News Analysis |
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has vowed to continue his country’s missile program for its defense, for it does not flout any international accord. He made these remarks on Sunday in a speech which was broadcast on state media, days after the US House of Representatives voted for new sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
“We will not doubt about building, stockpiling and using any type of weapons that we need to defend ourselves and our nation when necessary,” said the 68-year old Rouhani while adding: “We have produced missiles, are producing them and will continue their production and it is not a violation of any international law.”
Ties between Washington and Tehran have never been cordial since the monumental revolution of 1979. However, the instrument which arrested a catastrophe: the Iran Nuclear Deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was dealt a severe blow when President Trump decertified it earlier this month.
Akbar Salehi said that the country can convert from Lowly enriched uranium (LEU) to highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in a matter of 4 days.
This not only compelled Iran to ratchet up its verbal tirade of the US but has worried proponents of the deal who are certain that Trump’s singular desire of revoking it will be ruinous for U.S. interests in the region.
Rouhani, who cracked the deal with the P5 plus 1 countries in 2015 said his country will defend its national security at all costs while hitting out at the US for violating the nuclear deal unilaterally, despite Tehran’s compliance with it. “Are these countries crazy to negotiate with you?” President Rouhani asked, confirming the apprehensions of experts who feel that reneging from the deal will make the US lose credibility while precluding an even otherwise narrow window to negotiate with the reclusive regime in North Korea.
Read more: Why are Iran and US bitter & old enemies?
Talking to GVS, geopolitical analyst, Adam Garrie expressed similar doubts if the deal is tinkered with.”If the US goes through with either formally withdrawing from the deal or abusing it in such a way that it makes the deal null and void, it will be up to the other parties to either make a new deal without the US or to agree to prolong the JCPOA as it stands, only without the US as a party,” he said while adding:” While Russia and China will continue to do business with Iran irrespective of what happens, the big test will be the EU. If the EU carries on with the JCPOA will the US punish its own allies with sanctions? They may, but I do not think they will.
Garrie, who often speaks on the Iranian nuclear program further added:”Trump recently gave an interview where he was asked about the EU position and he said (quite honestly) that many European companies are making a great deal of money in deals with Iran and they have the right to do that. In this sense, businessman Trump will probably look the other way if the EU continues working with Iran according to the terms of the JCPOA.” He also asserted:” Of course, the Zionist lobby in the US who want war with Iran will certainly not be happy about this.”
Read more: Iran is Trump’s perpetual enemy in the Middle East
I don’t want to meet you!
Concomitantly, the news of Rouhani turning down Trump’s offer to meet on the sidelines of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), last month has recently emerged. “US President Trump has invited President Rouhani to a face-to-face meeting during Mr. Rouhani’s visit to New York to participate in the UN annual conference in September but our president has turned down the offer,” Iranian analyst Mahdi Faza’eli wrote on Sunday while noting that the overture was made a day after Trump flayed Iran in his address at the UNGA.
Bahram Qassemi saying that “this willingness (to meet President Rouhani) was expressed by the American side, but was rejected by the Iran’s president.”
This unsurprising news was later confirmed by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Spokesman Bahram Qassemi confirmed Faza’eli’s revelation, saying that “this willingness (to meet President Rouhani) was expressed by the American side, but was rejected by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s president.”
Analysts while pointing out to Iran’s policies in the Middle East, much against U.S. interests believe that the more Iran will be pressurized, the more it will challenge the US and its allies. Experts feel that Trump’s Iran policy has strengthened the hands of the hardliners in Iran. The Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, who has never minced his words against the US in the past again berated it last week. “We have previously declared, and once again we declare that the defense capabilities of the country are non-negotiable and not to be bargained for,” the Iranian Supreme Leader said on Wednesday while adding: “Our dear Iran was once submissive to American, Zionist, and English advocates. This nation, country, and its history had been drawn into repression by dependent, cruel, weak and submissive rulers.”
Read more: Iran’s President hits back at Trump: US Allies reject America’s “unilateralism”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has vowed to continue his country’s missile program for its defense, for it does not flout any international accord.
Non-proliferation experts are wary that attempts to undermine the Nuclear deal can become a real foreign policy challenge for the US. They contend that JCPOA was the best that the international community could have expected to eke-out from the Islamic Republic. Iran’s realist and national-interest-based foreign policy conduct can pose a non-proliferation challenge for the US, should the deal be done away with.
These apprehensions were given more air when the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), Akbar Salehi said that the country can convert from Lowly enriched uranium (LEU) to highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in a matter of 4 days. “We can produce 20% (uranium enrichment) at Fordow in 4 days but we don’t want the nuclear deal to collapse,” Salehi told media men after a joint press conference with Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano in Tehran on Sunday.
the instrument which arrested a catastrophe: the Iran Nuclear Deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was dealt a severe blow when President Trump decertified it earlier this month.
GVS talked to geopolitical analysts Andrew Korybko on how he sees the Iran-US tiff branching out in the days to come. Andrew, who frequently writes on the hostile ties between the two countries said: “US-Iranian relations are moving along a very negative trajectory, though it’s unlikely that they’ll devolve to the point of a war between the two Great Powers. Both states are capable of inflicting insufferable damage on the other in the event of formal military hostilities between them, and this is presumed to have a powerful role in keeping them each and check.”
Read more: Deconstructing Trump: Iran sanctions
Andrew predicted that”asymmetrical actions can’t be discounted, such as in the case of the US supporting various terrorist organizations fighting against the Iranian state under the banner of regime change and/or separatism.” The Moscow-based analyst, however, said that given “Riyadh’s move towards multipolar Great Powers of Russia and China, it’s possible that Riyadh no longer has the ambition to cooperate with Washington on this scheme like it did before.”
Watchers are certain that the multi-pronged enmity between the US and Iran will fester in the days to come, something that the region can ill-afford given the even otherwise fluid environment.