Iran Violates 2015 Agreement Again, and Even the Europeans are Alarmed

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Iran has lately been behaving so outrageously that even the E3 – France, Germany and the UK – countries that continue to adhere to the 2015 JCPOA agreement, have become alarmed. The story is here: “Europeans slam Iran plan to boost enrichment, warn it not to boot UN inspectors,” Times of Israel, December 7, 2020:

Plans by Iran to install advanced centrifuges at its main nuclear enrichment plant in Natanz are “deeply worrying,” France, Germany and the UK said on Monday.

The three governments, dubbed the E3, said the plans were contrary to the 2015 agreement between Tehran and world powers that aimed to restrain Iran’s nuclear program by barring sophisticated centrifuges. The E3 also warned Iran not to move ahead with a law that would see it boot UN inspectors and increase uranium enrichment.

The development came days after Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it planned to install several cascades, or clusters, of advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges at the Natanz plant in violation of its commitments under the nuclear deal.

In a letter dated 2 December 2020, Iran informed the Agency that the operator of the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz ‘intends to start installation of three cascades of IR-2m centrifuge machines at FEP,” a confidential IAEA report to its member states said, Reuters reported Friday.

This is a direct violation of the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal) that Joe Biden has said he wants the U.S. to rejoin. After this announcement by Iran, will Biden be able to persuade Tehran to undo the installation of advanced IR-2m centrifuge machines? Has Iran made this announcement only in order to be able to halt it later as an example of Iran’s reasonableness? Or does Tehran think that Biden is so eager to rejoin the JCPOA that he will so do even with this violation by Iran of the original agreement?

Under the deal, Iran is only permitted to use the less advanced, less efficient first-generation IR-1 centrifuges at the fortified underground plant.

The US imposed crippling sanctions on Iran after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018. In response, Iran began publicly exceeding enrichment limits set by the agreement while saying it would quickly return to compliance if the United States did the same….

Iran’s recent announcement to the IAEA that it intends to install an additional three cascades of advanced centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant in Natanz is contrary to the JCPOA and deeply worrying,” the E3 said….

The move appeared to be a show of defiance after the killing — reportedly by Israel — of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a key figure in Iran’s nuclear program seen as the father of its plans to build an atomic bomb.

Relating to that bill, the E3 said its implementation “would be incompatible with the JCPOA and Iran’s wider nuclear commitments. If Iran is serious about preserving a space for diplomacy, it must not implement these steps. Such a move would jeopardize our shared efforts to preserve the JCPOA and risks compromising the important opportunity for a return to diplomacy with the incoming US Administration. A return to the JCPOA would also be beneficial for Iran.”

Iran is seeking to step up pressure on the incoming Joe Biden US administration to return to the original deal. Biden has indicated he will return to the accord but said he wants to institute changes.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday his country wouldn’t agree to renegotiate elements of the international accord limiting its nuclear program.

“It will never be renegotiated. Period,” Zarif told a conference in Italy, speaking remotely….

Biden wrote in an op-ed in September 2020 that he wants to return to the JCPOA, but that he also wants to do more to improve Iran’s behavior in other respects: “With our allies, we will work to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal’s provisions, while also addressing other issues of concern.” Biden said that his administration would continue sanctions on Iranian state institutions and high-level officials for human rights abuses, support for terrorism, and developing ballistic missiles. That’s all well and good as a wish-list, but let’s stick to what he will do about Iran’s current violations of its commitments under the JCPOA.

When even the Europeans express their alarm and outrage about Iran’s installation of cascades of advanced centrifuges prohibited by the terms of the JCPOA, shouldn’t Biden announce now that there will, in fact, be no American return to the JCPOA, “much as I would have wanted to do so,” until Iran shuts down the advanced centrifuges? What is the likelihood of Iran doing that, given that it is still smarting from the American assassination of Qassem Soleimani, and the recent, spectacular killing by Israel of the mastermind of Iran’s nuclear program, the scientist and IRGC Major General, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh? And what happens in June when President Rouhani ends his term, and new elections are held which, everyone predicts, will be won by a hardliner who, unlike Rouhani, will endorse a bill just passed in Iran’s Parliament to suspend UN inspections and boost uranium enrichment – thereby undermining Iran’s supposed commitment to the JCPOA?

I suspect that even the Biden Administration, eager as it is to return to the JCPOA, will not be able to accept Iran’s violation of that agreement by its installation of advanced centrifuges. And should Iran then return to using the less advanced ones, claiming it to be a kind of concession for Washington (when Iran would merely be fulfilling its JCPOA commitment) there still remains the problem of Iran ending IAEA inspections altogether, a measure that Rouhani’s hardline replacement this coming June will certainly approve. If no IAEA inspectors are allowed to investigate, how is the JCPOA supposed to operate?

There is another way. Biden could say that America is ready to return to the JCPOA, provided that three conditions are met: first, that Iran stops using its newly-installed advanced centrifuges and returns to those it is allowed under the JCPOA; second, that Iran continue to allow IAEA inspectors to continue to do their work, including visits to underground nuclear sites at Natanz without which enforcement of the JCPOA becomes meaningless; third – and this would not be part of the JCPOA but a separate commitment by Iran — that the Islamic Republic stop its support of the terror group Hezbollah, a key ally in Iran’s attempt to build a “Shi’a crescent” from the Gulf to the Mediterranean.

Iran will blanch at this last demand, which is not part of the JCPOA, but would have little choice. Three years of crippling sanctions have brought Iran low. Despite Tehran’s bravado, the country is in desperate straits. Its economy is in free fall, with oil revenues having sunk by 90% since the reimposition of sanctions by the U.S. in 2018; its inflation rate is now just under 50%; the value of its currency has decreased by more than 85% since 2018. In addition to the effect of the American sanctions, the coronavirus outbreak has struck Iran very hard, with more than one million cases and 50,000 deaths; there has also been a steady drop in oil prices, as demand sinks because of the pandemic; and there has been a slump in the global economy. All these developments have caused “perilous conditions” for Iran’s economy. The Supreme Leader will have to yield to Biden’s demands, lest a desperate people return to the streets in mass protests that could shake the foundations of the theocracy. Of course, these demands assume that the Biden administration recognizes just how economically weak Iran has become, and is willing to use the leverage over Iran that Trump’s reimposition of sanctions has made possible. I don’t expect much of the Biden administration, but I do at least expect this.

First published in Jihad Watch.