Despite widespread outcry about the IRGC’s FTO designation, despite billions in sanctions relief for the world’s leading sponsor in terror, and despite Russia’s (granted) demands for protected trade with Iran, the Biden administration has yet to walk away from the weaker, more dangerous revival of the JCPOA.
On Sunday, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the agreement was “close” and that “the ball is in the US court” after Iran sent its final “proposals” to negotiators. The spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said the Iran delegation will only return to Vienna “to finalize the nuclear agreement.” “If Washington answers the outstanding questions, we can go to Vienna as soon as possible,” he said during a press conference.
Negotiations in Vienna were paused in March for what seemed to be obstruction by Russian demands. But since then, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said that the U.S. granted Russia a “written guarantee” that there would be “reliable protection for all projects and activities envisaged” in the impending deal. According to reporting from Bloomberg, the State Department would not sanction Russian “participation in nuclear projects” with Iran.
Iranian demands are the final barrier. Tehran wants the IRGC, one of the world’s most prolific supporters of terrorism, to be delisted as an FTO. It’s underscoring that demand with a request for a guarantee that the deal will remain in place after the Biden administration.
This is smart; fully knowing that the Biden administration cannot enact a permanent treaty, this is Iran’s bid to get some extra goodies in the final days of consideration. As of now, any deal passed by the Biden administration would be an international agreement, not a Senate-approved treaty, meaning it could be repealed by a future administration.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told National Review that, “When Iran insists it needs more guarantees it is not looking to ditch four decades of ‘death to America’ for a Senate resolution.” Instead, Iran is looking for “more sanctions relief, a quest for a sweetener or signing-bonus, and more importantly, a way to sow discord in America’s Iran policy.”
Iran expects its lingering demands to be met, a reasonable risk calculation after observing Malley’s concessionary approach.
To excuse its concessions, the Biden administration has engaged in some damage-control optics. But that’s all they are: optics.
For instance, it sanctioned an individual and a handful of companies associated with the IRGC’s ballistics program after the recent strike in Erbil. But, as I’ve written, without continual and comprehensive pressure, these narrow sanctions will be “one step forward, and four steps back.”
It is also arguing that even if the IRGC is removed from the FTO list, “The IRGC will remain sanctioned under US law and our perception of the IRGC will remain,” according to Robert Malley at a conference in Doha. To legitimize this move, it has opted for a pinky-promise, asking Iran for a public written guarantee of good behavior. Iran won’t even do that; it offered a “private side letter.”
And we’re still at the table.
The rising bipartisan resistance to the deal is telling. In the past, the Iran deal has been a partisan issue. Now, Taleblu sees “promising bipartisan signs on Capitol Hill.”
A bill introduced by Representatives Ronny Jackson (R., Texas) and Stephanie Murphy (D., Fla.) would require the Biden administration to report to Congress on how U.S. sanctions relief benefits Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism. The Keeping Israel Safe From Iranian Proxies Act calls for an annual report that details the “military capabilities of Iran-backed entities and the impact of lifted sanctions on such capabilities, prohibit the availability of Federal funds to such entities, and for other purposes.”
Another bill, presented by Republican congressmen Brian Mast (R., Fla.) and Scott Perry (R., Pa.), would thwart the Biden administration’s plan to delist the IRGC as an FTO by requiring the White House to seek congressional approval. This isn’t the first bill to demand accountability to Congress; Representative Andy Barr (R., Ky.), in conjunction with Senator Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), introduced the Iran Nuclear Deal Advise and Consent Act of 2021 last April to cut off federal appropriations for the JCPOA unless the administration seeks Senate approval of the deal as a treaty, per Article II of the Constitution.
Just weeks away from a bomb, Iran will continue to stall, waiting for Biden to give it everything it’s asking for.
It can afford to wait.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal in March, Iran has a shadow finance system consisting of “foreign commercial banks, proxy companies registered outside the country, firms that coordinate the banned trade, and a transaction clearinghouse within Iran” that finances it with tens of billions of dollars despite U.S. sanctions. The Biden administration isn’t likely to address sanctions violations anyway; it has overlooked Iran’s elicit oil trade with Venezuela, for instance.
“So long as Iran does not believe Washington has a credible plan-B, it has every incentive to stall and ask for more,” shared Taleblu. And we don’t have a plan B; the Biden administration is dead set on striking an Iran deal, no matter how weak.