“There already has been a broad turn in Iranian foreign policy, at least in terms of dealing with the United States”, noted John Limbert, a former US diplomat (and former hostage) in Iran.
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Unknown gunmen seized the three on January 15 from a private residence in the southeastern Dora district of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. These new sanctions, like the ones announced last week, would be outside the scope of the nuclear deal and would not give the government of Iran any cause to back away
from its commitments under that agreement.
However, Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the Americans were abducted by “criminal gangs”, expressing doubt that any political motivation was behind the abduction.
“The U.S. will keep pushing to sanction Iranians further”, the Rodong reads. The swap, according to an American official, was a “one-time arrangement because it was an opportunity to bring Americans home”, should not be considered something that would “encourage this behavior in the future” by Iran, and that, while it was not directly related to the nuclear talks the US and five other Western nations had successfully completed with Iran in July, the deal those talks produced “greatly accelerated talks about the prisoners”.
Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Arab world are another potential hurdle to rapprochement between Iran and the West. After the nuclear deal was signed in July, the Sunni leaders of Saudi Arabia were enraged that it would help Shi’ite-led Iran gain an edge in their ongoing regional rivalry. For more detail on the sanctions that have been lifted see our Law-Now.
And Iran’s opening to the West has expanded well beyond the nuclear deal.
“To have Western banks effectively financing directly aircraft to Iranian airlines is going to be a tough call”. Iran was getting very close to breakout capacity – the point where it would have had enough fissile material for a bomb – which was a recipe for a war that very likely would have involved America. The direction in the Market Bulletin issued by Lloyd’s on 8 July 2010 (Y4409), requiring managing agents to ensure that no contract of (re)insurance was entered into, amended and/or endorsed, where they knew or ought to have known, that an Iranian Refined Petroleum Risk would be (re)insured under the contract, is therefore rescinded.
Iran is a Shia Muslim nation while the Middle East is mostly Sunni Muslim. Most troubling, the estimated unemployment rate for Saudis aged 15 to 24 is about 30 percent.
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European Union companies which are owned or controlled by USA corporations will fall under U.S. jurisdiction and will therefore continue to be subject to United States primary sanctions. Iran is expected to quickly boost its oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day, and within a year, its output could increase by 1 million barrels per day. Now the country can legitimately trade with Europe, Asia, and the United States.
