Barack Obama’s remarks on last Friday touched upon mainly Iran and the JCPOA implementation, where he acknowledged that part of sanctions against Iran had been removed. However, he said that months would pass before foreign companies would develop a confidence on safe transactions with Iran. He did not comment about possible US permit which would make possible transactions in dollar, though.
The remarks indicated that despite recent months of positive view about the necessity of a US commitment to JCPOA, personally Obama would not have a commitment to ease trade with Iran and US businesses still would feel pressures not to engage in trade with Iran.
For example, US sanctions on Iran’s air transportation have effectively forestalled finalizing of the deal with Airbus which would provide Iran with 118 brand new planes.
An article in the Guardian reported that now EU major companies fear a US punitive measure should they enter in a grand-scale exchange with Iran:
“European companies still fear being caught up in what remains a complex US sanctions web. He said while the US treasury has offered substantial clarifications, they reveal a number of possible practical complications for EU companies,” the report said.
“A week after the lifting of sanctions against Iran, major European banks are still reluctant to handle Iranian payments as they remain wary of being the first to test the reaction of US authorities. Despite guidance issued by the US, the continent’s big banks still err on the side of caution… Sanctions compliance departments in big banks are busy digesting a 50-page guidance provided by the US treasury’s office of foreign assets control (OFAC) – some say the text is so complicated it may deter businesses from returning to Iran, while others fear it may be open to interpretation,” it read further.
“The general mood is to wait and let the others risk first. Smaller European banks or those in China and Russia that are not concerned about the US market, however, are more likely to lead the way. Banks are particularly worried about US primary sanctions related to terrorism and human rights violations that remain in place. A businessman from Switzerland who visited two major Swiss banks this week said he was told they were waiting for other banks to try first and see the reaction of the Americans. Banks are worried about interpretations of these guidance, so they’re still waiting for others to test the water,” the report said.
Breaches of promise by the US
US breaches of the promise is by no means limited to JCPOA. Seyed Hossein Mousavian, former diplomat and a nuclear negotiator addressed in early February the Cleveland Council on World Affairs during ‘The Road for Peace,’ a conference held by the Council. Mr. Mousavian believed that the JCPOA provided an excellent platform for both the US and Iran to improve the relations; however, four negative issues counterbalance recent improvements in bilateral ties after four decades of mistrust:
“First was exactly the sanctions by the US just after the implementation of JCPOA for alleged Iran’s violation of the treaty by test-firing missiles. Why Iranians cannot trust the US; there are a lot of reasons. I will not go to the history of the mistrust, but mention just some of them to give you an idea of the Iranian problems. It began by the overthrow of the democratically elected cabinet of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953; and installing a dictator monarch,” Mousavian told the meeting, “after revolution, Saddam invaded Iran to disintegrate the country and the objective was not really about the regime change. The US supported the invasion, despite Saddam used chemical weapons, he received from the US all cutting-edge technologies of arms and weapons. Iran in some occasions showed the good will to resolve the problems with the US, but all attempts failed. In 1989, US warship downed an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 civilians instantly.”
“Iranians are concerned also with US unilateral support for Israel in undermining the Palestinians’ rights. With proliferation issues, the US has cordial and strategic relations with those countries which proliferated nuclear weapons such as Pakistan, India, and Israel, which have refused to join the NPT and developed the bomb; but the US on the other hand imposed sanctions on Iran which is a member of the NPT and does not have a nuclear warhead. Here, double standards are obvious,” he detailed.
New cases of breach of promise
It was for the first time that an Iranian official Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi, the Head of AEOI who in last May suggested that the US had been in an erratic path which would have sent signals that the country would ‘welsh on’ the Lausanne statement provisions, to quote the popular phrase of the time. Few days later, Ali Akbar Velayati was the second Iranian official to reiterate the issue, in an interview to Leader’s official website, believing that ‘promise breaching literature’ of the US officials’ remarks was evident about the number of centrifuges of Iran according to Lausanne statement.
Among the host of issues where the US has failed to live to its promises are Congress objections to JCPOA, missile-related sanctions and those related to human rights issues, inspections of Iranian military centers, keeping oil prices low, sabotage on nuclear research for civilian use, and the famous ‘fact sheet’ about the JCPOA.
Iran’s response
With just few months after implementation of JCPOA, the US cases of undermining the deal have been quite a lengthy dossier. Iranian officials, on the other hand have warned that Tehran would consider a compete rollback to the previous state of affairs in its nuclear program, undermining, in retaliation, of its commitments in the JCPOA. However, Tehran has not embarked on a concrete action and has not carried out drastic measures. From Tehran’s view, any failure of the JCPOA would be blamed on the west; from a western side, however, they will have their media empire to advertise the view that Iran is the major contributor to this failure. Under such circumstances, Germany had advocated revival of trade with Iran; other countries which would welcome an economic détente with Tehran should wait to see how the US would settle its problems with Iran, and whether it will manage to maintain its now weakened coalition against Iran.