Are Iran and the West still moving toward an unofficial understanding that will reduce tensions in the nuclear standoff, or did that understanding run off the rails?
We will need to continue to watch the key pieces of evidence related to the understanding to know for sure, but The Jerusalem Post has learned from Western sources that, despite some counter-evidence, the understanding may be holding.
In mid-June, a tidal wave of reports surfaced saying that an unofficial understanding between the West and the Islamic Republic had been reached, or would be reached soon.
The reports were so detailed that they riled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials into ramping up attacks on negotiations with Tehran to the highest level.
On the nuclear front, the “less for less” deal reportedly meant all the 60% highly enriched uranium would remain, all the advanced centrifuges would stay, and all Tehran would need to do would be to pause additional enrichment at the high 60% level.
On the Middle East regional front, the ayatollahs would commit to stopping their proxies from attacking American forces in the region, especially in Iraq and Syria.
At the global level, there was discussion about the Islamic Republic ceasing its sale of weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine.
The Post has learned that the nuclear and Middle East regional elements of the understanding seem to be holding, even as the Russia-Iran part may never have been nailed down.
If true, this would explain a lot.
Many had been speculating that the informal deal died – like so many before – based on Iran’s recent attacks on commercial sea vessels and on the loud public conflict between Tehran and the EU over whether sanctions on Iranian ballistic missiles will expire or continue past October of this year.
At the same time though, the US acted in ways that gave Iran partial sanctions relief, especially regarding funds it is owed by Iraq.
Carefully analyzed, from their own perspectives, both Iran and the EU have not actually violated the informal understanding between them.
Both Iran, EU have not violated informal nuclear understanding
EARLIER IN JULY, Tehran tried to attack two commercial ships, once a common activity. But the two ships, under the flags of the Marshall Islands and of the Bahamas, though closely allied with the US, are not the same as the US itself.
So Iran’s harassment of these ships would not technically count as violating its agreement to avoid attacking Americans.
Likewise, the EU might have considered allowing the October expiration of sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missiles to go through, if the ayatollahs had reached a deal with the EU regarding Russia-Ukraine – as originally reported.
This would have been classic EU style, the path of least resistance. If we put aside for a second the fact that Iran has brazenly moved toward the edge of the nuclear threshold we can allow them the benefits of the Iran nuclear deal, such as removing ballistic missile sanctions, simply based on the hope that Tehran might return to the deal.
However, given that indications now are that the final informal understanding did not include Russia-Ukraine, it is not surprising that the EU would go out of character and hold the Islamic Republic’s feet to the fire a bit.
That is because the Russia-Ukraine issue is much higher stakes for the EU than the nuclear issue. Regarding the nuclear issue, the EU mostly wants quiet and as long as Tehran does not officially cross the nuclear threshold, the EU is perfectly happy to live in denial of how close that threshold is.
In contrast, Ukraine is in the EU’s backyard, and military aid by Iran to Russia in that backyard feels like a direct military threat to the EU itself.
This is why the EU will itself, in a way, violate the Iran nuclear deal, and enforce the ballistic missile sanctions past their expiration date in October.
Why would the US grant Iran continued partial sanctions relief?
Without understanding the nuances of these above disputes it would be shocking to hear that on Tuesday, Reuters reported that the US moved to let Iraq pay Iran for electricity via non-Iraqi banks.
Formally, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a 120-day national security waiver allowing Iraq – heavily dependent on Iranian electricity – to deposit such payments into non-Iraqi banks in third countries instead of into restricted accounts in Iraq.
Why would the US grant Iran continued partial sanctions relief (last month, Washington had already allowed some other sanctions relief to Iran through Iraq and other places) to the ayatollahs while both Iran and the EU were violating the so-called understanding?
The answer is that the understanding did not resolve all of the issue in dispute between Iran and the West and the aggressive moves by each side reflect that each side will continue to use pressure points against the other in any area where it has not agreed to stand down.
However, partial sanctions relief for a nuclear freeze and for a freeze in attacks on American troops seems to still be holding, which means that the US would need to follow through on some additional relief to Iran.
In this case, another reason that the US moved forward with the partial sanctions relief was that America hoped the move may keep the ayatollahs from imposing power cuts during the sweltering Iraqi summer.
Further, the funds placed in the non-Iraqi accounts, will still require a US sign-off for Iran to get access to them and will be earmarked solely for spending on humanitarian goods.
The US will consider all of this a success if there are no new attacks on American troops in the region and if, come the IAEA conference in September, October and November, the agency reports that Iran has in fact frozen its nuclear progress.
In the meantime, the EU will pray that before the October expiration date, at which point it and the Islamic Republic could escalate their conflict over ballistic missiles, a broader return to the 2015 nuclear deal and resolution of disputes will have transpired.