Lawmakers have already voiced opposition to doing nuclear-related business with Iran, and have criticized the Obama administration for failing to provide them with specific details on the sale.
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Analysts from the Institute for Science and International Security warned in May that the USA decision to purchase 32 metric tons of Iran’s excess nuclear runoff sets a bad precedent by allowing the Islamic Republic to circumvent the restrictions mandated by last year’s nuclear deal. The Mideast’s wars pit USA and Iranian proxies in conflict, with risks of escalation everywhere.
“Continued implementation of JCPOA commitments by all participants – including the United States and our closest allies – is critical to ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is and will remain exclusively peaceful”, the administration said.
The heavy water measure is the first of three bills targeting the seven-nation nuclear pact that are expected to clear the chamber before Congress departs Washington for a lengthy summer recess.
Heavy water is a key component for certain nuclear reactors.
Republicans, who dominate both the House and Senate, all opposed the Iran nuclear deal secured last July by the USA and five other world powers. Presumptive Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton backs the deal; GOP rival Donald Trump says he’ll “renegotiate”. With Iranian presidential elections looming next year, the wisdom of the nuclear deal and further dealings with the West will be front and center in the psyche of the Iranian electorate.
Despite many sanctions being lifted, the worldwide banking system is still too nervous to work with Iran. “To give these types of planes to the Iranian regime, which still is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, is to give them a product that can be used for a military goal”, Illinois Republican Peter Roskam, who sponsored the legislation, hypocritically claimed. Many multinational banks and companies are fearful of USA prosecution or fines. It also noted, however, that no one can deny that Iran’s right to enrich uranium was recognized and that sanctions were removed as a result of the deal.
Aragchi also explained that Iran’s oil exports have increased dramatically as the result of the nuclear deal, but he urged patience in seeing other benefits.
The Republican-led House has approved legislation that seeks to undermine the milestone nuclear deal with Iran. But when it broached the subject of missiles with other U.N. Security Council members, the US found them divided on whether the bans any longer applied.
Germany’s federal intelligence agency, the BfV, warned that Iran is engaging in “illegal proliferation-sensitive procurement activities in Germany … at what is, even by worldwide standards, a quantitatively high level”.
The nuclear deal’s future is “highly uncertain”, said Ariel Levite at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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He outlined several potential paths forward, all with inherent dangers: a “routinization” process in which the world loses focus on Iran’s nuclear activity; renegotiation, potentially tearing the deal apart; a “death spiral” of provocations giving one side the pretext to pull out. If such a narrative begins to take hold, their views of the United States and the nuclear deal will change and a broader rapprochement between Iran and the West will be all but impossible.
