DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Current Events
HTML https://currentevents.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: News
*****************************************************
#Post#: 2--------------------------------------------------
The end of the beginning Sanctions are about to be lifted - Iran
--(Economist)
By: shiwator Date: January 19, 2016, 9:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21688442-sanctions-are-about-be-lifted-end-beginning
[quote]ACCORDING to America’s secretary of state, John Kerry,
“Implementation Day” for the Iran nuclear accord could be just
“days away if all goes well”. He was not expecting two US Navy
patrol boats and their crews to be seized by Iranian
Revolutionary Guards on January 12th after unintentionally
entering Iranian waters near an island naval base. But with both
sides determined to smooth things over, the boats and the
sailors were released the following day.
As long as there are no new shocks, the big day looks set to be
announced in the next few days—sooner than was expected when the
deal was struck last July. Iran will be judged to have complied
with all its obligations in dismantling those parts of its
nuclear programme which offered a path to building a bomb. In
return the UN, America and the EU will drop or suspend all their
nuclear-related sanctions. At the same time, Iran will apply the
Additional Protocol of its safeguards agreement (subject to
ratification by its parliament, the Majlis) with the
International Atomic Energy Agency, a measure which gives the
agency’s inspectors access to materials and sites beyond
declared nuclear facilities.
Iran is very near to completing the removal of some 14,000
uranium-enrichment centrifuges. The core of the Arak heavy-water
reactor, which had the potential to produce plutonium, was
reportedly taken out on January 11th and is being filled with
cement. Most of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium was
sent to Russia and Kazakhstan in late December. Nuclear
proliferation experts are amazed at the speed with which Iran
has acted. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and
the head of its Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi,
have appeared determined to navigate all obstacles, even
supposed red lines drawn by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, to get the job done.
A priority for them was to get the sanctions lifted before
Majlis elections on February 26th. After more than two years in
office, President Hassan Rohani will cite the achievement as
evidence that his policy of engagement with the West has worked,
ending a crisis that had left Iran’s economy in ruins. He will
urge voters to back moderate candidates who support him and to
weaken hardline factions that were opposed to the negotiations.
Yet there are still important players in the regime, such as the
Revolutionary Guards, who remain hostile to the deal and are
prepared to test the West’s commitment to it. The IAEA received
minimal co-operation in preparing its report, published in early
December, on the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear
programme. It concluded that Iran had a parallel clandestine
weapons programme until 2003 and that some aspects of it
continued until 2009. But there was no admission of this by Iran
and no access to the scientists the agency wanted to talk to. It
was also unable to carry out verification procedures at the
Parchin military complex, where it believes there was an
explosives chamber.
Western diplomats decided that Iran’s obfuscations were
predictable and it was time to move on. That raises questions
about how much Iran may get away with in the future. Gary
Samore, a former White House arms-control adviser now at
Harvard, says that the Iranians’ caginess about their past
nuclear weapons-dabbling was a reminder that the deal was not a
“strategic solution to the nuclear problem but something purely
transactional”.
The response to an Iranian test of a nuclear-capable ballistic
missile in October that violated a UN Security Council
resolution was also less than resolute. Mr Samore says that it
was clearly intended by the Guards to provoke a reaction from
America that would give Iranian critics of the deal the chance
to stall or kill it. Persuaded by Mr Kerry, who had his ear bent
by Mr Zarif, not to rise to the bait, Barack Obama flip-flopped
over slapping on new sanctions, first indicating he would, but
then withdrawing the threat.
As for the prospects of the deal holding, Mr Samore thinks the
Iranians have an incentive to co-operate for the time being, as
they will benefit by up to $100 billion from the unfreezing of
assets. But if other benefits, such as increased oil revenues,
are slow to come, this might not last.
A more immediate threat will come from whoever is the next
American president. A Republican could choose to sabotage the
deal with new sanctions, while even Hillary Clinton, says Mr
Samore, will need to show there is a new sheriff in town if
Iran’s behaviour in non-nuclear areas (missile tests, the
unjustified imprisonment of American citizens, support for the
Syrian regime and abuse of human rights) does not change.
Getting to Implementation Day has been surprisingly smooth. What
comes after will be a lot harder.[/quote]
*****************************************************