Biden administration wants to return to JCPOA: Professor

The Reader in Politics in the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy at the  Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr. Steven Hurst, said in an exclusive interview with ILNA that Israeli efforts to prevent a return to the JCPOA have had little or no effect.

You can read the full interview below:

1.  How do you evaluate the recent report by UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran? Will this have an effect on the actions of world powers? Can the mechanism mentioned by UN Special Rapporteur on human rights be implemented?

The effect of the UN Special Rapporteur's report will be minimal. The United Nations has no power to compel even relatively weak states to do anything unless the major powers, and above all the members of the Security Council, are supportive. And it is clearly impossible for the UN to force any member of the Security Council to do anything that the latter does not want to do. Under those circumstances, the only way the UN can hope to shape the behavior of a major power is by influencing opinion globally or within that country, which puts pressure on the government to change its behavior. In this case that will not happen because the UN Special Rapporteur's report went more or less unreported in the Western media and thus the vast majority of Americans are wholly unaware of the impact of US sanctions on ordinary Iranians.

2.  UK, Germany, and France have always insisted on the necessity of JCPOA revival, however today they have remained silent about the sanction that was imposed by the US during the past couple of days. What is the reason for the Europeans’ silence? Will these reactions lead to an increase in distrust in the current atmosphere?

The simplest answer for the European silence on the new US sanctions is that, at this moment in the negotiating process, they agree with Washington that it is now the Iranian government that is the obstacle to a return to the JCPOA. They thought a deal was within reach and they have been quite clear that they think that Iran should have accepted the deal that was recently on offer and that they are frustrated that Iran instead requested a new set of changes to the draft accord in September. Of course, none of this helps and it will indeed create further distrust on both sides and increase doubt that a renewed agreement is possible.

3. During the negotiations, Washington accused Iran of wasting time but they have not responded to Iran’s response to the European Union draft yet. It seems that the exchange of answers is taking too long. What is your evaluation of this matter?  

According to a Department of State briefing on 13 September the Americans have provided a response to Iran's request for adjustments to the draft agreement, though that response has not been made public. Nevertheless, there are a number of possible explanations for Washington's failure to respond quickly or publicly at this point. In the first place, there is a political aspect to consider. There are congressional elections in the US in November and the Biden administration will not wish to be seen as making any concessions that might lead to it being depicted as being "soft" on Iran by its political opponents. However, the non-response from Washington is not just a matter of politics. The fact is that the requests made by Iran in September go beyond what the USA (and the Europeans) are willing to offer at this moment. In particular, neither the Americans nor the Europeans are likely to agree to any attempt to pressure the IAEA to end its investigation into Iran's historical nuclear activities since to do so would damage the credibility of the IAEA and in so doing potentially damage the wider non-proliferation regime.

4. What are the effects of recent trips of Israeli officials to the United States and their consultation with American officials and their claim that president Biden has promised them that no agreement will take place on the current situation of the nuclear agreement and recent actions by the EU?

I think the effects of efforts by Israeli officials to lobby the Biden administration are minimal. The Biden administration has a clear view of what US interests are and it is clear that it wants to return to the JCPOA. As with the Obama administration before it, no amount of Israeli lobbying is going to change that. Much of what the Israeli government says about what the Biden administration will or will not do needs to be treated with skepticism since it is reasonable to assume that much of what it says is designed to sow mistrust and derail the negotiations.

5. What is your evaluation of the latest development regarding the release of two Iranian-American prisoners in Iran and the United States allowing Iran to access its frozen funds? In your opinion will this have an impact on the current stalemate in nuclear talks between Iran and the West?  

I do not think these developments will necessarily have a huge impact but they are clearly positive signs. After recent developments and the apparent stalemate in the nuclear negotiations, the fact that both sides have been willing to make what is, in reality, a small act of compromise, is a good thing. It indicates that there is still a desire from key policy-makers on both sides to find a way back to a renewed JCPOA and that neither side has yet given up on that objective.

6. Some believe that since the beginning of the new round of negotiations, the Biden administration was hesitant to make necessary decisions and present negotiation initiatives to advance the negotiations, and now, as the congressional elections are approaching in November, they are under pressure. How do you evaluate this proposition?

Clearly, there is a domestic political dimension to any set of international negotiations. Every government wants to retain political power and will therefore seek to avoid taking any action that will hurt it politically with its domestic constituents. This is true in both the USA and Iran and it is a big reason why negotiations between the two countries have always been so difficult. Because there is so much hostility toward Iran in the USA, and vice versa, neither government wishes to be seen as selling out to or being soft on, a country perceived by many people as being "the enemy". So yes, the Biden administration has been somewhat cautious because US politics is so viciously polarized that Republicans will seize on any opportunity, however, nonsensical, to accuse it of undermining US national security by not being tough enough on Iran. The congressional elections add a further element to this and make the political risks more immediately acute, though they don't change the fundamental dynamic.

7. Iran has announced that in order to prevent a repeat of the 2018 incident (Trump withdrawing from JCPOA), the United States must give a guarantee for the withdrawal of the parties from this agreement. How reasonable do you think this demand for Iran is?

This demand is impossible for the US government to fulfill in any meaningful way. The most binding agreement the US could sign up to would be a treaty. But a treaty requires two-thirds support in the US Senate and since every Republican Senator would oppose a treaty with Iran that is a non-starter. Perhaps more importantly, even if the US did sign a treaty ratifying a new version of the JCPOA, it would not stop a future president and/or Congress from deciding to walk away from the deal if they really wanted to. Nothing any government, American or otherwise, can do will bind the hands of its successors in perpetuity. If some future US administration decided that it wanted to withdraw from the deal then it would find an excuse to do so, regardless of what any predecessor might have promised or the international criticism that might follow. So while Iran's demand is perfectly understandable it is also quite impractical and, even if such a guarantee were given, it would be unenforceable in practice. Who is going to make Washington stick to it?

8. Given the current situation and statement issued by European countries what is a prediction of efforts put into reviving the JCPOA?

While negotiations seem in recent days to have reached something of a dead end, once all parties have reflected I would expect the Europeans and the Americans to renew their efforts to find some way of achieving a revived JCPOA. The Europeans certainly do not want the current stand-off, with all its risks of escalation and conflict, to continue. The stakes are very high and consequently the willingness to keep going to try and find a deal is also very high.

9. In your opinion, what are the effects of reaching and not reaching an agreement on the energy market? In case of not reaching an agreement, what are the implications for Europe given the fact that it has lost its major energy market (Russia)?

I don't think that the implications of a deal or no deal are particularly significant for the energy markets. Clearly, if Iranian oil returned fully to the international market place it would ease some of the price pressures but it isn't going to dramatically alter the overall situation. With regard to Europe, the impact of losing Russian oil while not having access to Iranian oil is by now largely "priced in". Europe is moving forward and planning on the basis of not having access to either in the immediate future. This will undoubtedly mean that energy prices will remain high and many people are likely to suffer as a result of that. In the medium to long term, however, the effect will be to push Europe to move much more decisively and quickly toward the use of renewable energy sources in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports. So in the short term, Europeans will suffer but in the long term, the losers are likely to be the gas and oil-exporting countries.

10. In your opinion, to what extent Israel’s pressure on IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and the United States has contributed to the fact that an agreement has not been achieved so far?

I think Israeli efforts to prevent a return to the JCPOA have had little or no effect on the course of events. Were this a Republican administration in Washington it would be a different matter given the closeness of the Republicans to the Israeli right-wing, but the contemporary Democratic Party has a fractious relationship with the current Israeli regime and does not see eye to eye with it as to how best to deal with Iran. This was clearly demonstrated under the Obama administration when the various Israeli efforts to derail the JCPOA were ignored and the deal pushed through in the face of aggressive opposition by the Netanyahu government and its allies inside the USA. The fact that an agreement has not been reached so far is not explained by the machinations of Israel but by the genuine differences between Iran and the US (and the Europeans) over what are or are not acceptable terms for a deal.

11. Do you agree that IAEA is acting as an obstacle to reaching an agreement?

There are a number of different aspects to this question. In the first place, Israel has never actually joined the nuclear non-proliferation regime. It is not a signatory to the NPT and thus sits outside its rules and framework while Iran does not. As such the IAEA has no authority or right to investigate Israel's nuclear activities whilst it does in the case of Iran.

That is not to say, however, that the double standard with regard to Israel's nuclear arsenal is not real. If nuclear proliferation is a bad thing, as the USA and other major powers claim, then Israel possessing nuclear weapons is also a bad thing. However, no move has ever been made to punish or criticize Israel for secretly developing nuclear weapons. That in turn reflects the fact that, whatever fine words may be spoken about international law or the sovereign equality of states within the United Nations, raw power remains central to international politics. Israel is a state that has powerful friends, most obviously the USA, which means that it is protected from any significant sanction by the international community. It also reflects the fact that whilst in theory the USA is against nuclear proliferation (and in fact probably would prefer that Israel didn't have nuclear weapons) it is much more relaxed about "friendly" states having them than ones it sees as hostile.

Hypocrisy and double standards are rife in the NPT system. The nuclear weapons states have not disarmed, they have failed to support peaceful nuclear development and they turn a blind eye to proliferation in some cases but not in others. For all that, I would not lay much of the blame for the current impasse on the IAEA. As an organization, it is not exercising any double standard with regard to Israel and Iran. It has no authority to investigate Israel's nuclear program whereas it does have with regard to Iran. Moreover, as the question notes, the IAEA has repeatedly stated that it has found no conclusive evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. That, it should be noted, is despite significant political pressure at different times from Washington (notably under the George W. Bush administration) to say that Iran did have a weapons program. On the whole, therefore, I would say that the IAEA has demonstrated resistance to political pressure from all sides and a strong degree of independence in going about its job.

12. the United States despite its claims that it supports human rights and the people of Iran, in a situation where negotiations are suspended, has imposed new sanctions against Iran. How do you evaluate this contradiction in America’s actions?

The new US sanctions reflect political considerations - primarily domestic political considerations - on the part of the Biden administration. Recent events in Iran, including the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, mean that the Biden administration is facing cross-cutting political pressures that it seeks to navigate. On the one hand, it wants to find a way to restore the JCPOA. On the other hand, it wants to protect itself against allegations from its political opponents that it is ignoring human rights violations in Iran. Hence its apparently contradictory actions - giving with one hand, taking away with the other. It is also important if one wishes to understand the Biden administration's actions, to recognize that the idea that the imposition of sanctions in and of itself can be viewed as a human rights violation is an argument that has little or no impact inside the USA. The vast majority of Americans do not see it that way, simply haven't thought about the impact of sanctions, or have been persuaded that these are "smart" sanctions that do not hurt ordinary Iranians. They thus do not see any contradiction in imposing sanctions and claiming to stand up for human rights.

13. What is your assessment of the new round of talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency? Do they have the will to close the IAEA files on inspecting Iranian nuclear sites?

I think that the IAEA will not close its investigation until Iran is able to give an accounting for the nuclear material found at the three undisclosed sites that the IAEA is satisfied with. It is, of course, the position of the Iranian government that the IAEA is refusing to close the investigations because of "political pressure". To be frank, that argument makes little sense to me. The IAEA has absolutely no interest or reason to pay any attention to Israel which, as we have already noted, is not part of the NPT system and has no place within the IAEA. Nor does it make any sense for Washington to be pressuring the IAEA not to close the investigation. The Biden administration wants to revive the JCPOA, not to prevent it from being revived. It would no doubt be delighted if the IAEA said everything was fine because then a major obstacle to securing a deal would have been removed. The reason that the IAEA will not close the files until it is satisfied is that if it does so, just to get the JCPOA restored, it will lose credibility as an organization and that will compromise any future investigations that it has to conduct.

14. What is the effect of United States Congress elections (assuming the democrat’s victory or loss) on JCPOA’s destiny?

On the one hand, there are no direct consequences that will result from the congressional elections. As was noted in an answer to a previous question, the Biden administration is not in a position to try and turn the JCPOA into a treaty and it will still not be whatever the results of the elections. In addition, although any revived agreement will have to be submitted to Congress under the terms of the US Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) Biden will veto any vote of disapproval and it is more or less certain that the Republicans will not have the two-thirds majorities in Congress after November to override such a veto. Thus, barring some highly unlikely results, no change in the composition of Congress will stop the JCPOA from being restored if Washington and Tehran can finally agree to terms.

On the other hand, whilst a set of bad results for the Democrats will not formally change the situation in terms of restoring the agreement, they will alter the political dynamics surrounding the negotiations. A weakened Biden administration will be even more reluctant to be seen as making concessions to Iran that might harm the chances of the Democratic candidate in the 2024 presidential elections, and that will make it even harder to reach an agreement.