In fact, successive US administrations have been rating the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s elite military corps and guardians of the Islamic regime, as a terrorist organization accusing it of meddling in other Middle East countries internal affairs. This forms a major source of friction between the two rivals as the West’s superpower jostles for regional influence with Iran’s mullahs. While the new American president Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that the US will return to the JCPOA deal, his administration imposed new sanctions on two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and sanctioned Ebrahim Raisi, the new Persian president himself. Raisi, viewed in the West as a hardline nationalist, is due to take office on the 3^rd of August, replacing Hassan Rouhani, who has been considered a moderate and pragmatist. (Ironically, the date the Islamic cleric Hasan Rouhani steps down from the presidency in Iran coincides with the demise of our top cleric Archbishop Makarios and consequently his long and controversial involvement in Cypriot politics – 3^rd of August 1977).

In the last three years, America’s long list of sanctions sparked off Iran’s violation of the terms of the JCPOA. Tehran went on to test advanced centrifuges and accumulated substantial quantities of enriched uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the watchdog organization assigned with the task of monitoring the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal, estimated this spring that Iran had produced over three tons of uranium enriched up to five per cent purity. Moreover, the IAEA estimates that about seventy kilos have been already enriched to over twenty per cent purity. In other words, the international organization rates that Iran has covered most of the stages necessary to producing several nuclear bombs. Nevertheless, Tehran officially sticks to its position that it has no nuclear bomb ambitions and that its nuclear programme is geared only towards peaceful uses.

Talks on reinstating the original terms of the JCPOA have been ploughing on among the 2015 signatories in Vienna since April. It is widely rumored that the current month may be the last chance to strike a deal. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister stated after the last round of talks that ‘almost all the agreement documents are ready’. Equally, the EU representative spoke of optimism. Be that as it may, Tehran demands that the US removes all sanctions imposed by Donald Trump before returning to compliance with JCPOA provisions. Washington retorts that it will roll back only those sanctions explicitly stated in the 2015 agreement document.

Joe Biden has been fairly clear on his Iran nuclear programme policy: if Iran restored its compliance with the JCPOA, the US would do so as well as a starting point for further negotiations. Yet, half a year into Biden’s presidency, the deal is not secured. Washington may be starting to doubt whether Iran intends to restore its compliance with the accord. In fact, Reuters reported (1^st July 2021) that Tehran had restricted IAEA’s access to its main uranium enrichment site in Natanz. An attack took place at the Iranian site last April shortly before the talks resumed in Vienna. Tehran has blamed Israel for the blast and stepped up its nuclear activities. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement, but Israel’s public radio cited intelligence sources as saying it was a Mossad cyber-operation. Estimates of Israel’s nuclear stockpile widely diverge. The range is between eighty and four hundred nuclear warheads. Iran is deeply unhappy with Israel’s privileged status as the only nuclear power in the Middle East region and seeks to challenge Israel’s supremacy. Tough times lie ahead for the cause of nonproliferation!

However, in 2018, things began to go the wrong direction when US President Donald Trump called the agreement a ‘bad deal’ and pulled the US out of the JCPOA. The latter, initialed by the seven contracting parties in July 2015, was the product of 20 months of hard negotiations based on the “Roadmap Agreement” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In a nutshell, under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98 per cent, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. Till 2030, Iran would have to enrich uranium only up to 3.67 per cent. Tehran also agreed not to build any new heavy-water facilities for the next 15 years. Uranium-enrichment activities would have to be limited to a single facility using first-generation centrifuges for ten years. Other facilities would also be converted to avoid proliferation risks. The IAEA was granted access to the Iranian nuclear sights – predominantly at the Fordow underground facility – in order to verify compliance with the deal. Trump announced the US withdrawal on May 8, 2018. By November of the same year, US sanctions came back into effect designed to force Iran to dramatically change its policies, including its support for militant groups in the region and its development of ballistic missiles.

The unravelling of the JCPOA continued in the next couple of years: the world saw Iran violating several parts of the deal. Worst still, confrontation reached a peak towards the end of last year (November 27) with the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s chief nuclear scientist, allegedly by Israel. Iran’s parliament retorted by authorising Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, to produce and store at least 120 kilogrammes of 20 per cent-enriched uranium per year: half the amount considered necessary for a single nuclear bomb. In a conciliatory tone, however, Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, stressed that Iran’s violations of the deal are fully reversible, should the US rejoin the JCPOA deal. In this connection, Julia Frifield, US Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, advised, at the time of the conclusion of the deal, that the JCPOA is not a treaty or an executive agreement and is not a signed document. The JCPOA reflects political commitments between Iran, the P5+1, and the EU, she stressed. In this respect, political commitments seem to be good enough for president-elect Joe Biden who committed to rejoin the deal, if Tehran backsteps to ‘strict compliance’.

For the time being, tensions in the Persian Gulf are rising: the same day Tehran announced resumption of its uranium enrichment programme (January 4, 2021) Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized a South Korean oil tanker for allegedly polluting the Gulf with chemicals. The South Korean-flagged MT Hankuk Chemi oil tanker carrying 7,200 of oil chemical products was stormed by the IRGC as it was navigating the Strait of Hormuz.

However, Iranian regime news agencies suggest the real reason behind the oil tanker seizure is the wish to negotiate with the South Koreans the release of eight billion USD of Iranian money frozen in Seoul accounts in compliance to the US imposed sanctions regime. According to Tehran Times, Iran needs those funds to procure supplies of covid-19 vaccines, a reasonable claim with reference to the current worldwide humanitarian crisis, one has to admit. At any rate, concentration of naval forces continues to build up. Washington ordered US aircraft carrier Nimitz to stay put in the Gulf – reversing an earlier order to sail home. In addition, the South Koreans dispatched a destroyer to the region. Seoul, however, added it does not intend to use force, while bilateral negotiations with Iran are under way.