While speculation rises regarding the future of the nuclear deal in a Trump presidency, all seem to pin everything on Trump. Will Trump do this, will Trump do that. Although the Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei sees no difference between Trump and Obama (see yahoo news), the western press seemed to pin everything on Trump. One article titled Trump administration could imperil Iran deal highlighted the mistaken image – that it all depends on Trump and his arbitrary will – as if there are no other players.
But there are additional players. Firstly – what about Iran’s actions or non-actions and decisions? What about Iran’s violations?
On November 9 the IAEA released its fourth report, IAEA_Iran_Report, on Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, in which it reveals substantial Iranian violations once again.
Even the IAEA, which suffers from “deception by omission” (see analysis) regarding Iran’s actions, cannot avoid the finding that Iran, for the second time, is in violation of the cap on 130 metric tonnes of heavy water. Moreover, deliberately, Iran continued to produce heavy water during the two-week period after the IAEA learned and pointed out that it had reached the cap.
In the analysis of the IAEA’s fourth Iran deal report written by David Albright and Andrea Stricker, weighty omissions and further violations are revealed.
The Wall Street Journal courageously reported the UN agency warning. The UN watchdog chiding of Iran also found its way to media outlets like yahoo news.
So, the information is out there. What of it? The question to be asked is when will Iranian violations constitute a breach worthy of cancelling the agreement – not because of Trump, but because of significant violations.
This leads on to the second factor that can topple the deal by negligence and omission. The Washington Post was bold enough this week to report, in its article titled Trump hates the nuclear pact with Iran but the rest of the world is busy cutting deals, that the rest of the world is “too busy” following its petty interests to re-think the agreement.
They also seemed to ignore the call of alarm, formulated in an official letter, by eleven Arab countries, accusing Iran of supporting world-wide terrorism and destabilizing the region. As reported by bigstory the letter was signed by UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Morocco, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Yemen.
If there is anything that will bring the downfall of the agreement, it is the Iranian violations and the continued disregard to Iranian global activity. It might reach heights which cannot save the agreement any more.
Filed under: Iranian Financial Sanctions, Iranian Foreign Relations, Iranian Nuclear Crisis, Iranian Politics, Media Coverage
