شارل الياس شرتوني/معاهدة التدمير الذاتي بين إيران والولايات المتحدة Iran-US, the Self Defeating Nuclear Treaty Charles Elias Chartouni/February 21/2022
The equivocations which prevail over the Nuclear Treaty are self defeating since the same ambiguities that undermined the 2015 treaty are still shrouding the ongoing negotiation course: the dissociation between nuclear militarization and Iran’s subversion politics throughout the Middle East. The secretive character of the current negotiations is forestalled by an open principled opposition stated by Republican and Democratic Congress members (letter circulated by a 100 co-signatories), who warned the administration against any unilateral move on this thorny issue that discredited the early treaty, removed conditional financial and economic sanctions, and allowed Iran to pursue its frontal assaults all along the regional arc of conflicts.
The bipartisan stonewalling cannot be overlooked by the Biden administration, especially at a time, when Russia and its authoritarian ilk are challenging the post Cold War limes and questioning the strategic thresholds set by a legacy of Strategic Arm Control agreements (SALT I-II, 1972, 1979, START I,II,III, 1991, 1993, 1997, SORT, 2003, NEW START, 2010).
Negotiators cannot dismiss the interlocking issues and their incidence on international security and stability of the Larger Middle East strategic configuration. The looming disagreements are inevitably enhancing the strident internal polarization, at a pre-election stage and ahead of the more distant Presidential election in 2024. The administration cannot dismiss a consensual approach in regards to the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) lest it triggers backlashing effects, that may question its ability to finalize the treaty, steer course in the three incoming years, and secure alternation.
The dissipation of ambiguities is quite essential insofar as the viability of the process, the redhibitory conditionalities set by the Iranian negotiator regarding the sunset clauses, the termination of the subversion politics episode, the normalization of the Iranian regime international status, and its steady attempt to join neo-totalitarian attempts at creating an international counter-system. Any sequential and compartmentalized approach to the negotiation process is self damning, and has no chance to survive its contradictory and ineffective postulates. Methodological flaws can never build or sustain a viable political dynamic, caveat emptor.
