We have a Deal Now

Iran has reached a new deal with world's six super powers to temporarily curb its nuclear program in exchange for relief from the sanctions. You can see the detail of the agreement here.

The crucial part of the agreement is this:

Iran will stop enriching uranium beyond 5%, and will stop development of their Arak nuclear power plant. The UN will be granted greater access for inspections. In exchange, Iran will receive relief from sanctions of approximately US$7 billion (£4.3 billion) and no additional sanctions will be imposed.

Sanction has been very bad for Iran.

GJELTEN: Celeste, these are the most severe sanctions ever put in place against any country in history. And you're right, they are not just from the United States. There are United Nations sanctions. There are sanctions from the European Union. The really important ones are the ones that have made it just about impossible for Iran to sell oil. And oil sales are really important to the Iranian economy. Last summer, the European Union stopped buying oil from Iran. The United States stopped, a long time ago, buying oil from Iran, but also has introduced sanctions where we punish other countries that are buying oil from Iran. So the effect of all that has really been to cut back hard on Iran's oil sales and, therefore, its oil revenues.

Eighty percent of its foreign exchange comes from oil sales, so that has really hurt. And then another big element - I mean, there's a long list of sanctions, but another big element is Iran has basically been kicked out of the, what's called the, SWIFT system, which is how you transfer money electronically. Literally now, Celeste, if Iran earns money overseas, it almost has to bring the cash back in suitcases. That's what it's come to. So it's really hurting Iran.

I'm reading this article about how the sanction eventually worked in bringing Iran back to the negotiation table.

There's widespread agreement that sanctions have worked, squeezing Iran financially and bringing its leaders to the negotiating table. Iran's economy is, by any measure, in terrible shape.

"The cost of living has gone up so fast for Iranians that they are absolutely stunned, and people are simply not able to maintain the middle-class lifestyles that they used to," Slavin says.

Iran's official inflation rate is about 40 percent. By comparison, inflation in the U.S. is less than 2 percent, and many outsiders believe prices are rising even faster in Iran than the government says, especially for food.

the massive plunge in the value of Iran's currency — the rial — over the past two years, has made inflation more pernicious. Because the rial is so weak, Iranians have to pay a lot more for imported goods. And oil, Iran's main export and the heart of its economy, is being sidelined by sanctions.

Folks in America would probably become crazy if the price of everything increased by 40% and the value of dollars became almost worthless.


As expected, not all the Iranians are happy with this new deal.

First, let’s read the views from the reactionary, non-thinking, no-vision, still sore losers faction from Iran hard-liners whose candidates didn't win the recent election (Iran election coverage on my blog link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4)

The news site Alef, affiliated with prominent conservatives, ran pieces questioning the agreement’s technical details (one piece noted discrepancies with what had been published in a White House briefing paper) and lamenting the position of weakness from which Iran had been forced to negotiate. “Why Was Zarif Empty Handed?” the site asked, arguing that “there is no doubt the agreement is oppressive” but that Zarif’s failures must be viewed in the context of the bargaining position he inherited from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.

The question of enrichment emerged on Monday as a point of contention, with some hardline sites like the newspaper Kayhan arguing that nowhere in the agreement had the West conceded Iran’s right to enrich. Much of the criticism raised a day after the agreement centered around its technical and economic aspects, as some conservatives and hardliners sought to present their objections in a substantive rather than partisan light. The website Fars News said it had done the math, and found that “the points gained and the points conceded didn’t add up,” arguing that by failing to secure lasting relief from oil and banking sanctions, Iran would still lose in a month what it had gained in the unleashing of some $4.2 billion of its foreign exchange reserves, previously frozen as a result of international sanctions.

The reformist faction, whose candidate is the current President of Iran had this to say:

The country’s reformist papers ran special editions on Sunday highlighting the agreement’s success in securing sanctions relief, and kept up the bright coverage on Monday. Photos of Zarif dominated the front pages, with the newspaper Arman-e Emrooz declaring that “We Must Give Zarif a Gold Medal,” the daily Aftab headlining “Smiling Diplomat: We Thank You,” and in the newspaper Ebtekar, “A Historic Dawn in Geneva.”

But not everyone is happy it seems.

Saudi Arabia with the support of Qatar and other despotic Sunni Arab regimes, currently fighting a proxy war against Iran-via-Syria, is very unhappy that a deal was reached between Iran and the West (namely the USA) especially after their petition to obliterate Hafiz al-Assad and most of Syria was rejected by the White House (remember Obama's infamous red line incident).

Saudi Arabia resented the fact that the US-Iranian talks had been kept secret from Saudi Arabia, and felt that it had been double-crossed by a major ally. "We will be there to stop them, wherever they are," he said. "we can't tolerate the blaring of Persian music in the middle of Homs"

Saudi Arabia, to put bluntly, sounds like a whinny little poodle.

Some members of the US Congress are very disappointed that the US under the leadership of Barack Obama made a deal with one of the countries in the axis-of-evil. (link)

Iran has a history of obfuscation that demands verification of its activities and places the burden on the regime to prove it is upholding its obligations in good faith while a final deal is pursued. – John Boehner (Republican)

The U.S. should not weaken existing United Nations Security Council demands that Iran fully suspend its nuclear activities, including enrichment. Loosening sanctions and recognizing Iran's enrichment program is a mistake, and will not stop Iran's march toward nuclear capability." - Eric Cantor (Republican)

“The disproportionality of this agreement makes it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass additional sanctions when we return in December. It was strong sanctions, not the goodness of the hearts of the Iranian leaders, that brought Iran to the table. And any reduction relieves the pressure of sanctions and gives them the hope that they will be able to obtain a nuclear weapon - Sen. Chuck Schumer (Democratic)

“We need to be very, very careful with the Iranians. I don’t trust them. I don’t think we should trust them,” - Rep. Eliot Engel (Democratic)

Israel is also very critical of the deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled the deal an "historic mistake".

The crux of the growing US-Israel divide is the fact that the two countries simply don't see eye-to-eye on Iran's nuclear program. The Israelis want a complete dismantling of Iran's capabilities – a position that is unrealistic and short of using military force is never going to happen. Iran has progressed so far along the road to developing a nuclear capability that the issue today is what is the best way to slow the program and prevent Iran from going nuclear rather than reversing it.

Indeed, if Netanyahu stepped back from his red line, he might actually realize that the deal signed in Geneva goes a long way towards meeting that goal. In fact, it is rather shocking the number of concessions the US and its western allies were able to secure in Geneva without giving up that much in return. Under the agreement, Iran must stop all uranium enrichment above 5% and neutralize its stockpile of uranium that has been enriched to 20%. In addition, Iran must halt construction at the Arak nuclear reactor (which was potentially capable of producing plutonium for a bomb) and end the production, installation and maintenance of centrifuges used for enrichment purposes.

Most opinions seem to be that this was a fair deal for Iran (in regards to their bargaining position) and a very very good deal for the world super powers (considering their wealth and position).

Iran's diplomat that made this deal possible is Mohammad Javad Zarif. After 8 years of embarrassment, international failure and diplomatic mishaps under Ahmadinejad, I guess Iran finally found someone that actually understand how to fix Iran's problem with the west. He sounds like an interesting guy.

Before leaving the hotel that morning, Zarif took a few moments to go up to his room on the 14th floor to update his Twitter and Facebook accounts. "We have reached an agreement," he tweeted at 3.03am local time.

With that simple message, the 53-year-old showed that President Hassan Rouhani's best decision upon assuming office was to appoint him as the man in charge of reviving Tehran's diplomacy, which had been badly damaged under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

According to Kamal Kharazi, a former Iranian foreign minister, it was Khamenei who personally gave Zarif permission to talk directly to the US at that time.

At the UN the ambassador was praised for his diplomatic manner even by the Islamic republic's sworn enemies. The former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger reportedly gave him a copy of his 1994 book Diplomacy, signing it "To Zarif, my respectful enemy".

Although it was Rouhani who chose Zarif as foreign minister, his appointment would have been impossible without the blessing of Khamenei, now Iran's supreme leader. It is widely believed that Zarif secured Khamenei's trust during his time at the UN by being an obedient servant, even though at times he held different views.

With more than 700,000 likes on Facebook and 87,000 followers on Twitter, Zarif is perhaps the Islamic republic's most popular diplomat since 1979.