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“Iran began enriching uranium Monday to levels unseen since its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and also seized a South Korean-flagged tanker near the crucial Strait of Hormuz.” AP News
“The move is the latest of several recent announcements by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to further breach the deal, which it started violating in 2019 in retaliation for Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions against Tehran. This step was one of many mentioned in a law passed by Iran’s parliament last month in response to the killing of the country’s top nuclear scientist, which Tehran has blamed on Israel.” Reuters
Last week, it was reported that “The Pentagon has decided to send home the only Navy aircraft carrier operating in the Middle East… The decision, announced Thursday by the acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller, came one day after Air Force B-52 bombers flew nonstop from the United States to the Persian Gulf in a show of force that military officials said was intended to caution Iran against carrying out attacks against U.S. forces or interests.” AP News
Read our prior coverage of Iran here, here, here, and here. The Flip Side
The right opposes rejoining the Iran deal.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) writes, “The JCPOA failed to address any of Iran’s other dangerous activities. These include Iran’s commitment to overthrow foreign governments, finance terrorism, illegally test-fire intercontinental ballistic missiles, seek to wipe Israel off the map, and chant ‘Death to America’ within the government and on their streets…
“Under the Trump administration, America’s maximum pressure campaign on Iran crippled the regime, eliminated the ISIS caliphate, killed terrorists Qassem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and took other decisive action without starting any new military conflict anywhere on the globe… In stark contrast to this progress, House Democrats are now urging the United States to reenter the Iran nuclear deal with no new conditions, requirements or other updates to the JCPOA…
“By reentering the Iran nuclear deal, the U.S. once again would be abandoning the leverage that would bring Iran back to the negotiating table to deal with its nuclear and non-nuclear activities that must be stopped. Iranian leaders don’t want to reenter the JCPOA as it is for their love of humanity. They want to reenter the JCPOA as it is because they rolled U.S. negotiators at the table to secure this agreement in 2015, and then made out like bandits with the sanctions relief. The current nuclear deal would allow Iran to continue its other non-nuclear hostile activities, and still have nuclear weapons in short order.”
Lee Zeldin, Fox News
Regarding the military shows of force in the region, some argue that “Iran knows that the U.S. military is superior to its own and enjoys conventional ‘escalation dominance.’… Such conventional overmatch is the reason Iran prefers to assert itself through proxy forces, such as the November 2019 militia rocket attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, or through deniable attacks like the September 2019 drone strike on oil fields in Saudi Arabia…
“Conventional forces are of limited use for deterring unconventional attacks, yet Centcom continues to request them… A more effective and sustainable approach would emphasize less expensive measures more relevant to Iran’s ‘gray zone’ activities. Increased intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activity decreases Iran’s confidence that it can conduct deniable attacks without attribution…
“Every aircraft carrier, bomber task force or fighter squadron that goes to the Middle East is one that doesn’t go to the Indo-Pacific or Europe to repair the strained credibility of U.S. deterrence against China and Russia. The U.S. must grapple with these trade-offs to master the challenges of great-power competition. Simply put, America can no longer afford business as usual in the Middle East.”
Kathryn Wheelbarger and Dustin Walker, Wall Street Journal
Others counter that “Iranian leaders do not doubt the American conventional military overmatch, regardless of the many bombastic statements of its military officials to the contrary. But Iran pays close attention to the presence or absence of carriers, submarines, and other platforms…
“When Iran or its proxies attack American forces and allies in the region, it waits for the reaction. If the United States responds with a counterattack, Iran usually stops escalating. If the United States responds by increasing a visible military presence, Iran often holds or reduces the escalation. If the United States does nothing, Iran often continues to escalate…
“Abandoning this means of communicating will create a much higher risk of accelerated escalation in the Persian Gulf. It always seems the United States does not need to have advanced conventional platforms in the region, in other words, because their periodic presence helps manage escalation.”
Frederick Kagan, The Hill
Finally, “In the early morning of Jan. 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, following its flight route at the planned altitude and trajectory, departed Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Minutes later, an operator with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired two surface-to-air missiles at the civilian aircraft, engulfing it in flames and downing it from the skies… This week, on the first anniversary of this attack, the United States, Canada, Ukraine, and all countries concerned about Iran’s malign activities should act to hold Tehran accountable…
“The United States should not allow the Islamic Republic to profit from overflight fees collected for use of its airspace until Tehran accepts full criminal responsibility for the downing of PS752…
“[U.S. policymakers should] encourage foreign governments to reduce or eliminate their airlines’ use of Iranian airspace. Simultaneously, modeled after similar legislation for oil revenues, the 117th Congress should consider requiring any overflight fees to be paid into an escrow account that will go to the families of those the regime killed on PS752. Taking these steps will not only bring the PS752 families closer to justice but will also serve as a powerful deterrent when Iran again considers targeting innocent civilians.”
Toby Dershowitz, Alireza Nader, and Dylan Gresik, The Hill
The left generally supports a diplomatic solution similar to the Iran deal.
The left generally supports a diplomatic solution similar to the Iran deal.
“Iran's nuclear capabilities have increased under Trump and the country has reportedly decreased its breakout time to a bomb -- a threat that reappeared because of Trump's irresponsible decision to withdraw from the Iran deal. Iran has blown through the deal's nuclear safeguards, and Iran recently said that it would increase uranium enrichment to 20%, which is well above the 3.67% enrichment ceiling in the nuclear deal. Without a viable negotiating track, the situation has become more volatile…
“Getting Iran back into compliance with the JCPOA will not magically get Tehran to behave like a responsible, international law-abiding actor. But it will remove one of the burgeoning threats posed by the regime so that the Biden administration -- working in close concert with US allies -- can dial down the temperature in a region that has become more dangerous during the Trump years.”
Samantha Vinograd, CNN
“Even with a new President, however, U.S.-Iran diplomacy will still be defined by decades of mutual wariness. Long haunted by the 1979 seizure of its embassy and fifty-two hostages, Washington has been reluctant to trust Tehran’s overtures. Iran is, in turn, suspicious of American outreach, given U.S. support for Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, in the nineteen-eighties, including intelligence that Iraq used to deploy chemical weapons and kill tens of thousands of Iranians…
“Biden may feel that he can make a fresh start, but Rouhani’s team has been stewing for four years over the costs of Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign—and his dismissal of the boldest Iranian diplomacy in four decades.”
Robin Wright, New Yorker
“Tehran's mostly rhetorical response to intense sanctions, repeated assassinations and a fair deal of US inflammatory rhetoric, does suggest it is keen for diplomacy and, with it, sanctions relief. Foreign minister Javid Zarif tweeted that while 20% enrichment had begun, it was in line with the JCPOA and ‘fully reversible upon FULL compliance by ALL.’…
“And the Trump experience -- chaotic and counter-productive as it has been -- afforded perhaps one lesson: that Iran, faced with a high-profile killing that many thought would spark a conflagration, knew it would lose any wider conflict with the US, and opted to not respond by publicly racing for a nuclear weapon. They've shown a pretty clear grasp of where Trump's red lines are. The lesson is two-fold. Iran is weaker than its angry, vengeful rhetoric suggests. But it follows that it is also not the rampaging, imminent threat its most hawkish adversaries would contend.”
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN
Noam Chomsky opines, “Let’s say Benjamin Netanyahu is right, they are secretly developing nuclear weapons. Is there a way to stop that? Yes, a very simple way. Impose a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East with intensive inspections. We know that inspections can work. US intelligence confirms that, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms it… Is anybody opposed to that?…
“Actually, only two countries, the US and Israel. Arab countries are strongly in favor, Iran is strongly in favor, non-aligned countries, most of the world, former non-aligned, so called G77, a hundred thirty or so countries strongly support it, and Europe supports it. Every time it comes up, the US vetoes it…
“Why does the United States block it? Everybody knows, nobody can say, because it would mean that Israel’s nuclear weapons would be subject to inspection. The United States does not officially recognize that Israel has nuclear weapons… The liberal intellectual community doesn’t want to open that door. So you don’t have any discussion of a very simple way of ending whatever threat you think Iran poses.”
David Barsamian, Jacobin Magazine
Finally, “Although the Biden administration and the Europeans want to resuscitate the 2015 nuclear agreement, what Iran, the United States and Europe urgently need right now is a COVID deal. The raging pandemic inside Iran combined with factional jockeying for the Iranian presidential election in June have paralyzed its government…
“A COVID deal would help rebuild trust for future negotiations with Iran, as well as improve U.S. relations with the European Union, which have weakened in the Trump era. Stopping the pandemic in Iran is essential to protecting Iran’s neighbors, 16 countries constituting over 500 million people…
“Legally, the shipment of medicines to Iran is not under sanctions today, but the Trump administration has made it impossible for Iran to process payments from its central bank, or receive loans from the International Monetary Fund to pay for them… If the Biden administration works out a COVID deal that facilitates shipments of vaccines to the Iranian people, it will win over the hearts and minds of millions in that country, strengthening the deep but frayed bonds of friendship between ordinary Americans and Iranians.”
John W. Limbert and Bahman Baktiari, Los Angeles Times
A cookie competition between two dads turned into a heartwarming effort that has resulted in over 18,000 cookies being delivered to essential workers across Pennsylvania.
KSL TV
