After Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s moderate president, entered office last August, he stressed his readiness to negotiate with the United States. Despite fierce opposition by regime hardliners, he appointed as vice president for strategic affairs former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, an architect of the 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), between Iran and the P5+1 countries — the five permanent members of the United Nations Security (UNSC) council plus Germany. The two seemed to enjoy the full support of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who, in a speech last August, declared that there was “no barrier” to negotiations.
Zarif penned two pieces, published by Foreign Affairs and the Economist, and granted an interview to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in which he emphasized Iran’s readiness to engage the United States and the West. These public offerings would almost certainly not have happened had Khamenei not approved. In fact, the sole purpose of Zarif’s presence in the new Pezeshkian administration was to prepare for negotiations with the United States. Indeed, given the relentless attacks on Zarif by Iran’s hardliners, he could join the new administration only if Khamenei gave his blessing. Other former and current Iranian officials have also expressed strong support for negotiations.
Hopes for negotiations rose after President Donald Trump won last November’s election. He, too, said repeatedly that he wants to negotiate with Iran, although he also kept threatening it with military action.
Those hopes were, however, dashed when Trump signed an executive order last month to bring back the “maximum pressure” policy of his first term — essentially the plan by his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton to either force Iran to “capitulate” or to attack Iran militarily.
While negotiations between Iran and the United States should take place, no self-respecting nation, let alone Iran, a proud nation with 7,000 years of written history, will agree to negotiate if it is asked to capitulate. Khamenei’s reaction was no different: In a speech only a week after he had again signaled his support for negotiations, he angrily denounced the idea, saying, “You should not negotiate with such a government, it is unwise, it is not intelligent, it is not honorable to negotiate.”
After Khamenei’s denunciation, Zarif was forced out of the government by hardliners and returned to his teaching at the University of Tehran, since there was no purpose for him to remain in the government.
Trump told Fox Business Sunday that he had sent a letter to Khamenei. “I hope you’re going to negotiate,” he said, “because if we have to go in militarily it’s going to be a terrible thing for them.”
Despite the threat, the fact that he sent the letter is positive. But to bear fruit, it must be backed up by action. The president should suspend imposing the “maximum pressure” policy until negotiations take place and their outcome becomes clear.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had already said as much, “We will not enter any direct negotiations with the U.S. so long as they continue their maximum pressure policy and their threats, but it doesn’t mean that, regarding our nuclear program, we will not negotiate with other parties; we are talking with the three European countries, we are negotiating with Russia and China…”
Trump has said that he needs guarantees that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons. Iranian officials point to Khamenei’s Fatwa [religious edict] banning production of weapons of mass destruction, as that guarantee. This may not be reassurance enough for the West, but there is already a strong guarantee of the sort that Trump seeks.
On January 17, Iran and Russia signed an agreement for strategic cooperation. The agreement came about despite the Rand Corporation’s prediction in 2023 that, “The transactional quality of Russian-Iran relationship inhibits the development of a boarder strategic partnership.” Dana Stroul of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy had also declared that “although Russia played a helpful role in past international efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its reliance on Iranian military support will erode its willingness to enforce global nuclear nonproliferation norms.”
While immediate assessments of the new agreement by mainstream U.S. media as well as the major Washington major think tanks on which the media rely, either claimed that it revolved around the Russia-Ukraine conflict or that it was of limited significance, a closer look indicates its potential importance and relevance to nuclear policy. Article 10 of the agreement states that,
“The Contracting Parties shall cooperate closely on arms control, disarmament, non-proliferation, and international security issues within the framework of the relevant international treaties and international organizations to which they are parties, and hold consultations regularly on these matters…”
If we accord the conventional meaning of the words, the key phrase, “non-proliferation… within the framework of the relevant international treaties” must refer to adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In addition, recall that, prior to the JCPOA, Russia did not hesitate to join other U.N. Security Council permanent members in imposing crippling sanctions against Iran whenever it determined that Tehran had violated its international obligations; it did not veto even one out of the six UNSC resolutions that imposed sanctions on Iran.
Iran complied fully with the JCPOA and restricted its uranium enrichment to the level it specified for a full year after the first Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018. The fact that Iran has agreed to uphold the NPT’s major requirement of peaceful nuclear activities under a binding bilateral agreement with a major world power is legal affirmation of its religiously declared position on prohibition of nuclear arms.
If Iran elects to pursue the nuclear arms path, the economic ramifications of any violation, including the loss of financial benefits promised in the agreement, will be severe enough for it to think again, let alone putting itself at the risk of having its nuclear facilities bombed by the U.S. and Israel.
It is in this context that Russia, Iran’s main partner in building nuclear reactors and related facilities, has undertaken a commitment, in accordance with Article 23 of the agreement, to continue and expand partnership with Iran in the future. It provides,
“The Contracting Parties shall promote the development of long-term and mutually beneficial relations for the purpose of implementing joint projects in the area of peaceful use of nuclear energy, including the construction of nuclear energy facilities.”
Thus, the agreement provides more incentive for Iran to abide by its international obligations, including not violating the NPT. Given that it is not in Russia’s strategic interest for Iran to be armed with nuclear weapons, that Iran needs Russia at this critical juncture, and that Trump seemingly enjoys good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the agreement’s Articles 10 and 23 provide strong guarantees for a non-nuclear Iran.
If, however, such guarantees are ignored, and the United States and/or Israel attack Iran, all bets will be off.
