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US Threatens Iran Again As Nuclear Deal Almost Reached

After a final proposal draft text for the revival of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal was presented to both the United States and Iran, the US has threatened Iran with further enforcement of sanctions. Iran has responded to the proposal by urging US flexibility.

Despite US President, Joe Biden, pledging to revive the Iran nuclear deal during his Presidential campaign, we are now quickly approaching the half way point for this governments term in office and no deal has been reached. Instead of reviving the deal that Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from, the Biden administration has chosen to apply additional sanctions against Tehran and is attempting to form a regional anti-Iran axis in the Middle East.

With the war in Ukraine, and now tensions over Taiwan, turning both Russia and China away from the United States, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been handed a more favorable environment from which to function while under Washington’s economic sanctions. This reality, however, has not registered with the Biden administration, which could greatly benefit from cooling tensions in the Middle East at this time. Instead, it is aggression, aggression, and more aggression for the US Government, with the facade of diplomacy.

The European powers desperately are in need of alternative sources of natural resources at this moment, as energy bills sour throughout Europe — including the UK — and simply blaming Moscow for everything will not prove effective in the long run. What NATO members in Europe have decided is not to question the will of Washington and to adopt their aggressive approach, no matter the cost to their own populations. If the European nations had any backbones, they would at least protest the Biden administration’s escalatory moves throughout the world — instead, they fall in line.

This being said, the negotiations to revive the Nuclear Deal are said to be closer than ever to reaching a conclusion, once again, with talk fading about deadlines from the US side. On the other hand, an EU official told Reuters that this proposal draft text, is the “final” offer.

A major issue for the Iranian side has been getting the US to agree on taking Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) off of the list of designated foreign terrorist groups, which the US has insisted is a separate issue to the nuclear talks. Even with Iran’s insistence on achieving this goal, there are many other more important demands which the US has still yet to meet. Perhaps one of the biggest problems for Tehran, at this time, is that in the event that a deal is reached, there can be no ruling out the prospect that the next administration could again tear the agreement up, just as former President Donald Trump did.

Tehran has already been working to become self reliant, functioning too with the aid of Moscow, China, and others who are not under the thumb of the West. The recent sanctions on Russia have put Iran in a much more powerful position, now greatly strengthening its bond with Moscow. Tehran is currently in a much more powerful negotiating position and it is clear that the West could really benefit from eventual trade with resource rich Iran. However, it seems that the desire has just not been there, from the United States, to reach a deal urgently.

Another problem that has arisen are the unsubstantiated claims about alleged Iranian plots to have the neo-conservative former Trump administration official, John Bolton, killed. The allegation came after the FBI had claimed that a man of Iranian descent had paid US citizens up to 300,000 dollars to kill Bolton. There was never any connection made in the case to Tehran and Iranian officials called the reports “Iranophobia”. Without any way to prove or disprove the claims about the individual from the FBI, there is no evidence of a plot at the state level from Iran and the timing of the reports would also suggest that the allegations are being politicized.

Then there is the stabbing attack on Salman Rushdie, a British-American novelist who wrote a book in which he insulted Islamic beliefs, which resulted in a number of Fatwa’s — religious rulings — from Muslim clerics throughout the world that called for action against him. The most strongly worded Fatwa, was that of Ayatollah Khomeini, the former Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is clear that the Fatwa was a call to violence against Salman Rushdie. However, the Fatwa was issued in 1989 and there is no indication that Tehran had any role in the attack, carried out by a Lebanese-American.

Although Iranian officials did blame Rushdie and his supporters for the attack, sparking a backlash from US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, there is no indication of an Iranian role. The following countries, for the sake of record, all banned the book, called ‘The Satanic Verses’, which sparked the controversy: Iran, India, Bangladesh, Sudan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, Singapore, Venezuela, and Pakistan. Salman Rushdie also supported the invasion of Afghanistan to uproot the Taliban, visited former Israeli President Shimon Peres, and has taken a number of political positions that have aggravated many, which could have all factored into the attacker’s motives. To be clear. however, we do not yet know the motives.

Whatever one thinks of the Iranian Fatwa, it is clear that this issue is being heavily politicized and weaponized against Tehran at an important time politically. The only counterargument you will hear is that the attacker, Hadi Matar, was likely pro-Iran and that because current Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei has not rescinded the Fatwa, this worked as a possible motivation. Regardless, this is not an attack directed by Iran at the state level and it is dishonestly being represented as such in the mainstream press at this time.

With this out of the way, if the United States is not seeking to use excuses like the ones above in order to avoid getting back into the Iran nuclear deal, then we may see talks develop in the coming weeks. The big question now, is whether the US and Iran can both come together on this issue, or will more irrational decisions from Washington kill the deal? A deal which could end up being mutually beneficial. The only other answers from the US, if diplomacy fails, are sanctions or war, neither of which are to anyone’s benefit — especially not Europes at this time.

Robert Inlakesh
Robert Inlakesh
Robert Inlakesh is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, writer, Middle-East analyst & news correspondent for The Last American Vagabond.
https://twitter.com/falasteen47

4 Replies to “US Threatens Iran Again As Nuclear Deal Almost Reached

  1. The lies being told about what is happening socially and globally, domestically and internationally, are obvious to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. The majority are blind and deaf, unable to comprehend the false reality they live in!

  2. What would stop Iran to would continue to enrich plutonium and develop icbms after striking a potential nuclear deal ? I would take the money and continue the covert nuclear project… stupid naive west giving billions of dollars for easily broken promises

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