The Elephant In The Room
By: Y. Carmon
MEMRI Daily Brief #60 October 2, 2015
©2015 by The Middle East Media Research Institute.
Published in 2015 in the United States of America by
The Middle East Media Research Institute,
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, D.C., 20038-7837
www.memri.org

On September 3, 2015, not two months after the July 14 announcement of the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action at Vienna and its celebration at the
White House and in Europe, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dropped a
bombshell.
In a speech to the Iranian Assembly of Experts, he backtracked from the
agreement, demanding a new concession: that the sanctions be “lifted,” not
merely “suspended.”

If that term is not changed, said Khamenei, there is no agreement. If the
West only “suspends” the sanctions, he added, Iran will merely “suspend” its
obligations. Giving further credence to his threat, he announced that it is
the Iranian Majlis that must discuss and approve the agreement (or not),
because it represents the people – when it is well known that the majority
of its members oppose it, and Iranian President Hassan Rohani made every
effort to prevent such a
discussion in the Majlis from taking place. 1

Adding insult to injury, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Khamenei and
head of Iran’s Center for Strategic Research, said on September 19 that the
negotiations, concluded and celebrated less than two months previously on
July 14, are actually “not over yet.” 2

Khamenei’s demand to replace “suspension” with “lifting” is not just
semantic. It is a fundamental change, because the snapback of sanctions –
the major security mechanism for the entire agreement – cannot take place
with “lifting,” but only with “suspension.” Ever since Khamenei dropped this
bombshell, the Western media has maintained total silence, as if this were a
trivial matter not worthy of mention, let alone analysis.

One might understand this reaction on the part of those who support the
deal. Perhaps they are shocked, at a loss, and therefore hope that if they
pretend they don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Indeed, this is the futile
policy regularly adopted by ostriches.

However, one cannot but be astounded by the silence on the part of the
opponents of the deal, including – oddly enough – Israel and the U.S.
Republicans. One would expect these opponents to pounce on Khamenei’s
statement and raise hell over Iran’s infanticide of the two-month-old
agreement.

One would expect them to bring it to the forefront of a new debate over the
deal in any possible forum – in the U.S., the U.N. and the E.U.

But – nothing.

It may be that these opponents believe that the agreement is a done deal
that cannot be stopped and that the current U.S. administration will follow
through with it no matter what. This approach reflects not realism but
ignorance.
Obviously the administration wants to follow through with the deal. But the
deal is no longer in it hands. It is Khamenei who is throwing a spanner in
the works, declaring that he will not implement the agreement that the West
believed it concluded on July 14.

In order to get Iran to implement the agreement, the language of the JCPOA
will have to be changed and a new Security Council resolution will have to
be passed. While in theory this would not be impossible, it would require a
new process, entailing, at the very least, a public political debate in the
West – one that would reveal Iran’s unreliability as a partner and would
cost valuable time. And time is not on the side of the U.S. administration.

Right now, Iran is exposed almost daily as the ally of Russia against the
U.S. Three months after the “historic” agreement declared by the White
House, Iran continues to seek “Death to America,” and the Iranian foreign
minister, the “hero” of the agreement, needs to apologize in Iran for
“accidentally” shaking hands with the U.S. president. The truth of the
agreement is emerging, and it is not certain that what Iran is now demanding
will pass.

Interestingly enough, the White House’s first reaction was to brush off
Khamenei’s demand. Iran, said Josh Earnest, should just do what it what it
had undertaken to do in the agreement, and stop roiling the waters. 3

A more sober response followed. There was hope that the meeting set for
September 28 between the P5+1 and Iranian foreign ministers, on the margins
of the 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly, would produce a solution,
but this hope was in vain.

Iranian President Rohani fled back to Iran, on the pretext of the hajj
tragedy in Mecca, and no one in the West knows how to proceed. The Western
media, for its part, is perpetuating its total blackout on the issue, hoping
perhaps for a miracle in the secret U.S.-Iran talks, which this
administration has been conducting for years. But even a secret U.S.
concession will be no solution. Even if it were to offer a secret commitment
to remove the sanctions altogether, Khamenei will not be satisfied. He
openly challenged the U.S., and he needs its public capitulation. He will
celebrate publicly any secret concession. Moreover, any new U.S. concession
will prompt Khamenei to make ever more demands.

The most recent developments, and the emergence of Russia as a new-old
contender for power vis-à-vis the U.S. in the world, particularly in the
Middle East, will only encourage Khamenei to cling to his tried and true
ally, Russia. Indeed, this administration has no objection to Russia’s
resurgence in the Middle East, but Russia’s blatant anti-U.S. stance in
every venue except in the private, honeyed Putin-Obama talks will ultimately
lead even the blindest of Democrats to realize that Iran is indeed an enemy
of the U.S. – as Iran plainly declares – and that any further concessions to
it make no sense.

It seems that the worst nightmare of the supporters of the deal – that Iran
will do away with the July 14 agreement – is about to come to pass.
===========
*Y. Carmon is president and founder of MEMRI.

Endnotes
1 See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6151, Khamenei Declares That He Will Not
Honor The Agreement If Sanctions Are Merely Suspended And Not Lifted,
September 4, 2015.
2 Fars (Iran), September 19, 2015. See also MEMRI Special Dispatch No.
6162, Expected September 28 NY Meeting Between P5+1 Foreign Ministers And
Iran Could Signify Reopening Of Nuclear Negotiations To Address Khamenei’s
September 3 Threat That If Sanctions Are Not Lifted, But Merely Suspended,
There Will Be No Agreement, September 21, 2015.
3 Earnest said: “What we have indicated all along is that once an agreement
was reached, as it was back in mid-July, that we would be focused on Iran’s
actions and not their
words, and that we will be able to tell if Iran follows through on the
commitments that they made in the context of these negotiations. And that is
what will determine our
path forward here. We’ve been crystal clear about the fact that Iran will
have to take a variety of serious steps to significantly roll back their
nuclear program before any sanctions
relief is offered - and this is everything from reducing their nuclear
uranium stockpile by 98 percent, disconnecting thousands of centrifuges,
essentially gutting the core of their heavy-water reactor at Arak, giving
the IAEA the information and access they need in order to complete their
report about the potential military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.
And then we need to see Iran begin to comply with the inspections regime
that the IAEA will put in place to verify their compliance with the
agreement. And only after those steps and several others have been
effectively completed, will Iran begin to receive sanctions relief. The good
news is all of this is codified in the agreement that was reached between
Iran and the rest of the international community. And that’s what we will be
focused on, is their compliance with the agreement.”

Whitehouse.gov, September 4, 2015.