US Pursues Diplomacy With Iran But Not On Restoring Nuclear Deal
US State Department refused Monday to comment on the possible release of Iran’s frozen funds in exchange for three Americans held by Iran.
US State Department refused Monday to comment on the possible release of Iran’s frozen funds in exchange for three Americans held by Iran.
The State Department’s outgoing spokesperson Ned Price however, signaled that efforts are underway for their release. He also sounded positive about a deal last week between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore relations, brokered by China.
There have long been signs that a US agreement to free $7 billion frozen by South Korean banks would be the price to pay for the release of three dual-nationals considered in effect hostages held by Iran. But after Iran’s deadly crackdown on popular protests and its supply of weapons to Russia, the proposition has become politically costly for the Biden administration.
At the same time, Price once again reiterated that restoring the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) with Iran “is not on the agenda.” He said the Biden administration thought it was “on the precipice of it, only for the Iranians to once again prove that their word was unreliable and to pull back what they had agreed to.”
Talks that began in April 2021 reached a deadlock in early September 2022 when Washington blamed Tehran for presenting “extraneous demands.”
“So that’s not on the agenda. What is always going to be on our agenda as a first resort is diplomacy. We continue to believe that diplomacy is the only permanent, durable, verifiable means by which to address Iran’s nuclear program. We’re not giving up our ambitions and our hope on that, even as we’re preparing for all potential contingencies,” Price said.
It is not clear if JCPOA talks are not on the agenda then what is US diplomacy pursuing? In the past months, both Washington and the European powers involved in talks with Tehran have raised the issue of Iranian weapons supplies to Russia and its gross violations of human rights.
It seems that the West is pursuing either a more comprehensive deal beyond the nuclear issue or perhaps piecemeal agreements on specific issues.
An Iranian analyst in Tehran told ILNA news website Tuesday that the US might be pursuing a limited and temporary agreement to address some dangerous aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. Khosrow Shahin said that Washington might also be aiming for partial agreements on various issues, such as the release of prisoners to reduce the final cost of a full nuclear deal.
Some reprieve from oil sanctions could be one of the incentives for a cap on Iran’s uranium enrichment, similar to the 1990s Iraqi ‘oil for food’ UN program, although Iran needs hard currencies to deal with its worsening economic situation. In February NBC News reported that if Iran’s frozen funds are released in exchange for prisoners, limitations on how to spend the money might apply.
Regarding the Chinese brokered agreement between Riyadh and Tehran, Price said the United States supports “dialogue, we support direct diplomacy, we support anything that would serve to de-escalate tensions in the region and potentially help to prevent conflict.”
Price also tried to dismiss suggestions that China can supplant the US role in the region, emphasizing that the Biden administration has accomplished a lot in enhancing cooperation between regional countries.
“So, I think in any way you look at it, America is deeply engaged with the Middle East. We have, I think, demonstrated results in those efforts to leave a region that is more stable, is more integrated, is more prosperous. We have a long way to go…,” Price, who will soon be leaving as spokesman said.
Hossein Shariatmadari, the hardliner editor of Kayhan, who has been harshly criticized for changing his positions on the issue of relations between Tehran and Riyadh, has accused reformists of not understanding the agreement.
Shariatmadari who had shunned ties with Riyadh in 2016 as "a stigma for the Islamic Iran," changed his position to praising the recent agreement as "a hard blow to the United States and Israel." Reformist media have accused Shariatmadari of "defying his own principles."
Shariatmadari said he was happy about the agreement because unlike the previous government of Iran, he believes that regional disputes should be solved by regional states without America's intervention. However, he ignored China's role in brokering the new deal.
Meanwhile, Shariatmadari, who always likes to pretend he has exclusive access to behind-the-scenes developments, wrote elsewhere in Kayhan that the state television and other media outlets have to turn a blind eye on certain developments to serve the government's interests and to prevent foreigners from taking advantage of certain news.
In other reports on Iran, the media have reminded officials, such as President Ebrahim Raisi, of their changing views about what they had said against Saudi Arabia. Social media users posted the screenshot of quotes from Raisi in a January 4, 2016 report one day after Iranian government-led vigilante groups attacked Saudi diplomatic buildings in Iran and set fire to them, that "Iran does not need relations with Saudi Arabia." Raisi, who was then Iran's Public Prosecutor, accused Saudi Arabia of harboring and "feeding" Salafists, and characterized it as "a cancerous tumor in the region."
While other media appear to be cautiously upbeat about the agreement with Saudi Arabia, reports say that the state television continues beating on the drums of creating tensions between Tehran and Riyadh. Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the former governor-general of Iran's Kordestan Province and an aide to former reformist President Mohammad Khatami wrote in a March 11 tweet: "Infiltrators at the state television have started programs on the national TV to prevent the Iran-Saudi agreement to come to fruition."
This comes while, Ali Foroughi, a vigilante group leader who was involved in the attacks on Saudi and British embassies in Iran and is now the head of the state television's Channel 3, has been accused on social media of politically benefitting from the disruption in the Tehran-Riyadh ties.
Some other social media users are adamant that the agreement is not about Iran, but it is rather about a guarantee that China's huge investments and trade interests in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region remain safe from Iran's adventurism.
Other reports from Iran speculate about why Security Chief Shamkhani signed the deal in Beijing rather than foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian who apparently was visiting quake-stricken areas in Syria as Shamkhani was negotiating in China. According to Rouydad24 website, it turns out that the decision to sign the agreement in China had nothing to do with the Foreign Ministry and orders for Shamkhani came from a higher authority, presumably Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, albeit without naming him.
Khamenei traditionally never makes any public commitment about anything to make sure that he can evade responsibility if things do not work out well.
In the meantime, news came to indicate that Amir-Abdollahian has not been idle and that he was in fact negotiating the terms of releasing US hostages, aka known as US citizens wrongly detained in Iran. However, shortly after the Iranian Foreign Minister's claim, Washington denied his statement about an agreement between Iran and the United States on a prisoner swap.
Although he did not elaborate on his argument that Iran’s foreign policy is an outcome of its internal politics, it was obvious that as a member of the former centrist government he was targeting hardliners, who have obstructed talks with the West.
Speaking at a conference on "the protests and media," which was sponsored by the Iranian Society of Cultural and Communication Studies this week, Rabiei reiterated the position of more moderate regime insiders, blaming diaspora Iranians for “misrepresenting” the message of protests in Iran while also attacking hardliners for refusing to pave the way for public discussion that can lead to a new form of policymaking in Iran.
"Physically, all movements might recede one day, but the people's mentality will not change,” Rabiei said.
Hadi Khaniki, the Society's chairman, said that "protesting is part of the nature of the Iranian society, but protests can have different forms. Institutions like ours should go to the lower depths of social issues and offer solutions when politicians seem to have deviated from the right course or have taken hasty measures. Critical views can get the Iranian society a step forward. "
Khaniki said that everyone agrees the protest movement in Iran has been widespread and that no other issue in Iran has attracted so much attention. He added that the protest movement has further politicized the Iranian society and even those who were reluctant to get involved in political discussions have become politically active. The media cannot remain indifferent to such a change, he said.
Khaniki argued that because of the weakness of civil institutions, the Iranian society's behavior often remains unknown or unpredictable. An issue such as the gas attacks on girls' schools grabs people's attention and gives rise to many concerns. Everybody sympathizes with the students and their parents, but it is not clear where the media should stand in a such a situation.
In fact, some media have reacted responsibly to the issue. Centrist daily Ham Mihan wrote in a commentary March 7, that despite the widespread attacks, "No particular medical treatment has been given to affected schoolchildren other than administering tranquilizers. There has been no chemical research about the nature of the gas used to poison the students. And all of that are signs of a deep-rooted mismanagement."
Ham Mihan observed that the absence of the right methodology to detect the truth, is indicative of inefficiency, lack of people's trust in the government, and lack of independent media that would reflect the truth.
Meanwhile, sociologist Taghi Azad Armaki said at the conference: "The essential problems of the Iranian society is one of lifestyle. Iranians wish to remain Iranian while as Mr. Rabiei said, there is a group in Iran that does not want Iranians to remain Iranian."
He said Iranians simply want to live, but the government and its pressure groups will do everything to prevent that. While the people think in terms of a cultural understanding of Iran, the government only recognizes its own political understanding of life in this country.
He said: Iranians are a nation that is constantly changing, but this change is non-violent. In the same way, Iranians have even changed Islam thanks to their adaptability and innovation. We are a nation that attaches importance to culture. We are a nation that wishes to bring about reforms. But those who have the wrong understanding of culture do not allow us to live.
As an example, Armaki pointed out the Iranian government's enmity with the middle class. "What has the middle class done that the government treats it as an enemy? The problem is a war between two cultures: The culture of life and the culture of totalitarianism."
The attacks that started three months ago have continued without any apparent effort by the government to seriously pursue the perpetrators or explain to terrified parents and students what was happening in so many schools.
In its statement, the ministry attributed some of the poisoning attacks to “pranks” by students using “foul smelling and harmless substances” in an attempt to get their classes dismissed.
“Among the detainees there are individuals with hostile motivations,” the statement said, adding that these individuals meant to cause fear and panic among the people to shut down schools and cast the blame on the regime.
“These individuals are under investigation to reveal their possible connection with terrorist organizations such as the monafeghin,” the statement said. Iranian authorities always refer to the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) as monafeghin (hypocrites).
The statement reveals very little about the arrests but two days earlier the local channel of the state television in Fars province aired the so-called ‘confessions’ of a man and his daughter arrested and accused of attacking schools with N2 gas canisters. The statement provided no names for those arrested or any other information.
Many ordinary Iranians have been suspicious of involvement of the regime itself, or religious extremists protected by the regime, in the school attacks and call the acts “state terrorism”.
“There is strong suspicion that the purpose of the attacks is quashing the Woman, Life, Freedom movement by instilling fear among girls and their families,” an umbrella teachers' association said while calling the attacks “bioterrorism” and demanding Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top religious figures to condemn the attacks expressly and decisively.
Diaspora Iranian held protests Saturday in 70 cities around the world to demand action to stop the school attacks.
The ministry said in its statement that there is a “considerable drop” in school poisoning attacks although seven more schools were affected on Saturday and tens of students had to be taken to hospital.
Attacks were reported in southwestern Khuzestan province where four schools were targeted. Tens of poisoned students had to be taken to hospitals also in southern Fars, western Kordestan and in northern Gilan provinces.
In a report Saturday, the judiciary claimed that “less than ten percent” of students reported poisoned so far had inhaled “an irritant gas which is not of weapons grade or deadly” and the remaining ninety percent were only affected by stress and other psychological factors.
In an article entitled “Casting Light On Psychological Operations Of Criminals In Student Poisoning Incidents” on Tuesday, the hardliner Mashregh news website accused a banned teachers’ association of using the attacks to wage psychological war against the Islamic Republic to revitalize the protest movement.
The article claimed that it was the MEK that described the school poisonings as ‘chemical attacks’ for the first time and alleged a connection between MEK and union activists who also referred to the incidents as chemical attacks on schools.
Earlier this month, the association urged its members and others to stage protests to demand urgent resolution to school attacks as well as teacher’s own problems including a wage increase for the next year that takes the factor of inflation into account.
In response to the association’s call, teachers and parents held rallies in dozens of cities and chanted slogans such as "death to the child-killing regime".
“Think-tanks of security and intelligence bodies are projecting their own responsibility over the poisoning of students and building new legal cases against union and civil activist,” Mohammad Habibi, spokesman of the Iran Teachers’ Trade Association, said in an Instagram post Saturday.
Habibi vowed that teachers would continue to defend “our children and their achievements [in the protest movement].” “Our message to them is clear: we will not withdraw [against pressures by the security forces].”
Speaking in an interview with Didban Iran [Iran Monitor] website, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad-Javad Alavi-Boroujerdi who teaches jurisprudence and principles of Shiism at the Qom Seminary, added that there are home-based churches in Qom for Muslims who have converted to Christianity.
Converting to another religion is forbidden in Islam and Iran's government does not allow or recognize conversion.
Presenting further evidence about Iranian youths abandoning Shiism, Boroujerdi said that some people in Qom are converting to Budhism. "The number of Wahabi Muslims in Iran is also on the rise. They have increased their activities and have their own Friday Prayer congregations," Said Boroujerdi.
He criticized Iranian hardliners for violent methods to make people stick to strict Shiite religious rules and said we cannot divide people into insiders and outsiders and then tell the outsiders to leave the country.
Boroujerdi warned that "some Iranians including the Bakhtiaris are separating from us, and that is a problem." He added: "These are the people who used to be with us. Let us be friends with the people and maintain our communication with them," he advised regime officials.
"I feel responsible for the youngsters who have left us and became Christian. He is a Shite boy and I must bring him back into the fold. I cannot let him go."
The scholar added that the 12th Imam of the Shiites went into the occult because a divide occurred among the people after the 11th Imam's death and the people at the time did not embrace the 12th Imam's leadership." Meanwhile, he stressed that "people including state officials who promise the hidden Imam's imminent return are liars. He will emerge only when Allah wants him to emerge from the occult."
Boroujerdi regretted that young clerics who start their career at the seminary in all honesty and modesty, gradually do away with these traits and may only try to return to them when they are too old. He asked: "What have we done to young Shiites who fought a war for us and are still enduring the sanctions?"
Other clerics and commentators have also said that Iranian youth have turned their back to Shiism. Conservative website Alef in Iran wrote last April that "the presence of religion as part of the government has led to a decline in religious beliefs."
The website added, "the experience of the Islamic Republic in Iran showed that political religion, i.e., clerics’ presence in political positions and in the government has led to a decline in the people's religious beliefs."
The report further added that Iranians were more religious under the Shah than in the Islamic Republic where clerics are holding political power. Iranian clerics' social status declined further during more than five months of street protests against the government, as people came out to demand a secular government with no clerics in key positions.
Reports on the Qom Seminary's own website indicate that clerics and government officials knew since more than ten years ago that Iranian youths have turned their backs to religion.
Meanwhile, media reports indicate that even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei knows that Iranians demand a secular government and that the youths are turning away from his religious government.
Nonetheless, some clerics and Muslim scholars maintain that young Iranians are only weary of the version of religion that treats them in a dogmatic and unilateral way. They are fed up with the paradoxes that we feed them. otherwise, they are not against the essence of religion."