Former NATO Secretary General Solano and former Swedish Prime Minister Bildt: Biden’s stance on Iran threatens war
U.S. President Joe Biden should intensify efforts to renew the nuclear deal with Iran, otherwise a “catastrophic new war” could break out in the Middle East, former NATO Secretary General Javier Solano and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said in a joint article for the Washington Post.
The politicians noted that actions by U.S. authorities, such as the recognition of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists or the U.S. Senate’s decision to include non-nuclear issues in the nuclear deal, would almost certainly derail the restoration of the agreement. In contrast, Washington’s European allies have been working hard for a diplomatic settlement throughout the negotiations since 2015.
“Now the Europeans <…> have once again become the driving force behind the negotiating efforts in the hope of ending the nuclear crisis and avoiding another catastrophic war in the Middle East. It is puzzling, therefore, that after declaring in the election that he would return to the nuclear deal and promising that ‘America is back,’ Biden is still delaying the diplomacy so strongly supported by his allies,” Solano and Bildt write.
They recalled the experience of Western negotiations with the Soviet Union on arms control, pointing out that the United States and its allies did it for their own national security, not out of a desire to support the Soviet leadership or to improve relations with Moscow. In the politicians’ view, the West should follow the same logic in negotiating a nuclear deal with Tehran.
“Biden must think seriously about the risks of his passivity toward Iran and find a way forward – or else we will get into another uninvited conflict,” Solano and Bildt concluded.
In 2015, Britain, Germany, China, Russia, the United States, France, and Iran struck a nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which involved the lifting of sanctions in exchange for curbing Iran’s nuclear program. In May 2018, U.S. President Trump left the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions against Tehran. In response, Iran declared gradual reduction of its steps under the agreement, walking back the restrictions on nuclear research, centrifuges, and uranium enrichment levels.
In Vienna, negotiations on the renewal of the JCPOA and the lifting of Washington’s sanctions against Tehran are taking place, with the eighth round starting on December 27, 2021. During the seventh round, in December, the sides reached agreement on two drafts of the agreement, in which the European side included Iran’s positions. According to Tehran’s representative Bagheri Kiani, the negotiations are going well, but U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price assessed the progress in Vienna as “modest” and called on the Islamic Republic to take the issue seriously. Since the sides returned to their capitals at the end of March, negotiations have stalled. The Iranian Foreign Ministry blames the U.S. administration.