Exclusive: US Senator Says Iran Deal In ‘Best Interest Of Peace’
Democrats and Republicans agree on curbing Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but they disagree over whether the 2015 nuclear deal should be revived.
Democrats and Republicans agree on curbing Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but they disagree over whether the 2015 nuclear deal should be revived.
The United States Senate Democratic Party whip Dick Durbin told Iran International’s correspondent Arash Aalaei on Monday that “the premise” of reviving the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions) was “sound to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power.” This, Durbin said was “obviously in the best interests of regional and world peace.”
Durbin cited Russia as a nuclear-armed power. “We learned every single day in our calculations on Ukraine that the threat that Russia poses to the world with its nuclear weapons changes the equation,” he said.
Answering a question about the concerns of other regional states, particularly Israel, which is believed to have nuclear weapons, Durkan reiterated that peace required “a credible, enforceable plan to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” which he said would be a “threat to every nation in the region…including Israel.”
Listing and Delisting
Many American and Israeli politicians oppose the JCPOA on the grounds that it does not require unilateral reductions in Iran’s ballistic missile capability Iran has developed for lack of an effective air-force. They also argue that restoring the JCPOA at the cost of removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from the US list of ‘foreign terrorist organization’ is too high a price.
Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid recently called on Washington not to lift the designation, the only one of part of the armed forces of a sovereign state, even though a raft of other US sanctions would remain on the IRGC.
In response to another question by Iran International’s correspondent, Durbin said Iran had to prove that a restored JCPOA would not mean resources being available for the IRGC. “The Iranians have to forswear the terrorism that threatens the stability of many other countries too, and if they will do that and prove it with their conduct, I think there are chances we can move toward normalcy,” he claimed, without explaining what ‘normalcy’ might mean.
Republican senators remain steadfastly opposed to renewing the JCPOA, from which former president Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018, imposing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. Republican Bill Hagerty, a close Trump ally, told Fox News Monday that “reviving the disastrous Iran nuclear deal” was “a vanity project for John Kerry [former Secretary of State) and [President] Joe Biden. They're putting America's strategic interests in the rearview mirror while doing anything they can to cut a deal with the largest state sponsor of terror.”
Yemen War
Opposing removing the IRGC from the list of ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ Hagerty argued that “we saw what happened when we took [Yemen’s] Houthis [Ansar Allah] off the list…they immediately went back to their terrorism.” The Biden administration delisted Ansar Allah in February 2021 in “recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen” following criticism from aid organizations.
The Wall Street Journal suggested Monday that efforts to revive the JCPOA, which have been going on for 11 months, hinge on the designation of the IRGC. US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday that “there has been significant progress in recent weeks, but I want to be clear that an agreement is neither imminent nor is it certain.”
Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh has written several articles and given many interviews during the past four weeks warning about Russia's obstruction of Iran’s nuclear talks with the West and calling on the Iranian government to adopt an independent approach. He has also warned the authorities not to fall in Russia’s trap and avoid becoming hostage to over-reliance on Moscow and Beijing.
This comes while Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who delivered two speeches in the past two days has not mentioned the nuclear talks and a possible deal with America. As Iran watcher Jason Bradsky observed in a series of tweets , Khamenei "gave a long, tedious lecture on the need for a knowledge-based economy. Khamenei stressed the need of not tying the economy to U.S. sanctions, but he hedged as usual."
Brodsky quoted Khamenei as saying: "of course this doesn't mean we are not seeking ways to lift these sanctions and those who are active in these fields should follow up on that," and added that this was all Khamenei had to say about the negotiations. However, Brodsky noted, "That doesn't mean the establishment isn't interested in a deal, but it is only interested in one on its terms," and that is "lifting the sanctions."
In his interview, Falahatpisheh, the former head of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, regretted that the talks were delayed for at least four years due to factional infighting among politicians in Iran. He observed that as a result, Iran's oil exports dropped to as little as 300 thousand barrels per day during the Trump administration.
He said that during the Biden administration, the figure rose to around 1.3 million barrels, however, Iran lost billions of dollars in oil revenues as it sold its output at a discounted price. He estimated that during the past 11 months Iran lost around $40 million a day, or at least $13.5 billion.
The conservative politician said Iran's first mistake was to hand over decision making to Russian negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov, and its second mistake was holding talks with all the JCPOA member states while it needed only to talk with the United States, a country that could have lifted all the barriers on the way of international trade for Iran.
Falahatpisheh opined that by winning a deal with the United States, Iranian leaders can move the country away from international tensions. He added that Iran needs to reduce tensions at the national, regional and international levels.
Meanwhile, he claimed that Iran's winning card was the resistance of its people against sanctions hinting that people carried the economic hardships without causing major unrest. But he failed to mention that their silence was largely the result of the regime's heavy-handed and violent suppression of dissent.
Two other winning cards, Falahatpisheh said, was Iran’s ability to advance in nuclear technology against all odds, and Tehran's self-reliance in defense. The latter, he said was what prevented the country from experiencing a fate similar to that of Ukraine.