Al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, Originally posted in Arabic on January 22
The lifting of the nuclear sanctions from Iran offers a great opportunity to stop and evaluate the nuclear deal and its long-term prospects of success.
One thing becomes evidently clear to anyone examining this agreement: both sides – Obama on the American one, and Rouhani on the Iranian one – were desperate to make gains at any cost.
The details were not very important, nor were the technicalities on the ground. Obama wanted to be remembered as the president who stopped the Iranian bomb, while the mullahs in Teheran wanted to be remembered as those who freed their country from Western bondage.
Both are absolutely wrong.
Iran has been subjected to numerous sanctions, only a small portion of which was imposed upon it for its nuclear program. The so-called “lifting of the sanctions” barely amounts to 40% of the total sanction package. Similarly, “blocking the Iranian bomb” – a slogan that Washington boasts at each and every occasion – amounts to nothing more than simply delaying Teheran’s nuclear program by several years.
Iran will still be able to achieve a breakthrough within a year and develop a bomb through the enrichment of uranium or plutonium.
To make the situation even worse, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a legally binding document. It was signed between two fictitious entities that do not exist in reality – the P5+1 on one hand, and Iran’s moderate representatives, on the other. Simply put, the celebrations surrounding the lifting of the sanctions are nothing more than an act of deception.
But what is more interesting is that the two sides are not simply fooling each other. By deploying ambiguous rhetoric and framing the situation to their own benefit, both sides are really just fooling themselves. – Amir Taheri