There are signs the Obama administration is finally growing some backbone in its relations with one of the principal targets of President Obama’s special brand of outreach. We’re not sure we have reached the millennium, but it does seem there is some significant signs of pushback.
We still do a slow burn when we recall Secretary of State Kerry’s negotiating strategy with Iran in concluding the agreement that was supposed to restrict that country’s nuclear program. At virtually every turn, the U.S. made unilateral concessions to Iranian demands – concessions we continue to believe substantially negate any meaningful restraints on the Iranians – with the explanation that if they were not made, the Iranians would bolt the discussions.
“Almost any deal is better than no deal,” seemed to be the operating principle.
Yet in the past few weeks, Iranian complaints about two significant events have been unambiguously rebuffed by the administration.
For more than a month it seemed Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, never missed an opportunity to complain that his country was not getting the sanctions relief to which it is entitled under the nuclear agreement. He and his government gave every indication of thinking the impact of all of the sanctions imposed by the U.S. would effectively disappear by virtue of their signing of the nuclear pact.
Apparently the Iranians thought the U.S., fearing Iran’s possible renunciation of the nuclear agreement, would not draw a distinction between sanctions directed at Iran’s nuclear program and so-called non-nuclear sanctions over Iranian support for terrorist activities and the development of non-nuclear missiles.
Indeed, a something resembling this bounteous approach is what the New York Times urged in a recent editorial discussing Iran’s difficulties in rebuilding its economy and proposed legislation that would impose new sanctions because of Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests:
One impediment is that most American sanctions remain in place because of Iran’s involvement in terrorism and human rights abuses and its testing of ballistic missiles. Iran knew that lifting all American sanctions was never part of the nuclear deal. This means American companies are still banned from doing business in Iran except for trade in civil aviation, carpets and agricultural products. Also, Iran is still barred from using the American financial system, and its dollars, through which most international business is conducted….Iran should be subject to sanctions when appropriate under United States law, but as long as it adheres to the nuclear deal, Congress should not take steps that would discourage legitimate business with Iran.
Significantly, the Iranians have not pounced to abandon the deal. No doubt they are probably still pinching themselves over how they flimflammed the Obama administration into accepting the lack of airtight monitoring provided for in the deal and also its relatively short duration. But even so, should the fear they will renounce the deal be a serious concern? Frankly, we never bought into the notion that the agreement would ultimately result in an Iran with no nuclear weapons. So we don’t think losing the agreement is such a big deal in the first place. Anyway, the Iranian foreign minister, Mr. Zarif, indicated in a New York Times interview last week that his country is in no rush to disavow the agreement.
When asked, about what he saw as the problems with the nuclear deal, he responded, “The most important problem is that the United States is taking a back seat after eight years of scaring everybody off, imposing heavy penalties on people who wanted to do business with Iran. Billions of dollars of penalties were imposed on various European financial institutions. The United States was supposed to go to various banks and tell them bygones are bygones…. The United States needs to do way more. They have to send a message that doing business with Iran will not cost them. Period. No if ands or buts.”