The fact that both sides are so deeply invested in the pact likely convinced key players in both nations to do everything possible to avoid escalating the situation into a full-blown standoff. The sailors are freed and safe.
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In the end, the Pentagon’s version of events was confirmed – one of the USA boats had a mechanical failure and drifted into Iranian territorial waters where it and the second boat ran aground.
At that time the deal will come into effect and nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will start to be lifted.
In Washington, US Secretary of State John Kerry did not confirm a specific date for implementation, but reiterated that it was expected to come rapidly.
He spoke five times by telephone to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, with whom he bonded during tortuous negotiations a year ago over the nuclear deal.
With the crisis resolved, Kerry thanked Iran on Wednesday and chalked up a victory for the administration. “It certainly did not occur”, Earnest said.
There was precedent for such a standoff to further deteriorate. A federal report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found just six companies – two from China and four from India – were working in the Iranian energy sector a year ago.
A South Korean refinery source confirmed he did not expect a big increase in Iranian supplies, largely because of plentiful alternatives.
If the United States proceeds with expanding sanctions on Iran, even if it does so under the umbrella of terrorism or human rights and does so in ways that do not directly violate the JCPOA, it will make the JCPOA worthless for Iran.
Thus, ever since the July 14, 2015, Vienna accord (the JCPOA), Iran has taken two more Americans hostage (there are now four Americans held incommunicado in Iranian jails); launched a massive cyber attack on the USA government, especially the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs; unveiled new underground intercontinental ballistic missile silos; twice test-launched some of their illegal (under UN Security Council Resolution 1929) missiles; and fired a rocket within 1,500 yards of an American aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran does not deserve the benefit of the doubt”. But these incidents each show the growing Iran contempt has for “international norms and worldwide rules”.
Deputy nuclear chief Ali Asghar Zarean denied that report a day later, saying that Iran “will not apply any physical change in this field until a final agreement is finalized”.
“I’m not aware that the prospect of the United States issuing a formal apology was ever discussed”. There is now a video circulating online that appears to show one of the sailors apologizing to a reporter.
“Implementation will be very soon”, said another senior Western diplomat.
But in a tweet, Zarif expressed a similar hope that future clashes could be solved in a comparably effective way. Let’s learn from this example, Zarif added.
The contrast couldn’t be more stark with the last such incident.
The Revolutionary Guard find the nuclear agreement humiliating.
Under this interpretation of the events in the Persian Gulf, the IRGC made their point at a critical moment before Obama’s State of the Union and had no need to overplay their hand by keeping the sailors.
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The world powers and Iran last summer struck a landmark nuclear deal, in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of global sanctions.
