A Russian wrench in Vienna stops U.S. dash for the goal
By MK BHADRAKUMAR
On 5 March, Moscow required composed warranties of sanctions waiversfrom United States President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken that would maintain Russia’s ambitious economic, scientific-technological and military collaboration tasks in the pipeline with Iran.
While independently, Iranian delegation members in Vienna were undoubtedly miffed at this eleventh-hour wrench in the works, Tehran’s official position was stoic.
“Russia is an accountable member of nuclear negotiations, and it has constantly shown that, not like America,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokeman Saeed Khatibzadeh informed reporters on Monday.
“It is natural for us to discuss its [Russia’s] demands,” he continued, and boosted Moscow’s position by adding: “What actually matters is that the nuclear cooperation relations between Iran and various nations should not undergo sanctions.”
March 5 also takes place to be the anniversary of the date the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force in 1970.
The fate of the NPT might now hinge on the US reaction. For, if the Biden administration rides the high horse, that will likely be a deal-breaker for the current settlements in Vienna to broker the United States’ go back to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also referred to as the Joint Comprehensive Strategy (JCPOA).
On the other hand, a golden chance is now at hand for Iran too to hang tough on its staying demands– that is, removing the United States classification of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization; a firm assurance that a future US federal government will not (again) renege on the nuclear deal; and, conclusively closing the International Atomic Energy Company’s (IAEA) case on Tehran’s nuclear program. Russia is firmly encouraging of Iran’s needs.
The opportunities of Biden requiring Moscow with sanctions waivers are nil, as that would lethally damage US eminence and make a complete mockery of its ‘weaponization of the dollar’ (which is what sanctions have to do with). Without utilizing sanctions as a weapon, the United States is increasingly not able to force its will on other countries.
The “sanctions from hell” just recently troubled Russia demonstrate a new cutting edge, and include the freezing of Russia’s reserve bank reserves. It is a negative relocate to the extreme which may come with significant unforeseen consequences. For one, the United States seems sending an effective message to China as well, which holds something like 2-3 trillion dollars as US Treasury bonds.
China draws its own lines
The callfrom Blinken to his Chinese equivalent Wang Yi on March 5– the same day Russia sent its need for sanction waivers– suggests that China is no doubt carefully observing developments. Wang told Blinken point-blank that Beijing has “grave issue over recent words and deeds of the United States side,” specifically with regard to Taiwan, and expects “concrete actions” by the Americans to support the relationship.
China has regularly opposed United States sanctions. On the concern of Ukraine, Wang Yi cautioned Washington from taking more actions that “include fuel to the fire” (alluding to reported strategies to dispatch foreign mercenaries to sign up with the combating), and notably, “to engage in equal discussion with Russia, confront the frictions and problems collected over the years, take notice of the unfavorable impact of NATO’s continuous eastward expansion on Russia’s security, and look for to build a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism in accordance with the ‘indivisibility of security’ concept.”
Suffice to state, if China is not caving in, the strong probability is that the settlements in Vienna may soon lose momentum. The most recent Russian demand can even prove a deal-maker. The action-reaction syndrome utilized to be a staple of the superpower nuclear competition. However Russians seem to have actually now found an ingenious brand-new dimension to it: counter US dollar weaponization by extending the countermeasure to the nuclear non-proliferation issue.
“Weaponizing the atom”
By doing so, Russia has elevated the American sanctions program far beyond the unrefined cash regards to taking central bank dollar reserves — which is plain highway robbery– to an altogether new sublime level of “weaponization of atom.”
Iran has actually suffered tremendously from the United States’ weaponization of the dollar. Since its 1979 transformation, Iran has actually been under western sanctions focused on suppressing its growth and development– many of them harsh and humiliating. These hit a nadir, when at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States even obstructed Iran’s path to obtain vaccines for its residents.
Numerous such dreadful episodes can be dredged up from Iran’s four-decade-long agonizing history as a victim of America’s “weaponization of dollar,” where, an immensely resource-rich nation was forced to live far below its genuine potential, and among the world’s greatest and earliest civilizations suffered embarrassments at the hands of an uppity nation with some 246 years of history.
It should then be tormenting for Washington that Iran is one of the nations that has immense potential to resort to “weaponization of atom” to counter America’s “weaponization of dollar.”
Whether it will do or not is a moot point. Definitely, Iran’s specified preference is to live without nuclear weapons. That is why it has come totally prepared to seal the deal at the negotiations in Vienna. Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian even informed EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell on Friday that he’s “prepared to fly to Vienna” to sign the nuclear deal on Monday.
But the point is, if Iran dreams, it has the ability to fulfill the United States on equal terms even without a nuclear handle Vienna. In fact, if Biden declines to offer Russia with a composed warranty to suspend the “sanctions from hell,” that deal may not go through in Vienna, given that Russia, as an initial signatory to the JCPOA, need to accept it. Obviously, the Americans are insisting that they will continue to deal with Russia at Vienna within the matrix of their shared interest to avoid Iran from producing nuclear weapons.
Certainly, as it is, the staying three demands by Iranlikewise posture a big obstacle to Biden. Lifting the ban on the IRGC is a bitter tablet for the Washington elite to swallow; once again, Biden is in no position to guarantee that a deal signed in Vienna will have any shelf life beyond his presidency.
Herein lies the catch. Until such time as an arrangement is reached in Vienna, Iran’s centrifuges will be producing enriched uranium, which would suggest that the so-called “breakout time” keeps shrinking and for all purposes, eventually, Iran will have changed itself as a virtual nuclear weapon state whether it wants or not– and the really function of the offer that the US is frantically looking for at Vienna will be beat.
For Iran too, this is a crucial moment. Things have come to such a pass in global politics that lots of nations, which voluntarily signed the NPT, most likely regret their choice now. India, Pakistan and North Korea already broke the NPT shackle. The point is, in the last analysis, a nuclear weapon is the ways to maintain a country’s strategic autonomy to pursue independent policies.
It offers a firewall program versus foreign disturbance in the internal affairs; it decreases the scope for Washington’s coup maker to overthrow the established federal government; it compels the US to desert the extremely unethical, negative bullying by means of “weaponization of the dollar;” and, above all, it enhances plurality on the planet order by reinforcing a country’s freedom to select its own special course of development.
“Atoms for Peace” was the title of a popular speech provided by US President Dwight Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City in 1953. In retrospection, it ended up being a propaganda part of the United States’ Cold War method of including the former Soviet Union.
Eisenhower was launching a media campaign that would last for years aimed at “feeling management,” balancing worries of continuing nuclear armament with guarantees of tranquil use of uranium in future atomic power plants.
Paradoxically, that memorable expression obtains today an entirely new significance: Atoms may use the best means to a fair world order.