After Ukraine, Iran?
In Tehran, Iranians are anxiously wondering whether, once their economy is exhausted and they can no longer defend themselves, the Israelis and the United States will bomb them. Under these circumstances, should they or should they not negotiate with the enigmatic President Donald Trump?
On March 2, 2025, Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) voted no confidence in Economy and Finance Minister Abdolnaser Hemmati over his handling of the Western economic blockade and the resulting economic crisis. On the same day, his friend Mohammad Javad Zarif, former negotiator of the Joint Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (JCPOA) and current Vice President, resigned.
President Donald Trump revealed on March 7 that he had sent a letter to Iran. The international press had reported that it had been delivered the same day by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. However, Nournews revealed that Russia had refused to act as intermediary. According to Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, it was ultimately delivered on March 12 by Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the President of the United Arab Emirates.
In any case, without waiting to hear about it, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leader of the Revolution, declared: “What interest do we have in negotiating when we know that he will not respect his commitments? We sat at the same table and negotiated for several years, and once the agreement was completed, finalized and signed, he overturned the table and tore up the agreement.”
The liabilities of the JCPoA agreement
Indeed, in 2013, Iran negotiated a comprehensive agreement with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, the 5+1, in Geneva. They resulted in a temporary halt to Iran’s nuclear program and a partial lifting of unilateral Western coercive measures and Security Council economic sanctions. The 5+1 negotiations then broke off, while direct discussions between Iran and the United States continued behind the scenes. They finally resumed in 2015 in Lausanne. The public agreement was signed in Vienna, in much the same terms as the draft that had been drawn up two years earlier. It is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA).
The United States finally recognized the Islamic Republic’s right to develop its civilian nuclear program. In exchange, Iran agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify that it was not concurrently developing a military program. To this end, it agreed to possess no more than 5,060 centrifuges, not enrich uranium above 3.67%, and limit its plutonium production.
France and the United Kingdom declared themselves satisfied, while the French negotiator, Sayan Laurent Fabius, acknowledged that, as the talks progressed, he had informed the Israeli Prime Minister, his friend Benjamin Netanyahu, without the knowledge of other diplomats.
Russia and China concluded from these discussions, confirmed by their own observations on the ground, that Iran had closed its military nuclear programme in 1988, in accordance with a fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and had never resumed it [ 1 ] .
On April 30, 2018, Benjamin Netanyahu released 100,000 documents stolen by the Mossad from archives in
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
