Reconfiguring not required

With barely five days to go before the United States decides the fate of the Iran nuclear agreement, President Hassan Rouhani held out a warning on May 7th against rewriting the 2015 deal. Doing that will bring historic regret in Washington and the rest of the world, according to the Iranian leader in a not too subtle threat that Tehran probably won’t be as accommodating as it was three years ago. The 2015 agreement- between Iran, the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and the UK - lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Britain, France and Germany have made several desperate attempts but failed to knock sense into US President Donald Trump who is keen to 'withdraw' his country from the deal on 12 May - the end of a 120-day review period - unless Congress and European powers fixed its “disastrous flaws”. This is an allusion to the five-year period under which Iran would be able to resume its nuclear programme.

No one to mince his words, Rouhani promised also to counter any decision the US leader intended to take against Iran. The prospect obviously delighted Israel, Iran’s old and bitter foe in the Middle East, and its president Benjamin Netanyahu who urged his ally in Washington to confront Tehran sooner rather than later. Thus the stakes have grown ever higher.


Given that Tehran has been largely compliant with all the conditions for implementing and ratifying IAEA protocols, including granting access to declared and undeclared sites, there is no need to revisit the accord nor question its efficacy.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2018.