Four Disappeared Airbus A340s End Up In Iran

Back in January, there was “no alternative to dialogue,” tweeted German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Washington. “Political decisions are needed now,” wrote Enrique Mora, the senior European Union official chairing the talks in Vienna aimed at restoring the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian agreed the talks were at a point where “we have to make a political decision.” Brett McGurk, a leading US security official, saw a “culmination point…pretty soon.”

But whatever political decisions were – or weren’t – taken, neither the Vienna process, paused in March, nor subsequent indirect US-Iran meetings were enough to bridge gaps, despite continued Iran-US message exchanges until at least September. While Iran reportedly dropped a condition that its Revolutionary Guards be removed from a US list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’ it continued to insist on ‘guarantees’ to cushion its economy and nuclear program from the US again leaving the JCPOA.

The Biden administration continued to apply ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, in November sanctioning 13 companies from mainland China, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, over alleged involvement in selling Iranian petrochemicals in East Asia. Tehran continued expanding its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits, employing more advanced centrifuges to expand its stockpiles of uranium enriched up to 60 percent.

While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported regularly on Iran’s program, its access remained at a lower level than under the JCPOA. Tehran enforced a law passed by parliament in December 2020 after scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed, so reducing agency monitoring roughly to that required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

October: Involving the Security Council

The JCPOA reached the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in October as France, the United Kingdom and the US argued Iran and Russia were violating UNSC Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA in 2015. The three argued that Russia’s use of Iranian military drones violated a clause restricting Iran trading some categories of weapons – an argument Tehran rejected.

This was a shift in the French and UK positions, bring them closer to the US than when in 2021 the E3 – France, Germany and the UK – rejected, on the grounds Washington had left the JCPOA, an US attempt to move UN sanctions against Iran for violating the 2015 agreement.

But this widened the gap with China and Russia. Geng Shuang, Beijing’s deputy permanent representative at the UN, told the UNSC December 19 that as the “the creator of the Iranian nuclear crisis…the US should recognize its responsibility and take the lead in taking practical measures.” Geng said that pressuring Iran would “escalate conflict, undermine trust and cast a shadow over the negotiations.”

Both Russia and China voted against motions in June and November at the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency censuring Tehran over an agency enquiry into uranium traces found at undeclared sights, saying the vote would merely make matters worse.

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Talks ‘no longer our focus’

By October, US officials, including special envoy Rob Malley, said JCPOA revival was no longer their “focus.” President Joe Biden said Washington was instead “shining a spotlight” on protests in Iran – so rejecting the logic underlying the JCPOA of isolating the nuclear issue. The US, the European Union and the UK all introduced sanctions on Iranian officials over gross violation of human rights during the deadly suppression of protests and over supplying drones to Russia.

Opponents of the JCPOA have ended 2022 in high spirits, nowhere more so than in Israel where Benjamin Netanyahu - whose warning over Iran go back to 1996 when he told the US Congress Tehran was “extremely close” to a nuclear weapons - is preparing to return to power in coalition with three far-right parties.

But some analysts have argued that new thinking is needed to restore momentum for non-proliferation. In November the Washington-based Arms Control Association called for a ‘plan B’ based on “confidence-building steps by the United States and Iran to prevent further escalation...”

In the Washington Post December 1, Ellie Geranmayeh, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, rejected widening sanctions that had led Iran to escalate, arguing for “an active diplomacy track… before it is too late.” She called for “step-by-step measures” to at least freeze Iran’s nuclear program and improve IAEA access in return for “humanitarian economic relief” and eased “sanctions enforcement against third parties trading with Iran, such as those in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and China.”

But given the prevailing atmosphere amid government violence that has killed 500 protesters and supply of weapons to Russia, tensions with Iran are no longer just over the nuclear issue.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met Wednesday in Muscat with the Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, calling Oman the “epicenter” of regional talks. With Yemen, Afghanistan, and Ukraine all on the agenda, the minister said these issues had to be addressed “at a faster pace.”

There is speculation, encouraged by phone calls between Amir-Abdollahian and his Omani counterpart December 22, that Muscat has a role in restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Muscat’s mediation goes back to facilitating secret Iran-United States contacts before the 2015 deal. European Union spokesman Peter Stano December 26 explained Amir-Abdollahian’s meeting in Jordan December 20 with EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell’s as “moving talks about JCPOA revival forward.”

Omani mediators have also been in Sanaa trying to bridge gaps between the government of Rashid al-Alimi and the main opposition Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, over extending the fragile eight-month ceasefire. Iran has given some support to Ansar Allah, while Saudi Arabia began in 2015 direct military involvement, mainly with its air force.

Reports said the Omanis left December 25 without resolving differences as to whether the government or Ansar Allah should pay fighters and state employees in the third of Yemen, including 80 percent of the population, under Ansar Allah’s control. At least 370,000 people have died in the eight-year conflict, which began with protests against then president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The United Nations says a child is dying every ten minutes from preventable causes.

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Keen to see the JCPOA restored, Oman has distanced itself from any push towards ‘normalization’ with Israel through extending the 2020 US-brokered ‘Abrahamic accords,’ which were widely portrayed in the US as a move against Iran. After the critical reaction of Arab football fans to Israeli journalists in December’s World Cup, and with a new Israeli government including far-right parties committed to speeding up Jewish settlements in occupied land, Muscat is mulling legislation similar to laws passed in Iraq and Kuwait sanctioning trade with Israel.

“Anything related to Israel-Saudi relations outside of security matters…has largely left the Saudi media,” the Jerusalem Post noted Wednesday. “Oman never had any serious intention of joining [the Abrahamic accords].”

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Expanding trade, ‘friends with all’

Iranian regional diplomacy is pushing both the need for dialogue and expanding trade. Both were discussed at the ‘Baghdad 2’ conference December 20-21, where an Iranian delegation led by Amir-Abdollahian met with leading officials and politicians from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, France, Iraq, Jordan, and the EU.

Critical reaction in Tehran was fairly muted to a joint statement issued after the December 9 Arab-China summit where Riyadh and Beijing agreed “joint cooperation to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.” Business Insider noted December 20 that many could see that “Beijing would rather balance its relationship with regional competitors,” pursuing “a friends-with-all approach” that both expands $87-billion bilateral trade with the Saudis and also pursues, despite US sanctions, the 2021 25-year cooperation agreement with Iran envisaging potentially $400-billion Chinese investment in exchange for stable, discounted oil supplies.

Oman faces greater difficulties in two gas projects with Iran, one to supply 10 billion cubic meters/year of Iranian gas over 15 years, and one as a conduit for a 1400km, $7-billion pipeline from Iran to India for 11.3bm3/year, for which New Delhi signed a memorandum-of-understanding with Russia’s Gazprom in 2019.

However, neither Iran nor Oman has the technology to lay deep-sea pipelines and the long-delayed project needs Western technology, which in turn needs the lifting of US sanctions.

According to Donya-ye Eghtesad daily, the heads of hoteliers’ associations of Yazd and Kerman provinces -- both of which are among Iran's most popular tourist destinations -- are facing a significant drop in foreign and domestic tourism, and a significant part of bookings have recently been canceled.

“Only a few tours have not been canceled but they may also make a last-minute decision not come just as two of the booked tours did not arrive recently even though they had not canceled,” the head of Hoteliers’ Association of the historic city of Yazd, Amir Nasereddin Tabatabaei, said earlier this week. He estimated the number of booking cancelations at around 80 percent.

Mohammadreza Bahrami, Head of the Kerman Hoteliers Association, has also said that his province has lost 90% of its foreign travelers in recent months.

Some countries have advised their nationals not to travel to Iran or asked them to leave the county immediately since nationwide anti-government protests began in Iran three months ago. Iran’s apprehension of several foreign nationals and dual nationals on unknown charges has made the situation more complicated and more damaging to the tourist industry.

In early November the chairman of the board of Iran's Tour Guides Association, Mohsen Haji-Saeed said the regime tourists seen in the wrong places and at the wrong time were seen as spies and that some foreign nationals had been detained only for taking photographs of the protests ““out of curiosity”.

On September 30, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced the detention of nine foreign citizens from Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Sweden. The ministry alleged those arrested had been "on the stage or behind the scenes" of the recent protests.

The British foreign office tweeted Tuesday a clip of Cleverly listing British sanctions against Iran where he mentions judges, morality police, individuals and companies allegedly involved in supply military drones to Moscow, as well as “the IRGC in its entirety.”

Cleverly December 13 said in parliament, according to the official record: “We already sanction the IRGC in its entirety.” But questioned immediately before this on the government’s intentions by John Spellar, a parliament member, Cleverly suggested that any IRGC designation remained in its future plans: “The UK is committed to holding Iran to account, including with more than 300 sanctions—including the sanctioning of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety.”

The UK announced December 9 the sanctioning of ten Iranian officials connected to Iran’s judicial and prison systems. “There is growing frustration that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) the branch of the Iranian army accused of peddling terror abroad, has escaped sanctions that would see it proscribed,” claimed the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper the following day. Neither was the IRGC mentioned when the UK December 13 sanctioned Iranians purportedly involved in transferring drones to Russia.

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The United States government in 2019 included the IRGC in its list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’ a move announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the US “continuing to build its maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian regime.” The Trump administration had the previous year launched ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions as it withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

This remains the only example of Washington including part of a sovereign state’s armed forces as a ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ a category otherwise comprised of non-state groups. The US 2019 press release on the listing referred to the IRGC “in its entirety,” the same phrase used by Cleverly.

Critics of JCPOA have long argued for designating the IRGC, with Canada following the US in October. During talks aimed at restoring the 2015 agreement, which have foundered since late summer leaving Iran’s nuclear program expanding and ‘maximum pressure’ in place, there have been intermittent reports of Iran seeking to have the designation lifted.

‘Moving talks forward’

Peter Stano, the European Union foreign affairs spokesman, Monday defended the “diplomacy” and “engagement” seen in EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell meeting with Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Jordan December 20. Given the EU role coordinating multilateral nuclear talks in Vienna April 2021-March 2022 and subsequent bilateral Iran-US meetings, Stano said the meeting had been part of moving “talks about the revival of the JCPOA forward.”

In Tehran, Javad Karimi-Qudousi, a conservative member of the parliament’s national security commission, told the reformist newspaper Etemad that progress had been made on two issues stymying the talks – an enquiry by the International Atomic Energy Agency into Iran’s pre-2003 nuclear work and the status of foreign investment should the US again leave the agreement.

There has been ongoing speculation in Israel that failure to renew the JCPOA will lead to an Israeli attack. With Benjamin Netanyahu, a virulent JCPOA opponent due to form a new government including the Religious Zionism Party, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi, the Israeli chief of staff, said Tuesday the “level of preparedness for an operation in Iran has dramatically improved.”

While he would “say no more than that,” Kohavi promised the armed forces would be “ready for the day when an order is given to act against the [Iranian] nuclear program.” Kohavi, who was Israeli Operations Director during the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza conflict when 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died, claimed Israel carried out at least one operation “against Iran” weekly somewhere across the Middle East.

Israeli daily Haaretz wrote Tuesday that Israeli officials believe the Biden administration is still aiming to reach a nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic and has the support of the US defense establishment while the recently emerged footage showing President Biden saying the deal was “dead” has gone viral on social media.

In this video, the US President confirmed that the deal was “dead”, but he said he could not announce it officially for “a lot of reasons”.

Biden did not give a direct answer about the “reasons” why Washington refuses to officially announce this. Israeli officials say this might have been a slip of the tongue by Biden.

Israeli officials quoted by Haaretz claim that Washington knows it will be difficult for the Iranian regime to suppress the recent protests without improving the economic situation and therefore concluding the deal may be in their interest.

These officials who have been in touch with their US counterparts have also given the impression that despite the challenging situation, a significant twist in the nuclear deal was coming within in a few months.

However, an Israeli official told Haaretz that “Israel has no practical capacity to attack Iran effectively without the support and cooperation of the US, and anyone who says otherwise is willfully lying.”