With the 2015 nuclear deal talks still taking place in Vienna, this is just the latest round of meaningless negotiations that are not likely to be resolved in the way that most of the signatories of the deal would hope. The talks seem to be going round and round over the same issues, with no clear decisions made moving forward.
To recap, this deal also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was made with the Iranian regime in 2015 by the Obama administration to prevent the regime from gaining access to nuclear weapons.
This happen years later after the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) revealed that the Iranian government had created a secret nuclear program and was in the process of building several nuclear facilities.
The secrecy sparked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to investigate and to this day, the Iranian regime’s true intentions for their nuclear program are a curiosity.
Once again in 2015, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) announced in a press conference in the US that they had acquired evidence from sources inside the regime that there was a secret underground facility near Tehran that was engaged in enriching uranium.
The secretive nature of Iran’s nuclear development and Iran’s unwillingness to reveal the full scope of its program became one of the world’s most critical security issues, with fears centering on the overwhelming likelihood of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Between 2006 and 2015, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed eight resolutions on Iran’s nuclear program, including one in December 2006 imposing sanctions.
In a bid to curb the nuclear intentions of the Iranian regime, the Iran nuclear deal was agreed in 2015 between Iran and the following member states: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the European Union (EU). The purpose of the deal was to resolve the concerns over the regime’s nuclear program, but to this day, the JCPOA has not achieved its goals.
Finally, on May 8, 2018, then US President Donald Trump announced that the United States would cease its participation in the JCPOA.
Then the Trump administration said that the US intends to impose ‘the highest level of economic sanctions’ against Iran, targeting ‘critical sectors’ of Iran’s economy, such as its energy, petrochemical, and financial industries.
But until now this has not made any changes in the regime’s behavior and this regime is continuing its nuclear project toward a bomb with a quite pushed gas pedal.
Now with the new US administration, the US is trying to stop the regime’s nuclear project in the hope to revive the JCPOA.
The negotiations are currently in their eight-round, which started on December 27, and while the regime has expressed its optimism over the current progress, other parties involved in the talks do not share the same position.
Ned Price, the U.S. State Department’s spokesperson stated, “Iran has, at best, been dragging its feet in the talks while accelerating its nuclear escalation. We’ve been very clear that that won’t work. Iran needs exercise restraint in its nuclear program and adds real urgency in Vienna.”
During negotiations, the Iranian regime has made three demands to the other signatories of the nuclear deal. The first is that all U.S. sanctions placed on them must be lifted, and no further sanctions to be imposed on them in the future. The second is a guarantee that no future administrations will withdraw from the agreement, and finally, guarantees that any companies that enter trade deals with Iran will not exit Iran’s markets, and will not be subjected to sanctions.
As experts have already pointed out, the regime’s demands are impossible to meet, and the demands have only caused the talks to be pushed into a possible deadlock.
The regime is faced with two decisions. Either to give in and comply to the demands of the international community by agreeing to the terms of a new deal or continue its current stance of hostility and confrontation. Both paths have consequences and will only spell disaster for them whichever route they decide to go down.
Even if a deal with Iran is reached, experience tells us that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted because all its actions are based on lies, deception, and are not transparent. The international community should be careful not to get deceived once again by the regime after many of the regime’s officials stated implicitly that the regime will not stop its nuclear program and sees its right to gain nuclear weapons.
This should happen, especially after the world’s nuclear powers have agreed to work together to stop the further spread of nuclear arms and to avoid nuclear conflicts, according to a joint statement.
“We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented,” said the five permanent U.N. Security Council members China, France, Russia, Britain, and the United States, collectively known as the P5. We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
Therefore, there is absolutely no place in the world for a clerical regime like Iran, which is supporting global terrorism and tries to achieve nuclear weapons.
