nuclear-news

A sustained effort by the administration of US President Donald Trump and its allies at home and in the Middle East to cancel, or at least renegotiate, the Iran nuclear deal appears to have succeeded in bringing one major European country, France, to its side.

French President Emmanuel Macron said during a visit to the United States this week that he hoped to “work on a new deal with Iran” following “frank discussions” with Trump.

The US president is a fierce critic of the landmark 2015 pact, signed between Tehran and the US, France, Russia, Germany, China, the UK and the European Union.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani swiftly countered, saying: “You [Trump], along with the leader of some European country, are deciding for an agreement reached among seven parties. Who allowed you to do that?”

Iran experts argue, however, that the real issue is not Tehran’s nuclear programme, that even if it were taken out of the picture, “Iran would still be demonised and made evil” by its regional adversaries – similar to what has been happening, they argue, since the 1979 revolution.

“The root causes of Israeli and Western animosity towards Iran has to do with its opposition to Western hegemony in the region and its support and sympathy with the Palestinian people,” said Mohammad Marandy, professor at the University of Tehran.

“Iran’s key foreign policy objectives since the 1979 revolution were its moral stance against the South African apartheid and its solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

A push against Iran

The push against Iran in Washington acquired more ammunition when Trump recently appointed John Bolton as his national security adviser.

Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN during the presidency of George W Bush, has been a vocal opponent of the 2015 deal, which was signed by the administration of President Barack Obama.

In a 2015 opinion piece at the New York Times, Bolton floated the idea of a US or Israeli bombing of Iran’s nuclear reactors.

……… During his election campaign, Trump made the nuclear agreement with Iran a central issue, promising to his supporters and allies to “dismantle” it.……The deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), eased sanctions on Iran in return for it agreeing that it would not develop nuclear weapons.

Fatemeh Aman, a Washington-based Iran analyst, said if Tehran “decided to make between one to three nuclear bombs, it could have made them within two, three months based on the amount of highly enriched uranium they had before they signed the agreement with the US and its allies.

“But once they signed the agreement and shipped their highly enriched uranium to Russia, Iran is now much further away from producing a nuclear bomb,” she added.

“This has put Iran nuclear programme back to 10-15 years.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly certified Iran’s compliance with the 2015 agreement, while the country is also a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a signatory of the Additional Protocols, which stipulate strict safeguard measures against nuclear proliferation, Aman noted…….. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/fixation-iranian-nuclear-threat-180426085605834.html