The sanctions club
This year, the crippling sanctions on Iran have restricted their ability to export oil to all but a handful of countries. So far, the first quarter of 2019 saw significant oil exports only reaching Japan, South Korea, China, and India. Taiwan, Greece, and Italy all had their waivers from the U.S. allowing them to buy from Iran revoked, removing all three nations from the balance sheet.
Essentially the only countries left with whom Iran might look to sell to are nations that don’t necessarily take interest in America’s blustering namely China and Turkey, but also countries that are already locked down with sanctions such as Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Between the rigidly-sanctioned regimes of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and others, an entire economy could exist; propped up by the fact that America’s line in the sand has already been crossed. Are they supposed to fear being sanctioned for trading petro-products and other goods between one another?
The idea would be that maximum pressure on Iran is supposed to pull the regime into economic collapse, or to the negotiating table, but the inability to show good faith of any kind by the Trump Administration is pushing them further away from a point where Washington would be willing to negotiate, and toward relying on the markets of countries like China and India, relieving some of the pressure of America’s sanctions campaign in ways that also don’t draw them closer to the negotiating table.
Sanctions and nukes
Trump’s position has always been that the JCPOA was a “bad deal” and Iran must come negotiate a “better deal”.
The purpose of the negotiations is of course that Iran must never be able to possess a nuclear weapon. Even now, after months of skyrocketing tensions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has insisted that if America were to return to the 2015 JCPOA, Iran would honor her commitments to it.
While admitting the state of the commitments agreed upon by many of the signatures of the treaty resemble an “intensive care unit,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister has urged Europe to aid in its surgery.
Under the current agreement, the US would allow various Iranian economic sectors to move and shake, the Iranians would maintain very low atomic energy capabilities, and Europe would act as a barrier to any further sanctions from the United States.
So far, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has made four steps towards restoring their uranium enrichment program, in accordance with paragraph 36 of the JCPOA which “allows one side, under certain circumstances, to stop complying with the deal if the other side is out of compliance”.
This has included injecting uranium gas into 1,000 centrifuges under the watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency. WaL
PICTURED ABOVE: 2019 Iranian protesters set fire to a bike. PC: FARS news agency. CC 4.0 Int.
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