Lawrence said. “Secretary of State Pompeo, in his last year in office, tried at the United Nations to argue that the US still had standing to impose demands on Iran even though it had withdrawn from the agreement. Now Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, says, ‘The ball is in Iran’s court.’ This is patently ridiculous.”

Zarif said that the so-called snapback mechanism was an American distortion that was not at all incorporated in the text of the JCPOA.

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As to why the Biden administration is making unreasonable demands concerning the JCPOA, Lawrence said, “Biden and his national security people are entirely beholden to Israel, and Israel has made it perfectly clear it opposes any attempt to revive the nuclear accord.”

“This will turn out the way numerous other Biden policies have already done: A statement of good purpose, no action whatsoever to follow it,” he regretted.

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