On November 29, 2021, the resumption of Iran's "nuclear talks" with the United States and the "5 + 1" countries was announced in Vienna.
Negotiations broke off in June after six rounds, and all this time Iran at an accelerated pace, not forgetting to inform the world about its every step, increases the level and volume of uranium enrichment.
And now, when the final date of the "nuclear talks" has finally been announced, it suddenly becomes clear that there may not be a deal at all.
Although Russia, as a mediator between Iran and the United States, plays a vital role in the negotiation process: Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov is in constant negotiations with his Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri Kani, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's Permanent Representative in Vienna, oversees negotiations on the Russian side.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also actively involved in the negotiation process.
In early September, President Biden's special envoy, Rob Malley, flew to Moscow to ask the Russian president to help persuade Iran's supreme leader to return to the nuclear deal.
And on November 16, 2021, two weeks before the restart of nuclear talks in Vienna, President Vladimir Putin called Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, expressing the hope that the negotiations on the JCPOA scheduled for late November "will be held in a constructive manner."
While Putin was calling Raisi, the same "Biden's man on Iran" Rob Malley visited the Middle East on a C-40 VIP aircraft of the US Air Force.
Starting with the monarchies of the Gulf - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, he landed in Israel in the final of the tour, where he had the most difficult conversation - to discuss the Iranian nuclear deal with Iran with the Israelis.
And at this very time, on November 17, two guns at once fired in a volley at the prospect of an agreement with Iran.
1. The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive statement that the production in Karaj, to which the IAEA inspectors had no access for several months, resumed the manufacture of equipment (rotors and siphons), components of an advanced nuclear program, several months ago.
The publication cites experts suggesting that Iran could have secretly diverted parts of centrifuges to create nuclear weapons.
An interim agreement is one among many options if the JCPOA restoration proves beyond reach, but it's neither the only nor the likeliest scenario ... https://t.co/UQby3X4tCw
- Ali Vaez (@AliVaez) November 17, 2021
2. The Israeli and American media have leaked that White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed with his Israeli counterpart Eyal Khulata the idea of a temporary nuclear deal.
Its essence: in exchange for freezing uranium enrichment, the United States and its allies will unblock Iranian financial assets around the world and lift sanctions on humanitarian goods.
Like, we can leave Iran's enrichment level at 60% alone while we are discussing a full-fledged deal.
Eyal Khulata, as a sane person, called it a bad idea, suggesting that such a deal would free Iranian assets and allow Iran to continue its nuclear program and replenish its enriched uranium reserves.
What is called, hello, Captain Obvious!
In the place of Iran, I would have long ago transferred the nuclear program to top secrecy, transporting equipment to dark dungeons unknown to IAEA inspectors, similar to their own rocket underground cities, and would have brought it to perfection there (if not already).
Although, if it even occurred to me, why could it not have occurred to Khamenei and the Iranian nuclear physicists?
In my opinion, the same plant in Natanz, as well as some other objects, has long become a kind of "pavilion of the Iranian VDNKh", such a Hollywood studio for visiting international inspectors, which contains exactly what these experts are supposed to see.
And how, tell me, an IAEA inspector who is met by the Ksirovites and the mullahs like this, seated on the golden throne by them, can see something inappropriate at the "nuclear facilities of Iran"? ..
Two meetings, ± 6 months difference.
It could be some kind of a perfect deja vu if Kamalvandi and Gharibabadi had not switched seats.
And the color of the masks has changed as well ..
Same room, same chairs, same Iranian tactics.
pic.twitter.com/Ni6HLMVB3O
- Omer Carmi (@CarmiOmer) September 11, 2021
Don't tell my centrifuges.
The same Rob Malli, meeting in Israel with Khulata, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, heard from them unanimous: the only way to return Iran to an agreement is to increase pressure on it, not to weaken it.
But Malli has her own strategy, and it does not seem to coincide with the Israeli one.
“We do not yet know what the final position of Iran will be,” says Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the international Crisis Group, which was led by Rob Malley before returning to the White House.
“If they want to completely lift the sanctions imposed by Trump, demanding assurances that the President of the United States, current or future, will never reintroduce those sanctions, they will not get it” (Diplomatic by Laura Rozen).
Considering that advice on nuclear expansion and nuclear threats to Iran during the Trump era was given by the same Robert Mally, who was then the director of the Crisis Group, I had no doubt that it was the demands of these guarantees that we would eventually hear from Iran.
Because since Iran started its nuclear program with the help of the United States in 1958, it is still the personal history of these two states, in which they interfere with the rest of the world.
All world diplomacy is literally performing ritual dances with tambourines around the 82-year-old Iranian supreme leader, Mr. Khamenei, and his 100-year-old colleagues from the Council of Experts with pleas to slow down uranium enrichment and not make a nuclear bomb.
And he continues to do it.
So do not call President Raisi, he is not the one who solves these issues.
Khamenei did not have to wait long for an answer.
An old friend of the Iranian leader, known for accusing Jews of witchcraft and the United States of creating the coronavirus, suddenly materialized on the pages of Iranian newspapers.
Khojat al-Islam (a Shiite religious title below Ayatollah, corresponds to a bishop in Christianity) Mehdi Taeb gave advice to Iranian negotiators who will travel to Vienna at the end of November: “They should tell the other side at the negotiating table that if they do not respect our rights in negotiations, we will take them away by force and it will cost them dearly. "
Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Taeb provided on Sunday an advice to Iran's nuclear negotiators: “They should tell the other side to the talks that if they won't give us our rights in the negotiations, we have the power to take our rights using force, and this will be very costly for them ”pic.twitter.com/sWVby01kbl
- Omer Carmi (@CarmiOmer) November 16, 2021
Taeb and announced the updated package of requirements for the United States:
- at the renewed negotiations, the United States does not raise the topic of missiles and the Iranian regional program (that is, Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc.) and generally no longer discusses the Iranian nuclear program;
- The United States lifts all Obama and Trump sanctions at once;
- The United States, as a “breach of confidence”, must pay huge monetary compensation to the Islamic republic.
Taeb is not an ordinary "Shiite bishop" - he is the brother of the head of the Ksirov intelligence service Hossein Taeb and the closest adviser to Khamenei, so he can be safely considered an unofficial relay of the supreme leader of Iran.
So American negotiators need not worry about what position Iran will voice in Vienna.
He has already voiced it.
While the entire Iranian Foreign Ministry is working on a business trip, making voyages between Tehran, Europe, Russia and others, discussing the details and conditions of returning to the negotiating table, Khamenei himself is dragging out time as much as possible.
And, as you might have guessed, it is actively continuing its nuclear program.
And it will be even more active to continue it if the Americans unfreeze Iranian assets in exchange for the admission of inspectors to exemplary factories in Natanz and elsewhere.
Yes, this is, in general, a rather old movie.
I’ll just remind those who, maybe, didn’t know.
Iran's nuclear program was born in 1957 under the Shah Reza Pahlavi (and not at all under the gray-bearded mullahs).
And precisely with the filing of the United States.
On March 5, 1957, Iran signed with the United States "an agreement on technical assistance in the framework of President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace" project.
In 1958, Iran became a member of the IAEA (whose inspectors are still so fond of visiting Iran as their home).
In 1971, an event happens that plays the role of a historical link between such a rapid development of Iran and its collapse in 1979: Shah Reza Pahlavi celebrated the 2500th anniversary of the emergence of the Persian Empire in Persepolis, which entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most luxurious celebration in terms of the amount spent on money and luxury (from $ 200 million to $ 300 million US at the 1971 exchange rate).
Shah Reza Pahlavi wanted to join the club of the rulers of the most powerful powers in the world and, in general, Iran was rapidly moving towards this.
The oldest established monarchy in the world, the oldest state in the world, which has survived to this day and has not sunk into oblivion of history.
Well, you understand that not everyone in the world could like it.
US President Richard Nixon and Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, who sent her husband Prince Philip instead, could not attend the most luxurious name days of the Persian Empire.
Along the ruins of Persepolis, the former capital of the Persian Empire, founded by Darius I the Great between 520 and 515 BC.
BC, Prince Philip walked impressed and bewildered.
IRAN 1971: Prince Philip at the remains of the ancient palace of Persepolis near the city of Shiraz.
He was in Iran as a guest of the Shah to attend celebrations of the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire.
(Rolls Press / Popperfoto / Getty) pic.twitter.com/3OBrwNFsGM
- Negar Mortazavi نگار مرتضوی (@NegarMortazavi) April 10, 2021
Until 1974, Iran signed a number of nonproliferation treaties, and then announced its ambitious plans in the field of nuclear energy: within 20 years to build 23 nuclear reactors (with a capacity of 23 GW) and create a closed nuclear fuel cycle.
In the same 1974, Iran created its Atomic Energy Organization, acquired a 10% stake in uranium enrichment in French Tricasten, that is, even became a shareholder in the French Eurodif, and in 1975 German Siemens began to build a nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
In 1979, the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran, which demolished almost everything created by the Shah.
Including the ambitious Iranian nuclear program.
In 1980, the FRG government joins the US sanctions imposed after the Islamic Revolution and stops the construction of the Bushehr reactor.
The 2,500-year-old monarchy is coming to an end.
But the paradox is that the mullahs who destroyed it suffer the same phantom imperial pains.
Yes, Iran has not built 23 nuclear reactors, but for several decades it has been forcing the whole world to talk about its nuclear program.
After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, this program entered the shadow sphere, as did the economy surviving under sanctions.
The construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant took decades.
Pakistan, China, Argentina come to the aid of Iran, and since 1995 Russia has officially entered the game.
Since then, in addition to the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, “code words-cities” have appeared, symbolizing the country's nuclear program: Arak, underground Fordow, Natanz, Karaj.
Presidents change in Iran: the liberal Khatami is replaced by the shocking Ahmadinejad, then the semi-liberal Rouhani comes with Javad Zarif, who speaks English with an American accent, followed by a member of the Death Commission, a judge, prosecutor and student of Rahbar Raisi - and with all of them throughout For almost 20 years now, the West has been negotiating about the nuclear program, sometimes signing agreements, then terminating them - and again everything in a circle.
I do not know of a single country in the world whose nuclear program has been so actively promoted by the United States of America for several decades.
Everyone who really wanted to got their nuclear weapons without rattling them or threatening the world.
The most brilliant commentary on the presence of nuclear weapons comes from Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: “We have no nuclear weapons.
But if necessary, we will apply it. "
Unless, of course, he is just another legend.
As for Iran, we see that Europe, Great Britain, Russia, China, at the suggestion of and together with the United States, year after year, are discussing the possibility of Iran creating nuclear weapons (although, according to experts, Iran did not become a pre-threshold state yesterday).
And, for example, the most active promotion of Iran's military nuclear program Aman fell on the presidency of one of the most liberal presidents of Iran, Mohammad Khatami.
While the whole world invited him to forums and dialogues, meetings with world leaders and lifted sanctions from Tehran to songs about "liberalization", the military program under the supervision of nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed last November, went underground and made a breakthrough.
It is possible that this time too - with a leak about a "temporary" deal (there is nothing more permanent than a temporary one) and, on the other side of the fence, with the usual blackmail, threats and shocks with an old man's fist - these guys are just fooling us.
There is no doubt that they will not let each other die.
As soon as the WSJ on November 16 published an article that “Iran is violating” the JCPOA behind the backs of all negotiators, the IAEA immediately announced an urgent visit by the head of the agency, Rafael Grossi, to Tehran on November 22-23, 2021.
Grossi's visit to Iran will take place exactly on the eve of the meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors on November 24-26 in Vienna.
And there is no doubt that, upon his return, Grossi will ask not to punish Iran, so as not to disrupt the talks scheduled for November 29, which, according to Mr Sullivan and Mr Malli, may continue for a long time in search of a perfect deal.
It is even possible that during the visit of the head of the IAEA to the nuclear facility in Karaj, the Revolutionary Guards will install video cameras inside it - such a kind, according to the Iranians themselves, is full in the Tehran bazaar.
So when the super-restrained Russian diplomat, Russia's representative in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, on October 23, 2021, loses patience and ironically asks the Iranian leadership on Twitter (in response to their promise to resume negotiations soon): "Soon."
Does anyone know what this actually means in real life? "
I can answer.
Mr. Ulyanov, this song will be eternal!
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.