Ali Vaez Profile picture
May 8 16 tweets 6 min read
#OTD in 2018, President Trump announced that his administration was withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal.

It was a massive gamble. It was a failed gamble. But should be an instructive gamble. 🧵👇
2/ Trump had criticized the agreement on the campaign trail, but held off for over a year from pulling the plug, in part because senior members of his team believed the deal continued to serve U.S. non-proliferation interests.
3/ In Autumn 2017, Trump refused to certify the agreement - though still holding off withdrawal.

"We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more chaos, the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout", he said.

More on that shortly.
4/ By May 2018, and despite months of negotiations with the Europeans that culminated in visits by all three E3 leaders arguing in favour of building on the existing deal rather than jettisoning it entirely, Trump withdrew anyway.
5/ Decision made, the Trump administration proceeded with what came to be known as the "maximum pressure" strategy, primarily associated with restoration of pre-JCPOA sanctions, then their expansion and layering - some 1,500 or so, across every major sector of Iran's economy.
6/ The impact was real. Iran's economy, already blighted by mismanagement and corruption, now saw its trade limited and key exports like oil drop sharply. GDP growth went negative - though by mid-2020 it was stabilizing the tailspin. [@Worldbank]
7/ Now, sanctions are a tool, not an ends. And a few weeks after the U.S. withdrawal, the Trump administration laid out its objectives: Finally, a chance for critics of the JCPOA to deliver the "better deal" they insisted was possible.
Here are those (unmet) demands.
8/ What ensued was predictable: U.S. continued to ratchet up pressure, Iran responded on the nuclear & regional fronts, leading to more pressure, leading to more provocation, leading... well you get the picture. And what off-ramps came were missed.
bit.ly/3N1y8rl
9/ Now, let's set aside the fact that not one of these goals were achieved - indeed, in many cases problems were made worse - and focus on the nuclear issue.
For within Trump's big gamble on fixing everything was that one big thing wouldn't change.
It was a very bad call.
10/ The JCPOA is an arms control agreement. It is not based on naivety about other aspects of Iranian policy where concern is shared by European and regional allies, but on prioritization of those concerns where the shadow of a nuclear crisis clouds everything else.
11/ Some, like Trump's NSA, insist that flaw in the policy was that maximum pressure didn't go far enough; that regime change was and is the only real solution.
If you find yourself digging in a hole you've made, stop complaining about the shovel.
12/ In past year, #ViennaTalks have been aimed at triaging the situation by reviving the nuclear deal as a nuclear deal. The logic of this approach, all the more important after Trump's experiment, is that fixing one very big thing - the non-proliferation concern - is critical.
13/ And all the more critical given that over past 3 years, expansion of uranium stockpiles, increase in enrichment rates, deployment of new centrifuges, R&D has put Iran's nuclear program on the cusp of breakout capability [WSJ chart].
14/ If you want to know why this is concerning, let former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu explain:
15/ Now, the good news is that a year of diplomatic effort have crafted a framework for fixing Trump's folly. It increases inspections, cuts the stockpiles, reduces enrichment rates, and lengthens breakout time. European allies are certainly ready to roll:
16/16 The magic bullet approach of fixing everything has proven magical thinking. Question now is whether Washington & Tehran can overcome remaining obstacles to undo the damage, and do what should have been obvious: a good deal you build on is better than no deal at all.

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More from @AliVaez

Apr 5
Tomorrow marks 1 year since the first round of #ViennaTalks kicked off.

A state of play on where we've been, where we are, and where we might be going in this very peculiar exercise.🧵
2| It was clear from the outset that despite shared goal of reviving JCPOA, path would be anything but easy. To destroy is easier than to rebuild, & even having a baseline text already available still required a way for both sides to resume commitments under new realities.
3| Negotiators set up working groups on sanctions relief and nuclear rollback, with a third on sequencing added later. Through June - the final round involving Rouhani's team - significant progress was made before the Iranian electoral calendar led to 5-month hiatus.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 11
What's happening in #ViennaTalks? A state of play, best as I can tell [Thread]
2/ Last week, the main - but not sole - area of disagreement was over Iran's @IAEAOrg safeguards probe. U.S./E3 as well as the agency were clear that closing it was a non-starter.

DG Grossi went to Tehran on Saturday, secured an roadmap to address this.

One step forward.
3/ But the same day, right after 🇮🇱 PM’s visit, Russia's FM threw a wrench into the mix:

Facing what he described as an "avalanche of aggressive sanctions" against 🇷🇺 over 🇺🇦 Lavrov called for guarantees that these would not "in any way damage our right to free and full trade".
Read 9 tweets
Mar 10
Why should we listen to policy makers who have been consistently wrong? These Democrats supported Trump's withdrawal and are responsible for allowing Iran to advance to the verge of nuclear weapons. jewishinsider.com/2022/03/eleven…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 9
This afternoon, Senators @SenatorRisch, @tedcruz and @SenJohnBarrasso are leading a @SenateGOP press conference on the Iran nuclear deal.

You'd be hard-pressed to find three people who've been as wrong over as long a period on how to address Iran's nuclear program. [Thread] Image
2| Here's @SenatorRisch talking to @NPR in 2017, prior to Trump's withdrawal. He laments the deal's sunsets (not 10 years, BTW), and says the solution is... sanctions. Well, we know how that worked out - no nuclear restrictions at all! Image
3| Here's @SenJohnBarrasso on @FoxNews in 2019, lauding the decision to withdraw because "it didn't step them from getting the path to the weapon".

Yet here we are, with Iran enriching near-weapons grade, under limited monitoring, weeks from breakout capability. Image
Read 6 tweets
Jan 17
🧵گروه بحران: ششمین گزارش از وضعیت اجرای برجام بر اساس نزدیک به ۵۰ مصاحبه با مقامات کشورهای عضو برجام، آمریکا، منطقه و سازمان ملل. «مهلت نهایی» [ترجمه فارسی] @CrisisGroup

crisisgroup.org/fa/middle-east…
۲/ایران و آمریکا چند ماه است که به صورت غیرمستقیم بر سر احیای برجام در حال مذاکره‌اند اما موفق نشده‌اند راهکاری برای بازگشت مشترک پیدا کنند. جای تعجب ندارد که هر یک تقصیر را به گردن دیگری می‌اندازد. تروئیکای اروپایی و آمریکا در یک جبهه و روسیه و چین تا حدودی با ایران هم موضع‌اند.
۳/ ما تنش‌زایی هسته‌ای ایران در سال گذشته را مرور کردیم. از نظر کمی و کیفی، مثل غنی‌سازی ۶۰٪ بعد از حمله به نطنز، پیشرفت‌ها تصاعدی بوده. اگرچه هنوز اثری از ساخت سلاح هسته‌ای نیست، اما زمان گریز – دستیابی به میزان کافی اورانیوم برای ساخت یک بمب اتمی – به سه هفته رسیده است.
Read 21 tweets
Jan 17
🧵 New from @CrisisGroup: Our 6th - perhaps final - report on the status of the 2015 nuclear deal, based on more than 50 interviews conducted with officials from JCPOA parties, the U.S., UN and regional governments over the past several months 👇crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…
2| U.S. & Iran have engaged in months of indirect talks aimed at restoring JCPOA. These have failed to deliver a framework for mutual compliance. Unsurprisingly, each sees the other at fault. E3 aligned w/ U.S.; Russia & China not unsympathetic to Iran but within limits.
3| We review Iran's nuclear escalation over past year, during which it made quantitative and qualitative leaps, inc raising enrichment to 60% - highest ever - after April attack at Natanz. Though still no evidence of weaponization, breakout time now a matter of weeks.
Read 22 tweets

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