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All in Policy
At a time when constructive diplomatic relations between Europe and Iran may prove instrumental in efforts to stave off a regional conflict, the speedy operationalization of INSTEX remains an imperative—a point underscored by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell following his first trip to Tehran earlier this month.
For the first time, the Treasury Department has issued a letter of comfort to a foreign financial institution conducting sanctions exempt trade with Iran. This move, made in accordance with the launch of a new Swiss channel for humanitarian trade with Iran, could introduce a new tool for U.S. authorities which have struggled to provide credible sanctions relief.
The Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 tragedy presents the Trump administration an opportunity to demonstrate its often-stated goodwill toward the Iranian people by responding to the formal invitation from Iran and enabling the participation of US experts from Boeing and investigative body NTSB.
Medicines and foodstuffs are exempted from the U.S. sanctions on Iran, but the prospect of punishment has spooked potential suppliers, and especially foreign banks. Although this problem is easily fixed, President Donald Trump’s administration has been shamefully tardy in doing so.
The aftermath of the protests presents significant challenges for the Iranian leadership. The Islamic Republic is dealing with severe economic difficulties and a fraying of the political fabric. Washington will use the recent unrest to argue against Europe engaging with Tehran. But diplomacy remains the only viable path to deescalation. Europeans, led by Emmanuel Macron, must protect the space for dialogue.
◢ The Treasury Department has announced that it will operationalize a financial channel to facilitate humanitarian trade with Iran, after privately acknowledging to European officials that recent sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) risked encumbering trade in food and medicine. But the new channel may cause more problems than it solves.
◢ Three new waves of nationally-representative surveys conducted by the University of Maryland paint a damning picture of the Trump administrations policy towards Iran. Negative perceptions of the United States among the Iranian public are at their highest level recorded in a decade of public opinion research.
◢ The prepared remarks of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivered at the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2019. They are published here in full in the interest of providing fuller insight into Iran’s intended message on the potential for diplomacy with the United States.
◢ A new report in the Daily Beast claims that Trump is flirting with a “$15 billion bailout for Iran.” But the mechanics of the proposal Trump is considering, put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron, are far more limited and reasonable than this and other reports have suggested.
◢ John Bolton doggedly pursued maximum pressure, pushing aside the concerns expressed the secretary of state, secretary of treasury, military leaders and intelligence officials alike. While Trump’s antagonism towards the Iran nuclear deal predates his appointment of Bolton, the transformation of the Trump administration’s Iran policy into one of “economic war” was nonetheless dependent on Bolton’s ideological fixations.
◢ Last year, the Swiss government opened negotiations with the Trump administration to ensure that Switzerland’s significant sales of pharmaceutical products and medical devices—technically exempt from U.S. sanctions—could continue unimpeded. But the National Security Council has so far prevented the Swiss effort to ease trade in food and medicine in a remarkable subversion of longstanding U.S. protections for humanitarian trade with Iran.
◢ The Trump administration has imposed successive rounds of economic sanctions targeting nearly all productive sectors of Iran’s economy. But a new wave of restrictive measures now under consideration would have the practical effect of totally severing Iran’s economy from Europe, critically undermining humanitarian trade with Iran.
◢ Josep Borrell, the current foreign minister of Spain, is a worthy nominee to replace Federica Mogherini as the EU’s top diplomat. His views on Iran suggest continuity with Mogherini’s pro-engagement policy and willingness to push back on the Trump administration’s unilateralism. But as the crisis over the JCPOA accelerates, the situation Borrell will inherit in a few months may prevent him from keeping the EU engaged in constructive dialogue with Iran.
◢ Iran’s decision to scale down its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by President Donald Trump signifies a serious foreign policy failure for the EU and its member states. They have acted too meekly and ineffectively in the face of unilateral U.S. sanctions, and this unnecessary softness may well come back to haunt them as the U.S. use of extraterritorial sanctions expands.
◢ In a joint call coordinated by the Istituto Affari Internazionali and the European Leadership Network, Europe’s leading policy experts urge the United States to reenter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in order to avoid a proliferation crisis in the Middle East, repair the transatlantic relationship, restore respect in international law and multilateral diplomacy, and end the harms being inflicted on the Iranian people.
◢ Until American policymakers can conceive of relations with Iran as something more than a set of tactical accommodations designed to address threat perceptions, they are unlikely to solve the question of Iranian proliferation decisively. It is discouraging to see Democratic candidates articulate their intentions towards Iran exclusively within the paradigm of the JCPOA and its ability to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.
◢ The administration of US President Donald Trump last week designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, part of Iran’s armed forces, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. With the future of both the Iran nuclear deal and prospects for US-Iran diplomacy at stake, a political fallout is the clear intention behind designating the IRGC a terrorist organization.
◢ The Trump administration announced the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)—a branch of Iran’s armed forces—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). While the practical effect of the FTO designation is negligible at best, the risks to the US from the designation could be severe.
◢ In order improve preparedness for frequent earthquakes, floods, sandstorms, and heat-waves, Iran urgently needs to upgrade its surveying and monitoring technologies to better model and predict meteorological, hydrological, and geological events. The United States should create a new general license to remove the sanctions-related barriers to Iran’s acquisition of these much needed technologies.
Recent statements by US and Iranian officials have spurred debate as to the role sanctions may have played in the unconvincing nature of Iran’s response to unprecedented floods, which have killed over 50 people and caused widespread devastation. A look at Iran’s failure to procure rescue helicopters helps answer that question.
