Q & A: Snapback, Drones, Missiles And The Iran Nuclear Deal

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Wednesday that the aim of the visit is to try to narrow differences with the UN nuclear watchdog. "We will send a delegation from Iran to Vienna in the coming days to start talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and we hope to resolve remaining issues based on what we have agreed in the past days," he said. 

He added that he would speak to the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, to discuss efforts to revive the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

In an interview published on Wednesday, Bijan Djir-Sarai, the general secretary of Germany’s liberal Free Democrats (FDP) -- a junior partner in the ruling coalition – said the deal with world powers "has no future and is not in line with reality." He noted that continuing talks would mean "negotiating with an inhuman regime that has completely rejected by its own people and has no legitimacy whatsoever".

On October 18, United States’ officials reiterated their support for the ongoing protests in Iran with Special Envoy Robert Malley saying that the talks to revive the nuclear deal are no longer on the agenda. Malley said on October 31, the Biden administration is not going to "waste time" on trying to revive the nuclear deal at this time considering Tehran's crackdown on protesters, Iranian support for Russia's war in Ukraine, and Iran's positions on its nuclear program. 

According to reports by Ukranian intelligence agencies, the Islamic Republic is set to deliver more than 200 Shahed-136 and Arash-2 kamikaze drones, and Mohajer-6 reconnaissance and combat UAVs later in November.

“It is known that the supply of these UAVs will be carried out over the Caspian Sea to the port of Astrakhan,” the Ukrainian intelligence agency said, adding that “The drones will arrive disassembled. Later, on the territory of Russia, they will be assembled, repainted and applied with Russian markings,” the report says. Russia applies its own markings to the Shahed-131 and the Shahed-136, dubbing them the Geran-1 and Geran-2 respectively – apparently to obscure their Iranian origins.

According to a report by CNN, Tehran is preparing to send approximately 1,000 additional weapons, including surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones to Russia to use in its war against Ukraine. 

The Paris-based dissident organization National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) -- affiliated with exiled People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) -- accused the Iranian regime of supplying Vladimir Putin’s army with more than 3,500 drones. 

Ukraine, however, said that roughly 400 drones have already been used by Russia, from a total supply of approximately 2,000 weapons. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the downing of 223 drones produced by Iran’s regime.

On Tuesday, the US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said Washington will “continue to vigorously enforce all US sanctions on both the Russian and Iranian arms trade to make it harder for Iran to sell these weapons to Russia.”

In a press briefing Tuesday United States State Department spokesman Ned Price faced questions as to what the US planned to do over alleged Iranian arms supplies to Russia. His answer over US options at United Nations led to a Twitter feed where his claims were rejected by Gabriel Naronha, Iran advisor 2019-21 during the Trump administration.

Price argued that the US was pursuing “every relevant and appropriate tool in our tool kit” to curb Iran’s reported supply of military drones, including sanctioning Iranian commanders and defense companies.

Price was less than enthusiastic over pushing at the UN Security Council (UNSC) for the ‘snapback’ of UN sanctions against Iran on the basis that such arms supplies violate UNSC resolution 2231, passed in 2015 to endorse the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

“You know as well as anyone,” Price told a journalist, “that any effort to…stitch together a coalition in the UN Security Council, where you have the belligerent Russia as a permanent member with a veto – that any effort to stitch back together what has expired probably would not fare too well in the UN Security Council.”

The spokesman also suggested US options over snapback were compromised by leaving the JCPOA in 2018. But Price’s description of the mechanics of ‘snapback’ was contradicted by Naronha saying Russia would not hold a veto in such circumstances.

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However technical the arguments, any linkage between the Ukraine war and the JCPOA weakens the contention of supporters of the 2015 agreement that nuclear proliferation measures should be dealt with separately.

Pledged to revive the JCPOA, the Biden administration has conducted over a year of talks with Iran without reaching agreement. With negotiations currently frozen, Biden officials – including special envoy Rob Malley in a Carnegie Endowment discussion Monday – have insisted that their intention remains JCPOA restoration.

At the same time, the US is keen that the Ukraine war not escalate. Despite sending at least $17 billion in military aid to Kyiv, Washington has refused advanced weapons. Price said Tuesday that Russia’s military position had been “significantly degraded,” with its “sophisticated weaponry and technology” curbed both through battlefield loses and US restrictions on its international access to chips and sensors needed for drones and missiles.

On the ‘same page’ with Europe

Another US vista, over both Ukraine and Iran, is its relationship with Europe. Malley stressed in his Carnegie Endowment talk on the way the Biden administration had overcome divisions with the Europeans left by the Trump presidency.

While Malley said Monday that reviving the JCPOA was “not our focus now,” he argued that Trump’s maximum pressure “didn’t work” and was “a real-life experiment that failed.” By contrast, he argued “there is nothing we are not doing now because of a possible nuclear deal in the future” and that “we and Europe are completely on the same page when it comes to reacting to Iran's nuclear program.”

The US and Europe, Malley said were “standing together shoulder-to-shoulder and expressing support for the Iranian people at this time when they are confronting the violence of the regime…we really have succeeded in re-stitching what is so crucial if we want to have a common front to push back against Iran's destabilizing activities, human rights violations, or nuclear program.”

Azerbaijan says it has arrested a group of its citizens who had been “trained and funded by Iran's intelligence” to act against the interests of Azerbaijani national security.

The country’s State Security Service announced on its website Tuesday that the armed group, called the Muslim Unity Movement, was secretly formed by Iran's special intelligence service through the inculcation of "radical-extremist religious ideas."

After recruitment, the members of the group were taken to Tehran through third countries, were given religious nicknames, and were transferred to Syria on military cargo planes with fake documents. In Syria, they underwent military training and received funding. 

They were involved in military exercises where they were taught using different firearms and combat tactics as well psychological warfare such as “the use of blackmail.” Following their training, they brought books and videos which propagated "radical, religious-extremist attitudes against the ideas of modern development and a secular state."

Azerbaijan’s State Security Service said the leader of the group was arrested by a court order in 2018 for similar criminal acts. The statement named several of the members of the group, alleging that they are currently hiding in Iran. One of the suspects was arrested while "attempting a terrorist act" against Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi in Cyprus. 

Relations between Baku and Tehran have been tense in recent years, especially after the Islamic Republic sided with Armenia in their territorial disputes. Tehran in the past has also expressed alarm at alleged Israeli military presence in Azerbaijan.

A member of parliament since only 2015, Sunak has suggested the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement – the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – should be strengthened, that Britain should consider moving its Israel embassy to Jerusalem, and that it should strengthen links with Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf.

Reports of Sunak’s views of Iran come partly from close allies. Former defense secretary Liam Fox told the National newspaper in August said that Sunak was “more hawkish” than the foreign office.

“He would want to see maximum sanctions put on to see whether Iran could be persuaded or forced into a wider agreement that goes beyond just the nuclear program,” Fox said.“He believes the JCPOA doesn’t actually stop Iran's nuclear program, it merely delays it...”

Fox did not explain whether Sunak saw a wider agreement – sometimes called ‘JCPOA+’ and covering security issues like Iran’s ballistic missiles – as a next step from a revived JCPOA or rather as an alternative.

Another ally, Conservative member of parliament Theresa Villiers wrote in the London-based Jewish News in August that Sunak had told her of “his concern that the UK government has not taken the threat posed by Iran seriously enough.”

Sunak has clearly expressed desire for tight relations with the Arab Gulf monarchies and for encouraging more to follow Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in ‘normalizing’ tries with Israel despite the absence of a Palestinian state. “The UK is in a strong position to leverage its historic relationships with other Gulf states to widen the accords and I would like to see UK diplomats place a greater focus on this,” Sunak told the Jewish Chronicle in August.

Sunak told the Conservative Friends of Israel, also in August, that the UK should consider moving its embassy in recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This has been done only by the Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and the United States. Other states, and the European Union, say this pre-empts settlement over Palestinian statehood.

Sunak has also spoken out against rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch describing Israeli occupation ‘apartheid.’ He has accused the Palestinian Authority of “glorification of terror attacks.”

‘Friends and allies’

Sunak was outspoken over the August 12 attack on author Salman Rushdie in New York state, which he described as a “wake-up call for the west.” But his suggestion as a leadership candidate that those who “vilify Britain” or who were “vocal in their hatred of our country” should be closely monitored proved controversial, at least beyond members of the Conservative Party.

Keeping James Cleverly as foreign secretary, despite a wide reshuffle from the short-lived administration of Liz Truss, may signal Sunak’s desire for continuity in foreign policy at a time of severe domestic challenges and when his government is deeply unpopular.

While Sunak supported Britain leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum, his early telephone call as prime minister to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, when he spoke of “working together as friends and allies,” suggests he may seek a conciliatory relationship.

While the EU has not followed the US over Jerusalem, it has moved closer to the US over Iran policy since Joe Biden became president in January 2021. Rob Malley, the White House Iran envoy, on Monday emphasized the value placed by the Biden administration on the US this improved relationship, both over Iran and the Ukraine crisis, given the divisions of the Trump presidency.

Some suggest that talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal may revive after the November 8 US mid-term elections. Others feel the talks are at an end. Either way, Sunak’s input may be maintaining close British relationships with both the US and EU.