With the “snapback” of UN sanctions on Iran on September 27, an important chapter in more than two decades of Western nuclear diplomacy with the country has come to a close.
Negotiations to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities date to 2002 when it was revealed that Iran was constructing facilities to enrich uranium, a fuel that can be used for civilian purposes or to make weapons. European-led talks eventually led to a U.S. and UN-blessed deal, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which traded strict limits on enrichment for sanctions relief.
In the wake of failed efforts to extend UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which codified the JCPOA, Iran has threatened not to resume cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world’s nuclear watchdog. Iran’s nuclear program now enters a new era of ambiguity, with uncertainty about the location of nearly 1000 pounds of highly enriched uranium and reports of construction of a new facility not inspected by the IAEA. There is the potential for new military strikes by Israel and the U.S. if either detects Iranian efforts to reconstitute plants heavily damaged by bombing in June. Some Iranians believe the only way to deter more strikes is to develop a nuclear bomb.
From the point of view of US-Iran relations, these events are especially disheartening. They mark a new nadir in intermittent efforts to resolve conflicts dating from the 1979 Islamic revolution and the overthrow of the US-backed Shah.
Iran, led by Shi’ite Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, adopted a “Neither East, nor West” approach to the then two global superpowers but showed particular animosity toward the U.S., blessing the seizure of American diplomats as hostages. Sporadic attempts to improve ties failed even after the hostages were released as the U.S. backed Iraq in an eight-year war with Iran — a conflict that ended when Iran accepted a ceasefire after the U.S. Navy mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 people aboard.
Despite outreach from Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani in the early 1990s, including dangling lucrative oil deals, the U.S. imposed more sanctions on Iran to punish it for its support of anti-Israel militants and assassinations of Iranian political dissidents in Europe.
The election of Rafsanjani’s successor in 1997 seemed to open a new chapter. In 1998, President Mohammad Khatami told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he hoped to chip away at “a bulky wall of mistrust between us and the U.S. Administration, a mistrust rooted in improper behaviors of the American governments.” Khatami was referring not only to U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran since 1979 but to injuries dating back to the CIA-backed coup that overthrew a popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 after parliament nationalized a British oil company.
Twenty-seven years later, however, now President Masoud Pezeshkian told a group of academics and journalists on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on September 26 that “the wall of mistrust between us and the U.S. is quite thick and quite high.”
He complained that Israel and the U.S. had bombed Iran while it was still trying to negotiate a new nuclear deal and that in four rounds of talks with President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, agreements would be reached that would then be “off the table” at the subsequent meeting. “Today they say one thing, tomorrow they come back with something 180 degrees different,” Pezeshkian said.
Initially, Witkoff had only insisted that Iran be verifiably prevented from developing nuclear weapons — something Iranian officials say has been forbidden by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, Witkoff switched to requiring no uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, a demand that Iran has rejected for more than 20 years. It was the Obama administration’s agreement to permit low-level enrichment that facilitated the JCPOA.
President Trump, in his first term, quit the deal unilaterally in 2018 even though Iran remained compliant. After a year, Iran began to exceed the limits on both the stockpile and level of enriched uranium to the point where it possessed enough material to fashion about 10 nuclear weapons if it made the decision to do so. That uranium is now believed to be buried under tons of rubble. But without IAEA inspections, it may be difficult to discern its location by using satellites and spies alone.
Beyond the nuclear issue, the U.S. and Iran have long been at odds over Iran’s support for militant non-state groups and especially, its hostility toward Israel. With many of those groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, severely weakened from Israeli retaliation following the Hamas attacks on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, and Iran’s longtime ally, Syria, now under a new Sunni Muslim-led regime, key officials in the U.S. and Israel appear to believe that the Islamic Republic is no longer much of a threat. Trump, at the UN last week, repeated claims that the nuclear program had been “totally obliterated.” “We did something people wanted for 22 years,” he said.
The U.S. hit nuclear facilities only. Israel also struck residential buildings, an Iranian prison and Iran’s national television channel. The bombs and drones killed military leaders and nuclear scientists but also took hundreds of civilian lives. Pezeshkian himself was slightly injured in an attack that appeared meant to decapitate the Iranian government and bring about the end of the Islamic Republic. However, the president and supreme leader survived, the system replaced assassinated generals quickly, and Iranians initially united against the attacks despite their many grievances with their rulers.
In his meeting with academics and journalists, Pezeshkian accused Israel of destabilizing the region, committing genocide in Gaza, and violating other international laws. Pezeshkian said the U.S., by supporting Israel, had proven that its calls for human rights and democracy were “empty slogans.” “You are the ones setting the world aflame,” he said. “Stop! Stop!”
As UN sanctions against Iran went back into effect on Saturday night, the State Department said that “diplomacy is still an option.” But the asymmetry between Iran, a regional power, and the U.S., a world power, have long undercut efforts to resolve differences in a way that allows Iran to preserve face. Pezeshkian admitted that the return of UN sanctions, which mostly affect arms transfers but also re-impose new restrictions on individuals and trade arrangements, would cause more difficulties for his country, which is already suffering from economic woes including high inflation, unemployment, and shortages of water and power. But he said that attacking Iran had backfired and that Iran would not submit to bullying.
Since the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA, Iran has focused on repairing ties with regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia, and drawing closer to China, a rising global power that has benefited from U.S. stumbles over Gaza and international trade.
“The biggest challenge is domestic internal differences,” Pezeshkian conceded. “If we can overcome them, we can succeed with our neighbors.”
As for relations with the U.S., the Iranian president said, “show us your sincerity and good will, and we will take two steps forward. Hit us and we will hit you back.”
The ‘Wall of Mistrust’ Grows Thicker Between the US and Iran
By Barbara Slavin
Middle East & North Africa
With the “snapback” of UN sanctions on Iran on September 27, an important chapter in more than two decades of Western nuclear diplomacy with the country has come to a close.
Negotiations to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities date to 2002 when it was revealed that Iran was constructing facilities to enrich uranium, a fuel that can be used for civilian purposes or to make weapons. European-led talks eventually led to a U.S. and UN-blessed deal, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which traded strict limits on enrichment for sanctions relief.
In the wake of failed efforts to extend UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which codified the JCPOA, Iran has threatened not to resume cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world’s nuclear watchdog. Iran’s nuclear program now enters a new era of ambiguity, with uncertainty about the location of nearly 1000 pounds of highly enriched uranium and reports of construction of a new facility not inspected by the IAEA. There is the potential for new military strikes by Israel and the U.S. if either detects Iranian efforts to reconstitute plants heavily damaged by bombing in June. Some Iranians believe the only way to deter more strikes is to develop a nuclear bomb.
From the point of view of US-Iran relations, these events are especially disheartening. They mark a new nadir in intermittent efforts to resolve conflicts dating from the 1979 Islamic revolution and the overthrow of the US-backed Shah.
Iran, led by Shi’ite Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, adopted a “Neither East, nor West” approach to the then two global superpowers but showed particular animosity toward the U.S., blessing the seizure of American diplomats as hostages. Sporadic attempts to improve ties failed even after the hostages were released as the U.S. backed Iraq in an eight-year war with Iran — a conflict that ended when Iran accepted a ceasefire after the U.S. Navy mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 people aboard.
Despite outreach from Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani in the early 1990s, including dangling lucrative oil deals, the U.S. imposed more sanctions on Iran to punish it for its support of anti-Israel militants and assassinations of Iranian political dissidents in Europe.
The election of Rafsanjani’s successor in 1997 seemed to open a new chapter. In 1998, President Mohammad Khatami told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he hoped to chip away at “a bulky wall of mistrust between us and the U.S. Administration, a mistrust rooted in improper behaviors of the American governments.” Khatami was referring not only to U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran since 1979 but to injuries dating back to the CIA-backed coup that overthrew a popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 after parliament nationalized a British oil company.
Twenty-seven years later, however, now President Masoud Pezeshkian told a group of academics and journalists on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on September 26 that “the wall of mistrust between us and the U.S. is quite thick and quite high.”
He complained that Israel and the U.S. had bombed Iran while it was still trying to negotiate a new nuclear deal and that in four rounds of talks with President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, agreements would be reached that would then be “off the table” at the subsequent meeting. “Today they say one thing, tomorrow they come back with something 180 degrees different,” Pezeshkian said.
Initially, Witkoff had only insisted that Iran be verifiably prevented from developing nuclear weapons — something Iranian officials say has been forbidden by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, Witkoff switched to requiring no uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, a demand that Iran has rejected for more than 20 years. It was the Obama administration’s agreement to permit low-level enrichment that facilitated the JCPOA.
President Trump, in his first term, quit the deal unilaterally in 2018 even though Iran remained compliant. After a year, Iran began to exceed the limits on both the stockpile and level of enriched uranium to the point where it possessed enough material to fashion about 10 nuclear weapons if it made the decision to do so. That uranium is now believed to be buried under tons of rubble. But without IAEA inspections, it may be difficult to discern its location by using satellites and spies alone.
Beyond the nuclear issue, the U.S. and Iran have long been at odds over Iran’s support for militant non-state groups and especially, its hostility toward Israel. With many of those groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, severely weakened from Israeli retaliation following the Hamas attacks on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, and Iran’s longtime ally, Syria, now under a new Sunni Muslim-led regime, key officials in the U.S. and Israel appear to believe that the Islamic Republic is no longer much of a threat. Trump, at the UN last week, repeated claims that the nuclear program had been “totally obliterated.” “We did something people wanted for 22 years,” he said.
The U.S. hit nuclear facilities only. Israel also struck residential buildings, an Iranian prison and Iran’s national television channel. The bombs and drones killed military leaders and nuclear scientists but also took hundreds of civilian lives. Pezeshkian himself was slightly injured in an attack that appeared meant to decapitate the Iranian government and bring about the end of the Islamic Republic. However, the president and supreme leader survived, the system replaced assassinated generals quickly, and Iranians initially united against the attacks despite their many grievances with their rulers.
In his meeting with academics and journalists, Pezeshkian accused Israel of destabilizing the region, committing genocide in Gaza, and violating other international laws. Pezeshkian said the U.S., by supporting Israel, had proven that its calls for human rights and democracy were “empty slogans.” “You are the ones setting the world aflame,” he said. “Stop! Stop!”
As UN sanctions against Iran went back into effect on Saturday night, the State Department said that “diplomacy is still an option.” But the asymmetry between Iran, a regional power, and the U.S., a world power, have long undercut efforts to resolve differences in a way that allows Iran to preserve face. Pezeshkian admitted that the return of UN sanctions, which mostly affect arms transfers but also re-impose new restrictions on individuals and trade arrangements, would cause more difficulties for his country, which is already suffering from economic woes including high inflation, unemployment, and shortages of water and power. But he said that attacking Iran had backfired and that Iran would not submit to bullying.
Since the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA, Iran has focused on repairing ties with regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia, and drawing closer to China, a rising global power that has benefited from U.S. stumbles over Gaza and international trade.
“The biggest challenge is domestic internal differences,” Pezeshkian conceded. “If we can overcome them, we can succeed with our neighbors.”
As for relations with the U.S., the Iranian president said, “show us your sincerity and good will, and we will take two steps forward. Hit us and we will hit you back.”
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