Essay on Etemad Newspaper March 9, 2022 -
The original text is in Persian and the following translation was done by Ai.
Similar to the shocking news that Donald Trump's victory was for Iranian public and political opinion and around the JCPOA, his defeat and Joe Biden's victory also addressed Iranian society and public opinion in the same way, but in the opposite direction. Since this victory, speculations in the Iranian political elite community were based on the Biden administration's early return to the JCPOA in the first days of governance, i.e. early February of last year, but for reasons that were mainly the equations and competitions of the domestic politics of the United States and Iran, this did not happen, and this return was subject to negotiations that also rolled back Iran's compensatory measures with a specific mechanism.
The reality was that in June of this year, the procedure for this bilateral return to the JCPOA commitments had been set and specified after six rounds of negotiations by Dr. Araghchi's team in Vienna. However, due to the change of government in Iran, the issue did not receive final approval and this completion was postponed to the new government. Incredibly, the head of the Iranian negotiating team was changed and the work, which was almost finished, was handed over to the next team. The work that had been waiting for several months for the first return to negotiations under the title of the seventh round, was stopped and finally resumed in the middle of the autumn of 1400. At the beginning of the negotiations, the new team expressed the position of "starting from scratch", and the negotiations went to the brink of failure. With the respectful withdrawal of these positions, hopes for the negotiations to revive the JCPOA increased every day and the effect of these analyses was seen with a slow but continuous decline in the exchange rate. During this entire period of nearly four months, we witnessed the most positive news, even more than the Iranian team, from Ulyanov - the Russian representative in the negotiations. At the same time, experts said that one-sided optimism on the part of Iran, although it is done with the intention of controlling the market and domestic opinion, could potentially backfire and harm the negotiations because it reassures the Western parties that concessions are sufficient to the Iranian side. Russia, which at one point had assumed a mediatory role and even more, also seemed unusual.
The middle of the eighth round of negotiations coincided with Russia's attack on Ukraine, which can be said to be the biggest event in international relations since 9/11, so that perhaps we can expect a new era in the international order after this event: whether by strengthening Russia as a major player back on the scene or by weakening this country and removing it from the club of superpowers determining major equations.
Although this war occurred at a stage of the negotiations when all parties were waiting for the final political decisions to be signed and announced, there are a few points worth considering in this regard:
Of course, an attack such as this that has led to a confrontation with the entirety of the West is not a matter of one or two days, and its calculation and planning go back at least months. Therefore, we can be sure that the Russian government and possibly the diplomats present at the Coburg Hotel have included this component in their acting throughout the negotiations. That is, given that the invasion of Ukraine will begin in late February of this year, both the length of the negotiations, the way in which the message exchange between Iran and the United States and the expression of hopes were set.
The fact is that Russia, as a major international player, has only two comparative advantages: military capability and energy leverage. Military capability is an issue that, although it has become a hot topic due to the invasion of Ukraine, has largely lost its monopoly as a power component. At the same time, it should be noted that Russia is deprived of other elements of power, especially new factors such as technology, media and norm-setting.
The fact is that in the energy component, all exporters are potential competitors. Therefore, Iran and Russia, for whom energy is the source of bargaining power in the international arena and whose economies are based on it, are independent of each other in the field of energy. Therefore, the sanctions conditions, which restrict the sale of Iranian oil through narrow and limited corridors, are one of the most important potential competitors from outside the field. In the gas sector, Iran is also more unique: both due to its unparalleled natural reserves and its geostrategic position (proximity to Turkey and Europe, as well as having numerous neighbors). On the other hand, the amount of reserves ready for delivery by Iran if sanctions are lifted could reduce the current energy market inflammation, which is one of the most important international effects of Russia's attack on Ukraine. Therefore, it comes to mind that Russia's unilateral optimism may have become commonplace in view of the fact that today such a war and such an energy crisis are going to occur. However, with all these circumstances, if the negotiations to revive the JCPOA were finalized, it would have been possible to protect it from this new development even immediately after the war began. As the days passed and both issues remained open, it was not far-fetched to predict that the issue of the Ukrainian war would spill over into the nuclear negotiations and be affected by the lifting of sanctions on Iran through the imposition of sanctions against Russia. In recent days, the Russian Foreign Minister's statement that Russia would remain immune from sanctions for economic cooperation with Iran after the country's restrictions were lifted has put another brake on the conclusion of the JCPOA revival negotiations, making the task more difficult.
Of course, it must be acknowledged that the current situation has also tied the West's hand to intensify the situation of the Iranian nuclear file and to take actions such as referring it to the Board of Governors and the Security Council. Because the West certainly does not want to push Iran further towards Russia. Therefore, the deadlines that were due to technical considerations based on our extra-JCPOA enrichments have lost their luster today, but this opportunity is fragile and we must be careful not to waste it.
Now the main question is, what is the solution? Should we turn our backs on our northern neighbor, who has saddled his war horse towards Europe, and open our arms to the West? Or should we keep our eyes on the "East" in the same way as now and imagine ourselves on the front lines of the Cold War between the West and the East? Looking at the history of past transition periods (such as the case of Azerbaijan after World War II) and the behavior of other countries shows that we must now adopt negative balance policies while maintaining relations with Russia and continuing and strengthening relations with China, and not lose our leverage over relations with the West at various levels and levels: ensuring the absence of serious relations with Europe and the United States will cause Russia to consider Iran as a cheap or free partner in its interactions as much as possible and to refrain from spending money to maintain this relationship and partnership. However, if there is a serious relationship based on principles and national interests with the West, especially Europe, and reducing the level of unnecessary tensions with the West, and even direct dialogue with the United States if necessary, Russia will be free to take unilateral initiatives based solely on its own interests. As mentioned, for this, there is no need for tension with Moscow. Rather, by leveraging the West and Russia against each other, the power of each can be used to contain the other and reduce the level of expectations in relations with Iran. In this balance, of course, the goal is not one thing more than another, and that is Iran's national interests.
It should also be noted that although the negotiations have so far proceeded based on the views and performance of experts and have reached major political decisions, in any case, closing and completing any project including negotiations, in addition to detailed and meticulous views, requires a long-term and strategic view, as well as the ability to read the game with courage, which ultimately does not sacrifice interests for subtleties, and takes into account the length of time, daily profits and losses, and changing international equations in making decisions and drawing conclusions from a one-year process.
Etemad link
File
