Foes again

The US and Iran are fast moving back to the warring ways — after a rare period of diplomatic proximity spanning just a couple of years. American sanctions on Iran have returned in the wake of President Donald Trump’s pullout from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and P5+1. Further alarmed is Tehran by Trump’s gearing up to chair a meeting at the United Nations in late September to address “violations of international law and general instability Iran sows in the entire Middle East region”. The move looks threatening given the fact that Trump did pull out of the nuclear deal despite the IAEA attesting Tehran’s compliance with the terms and conditions of the deal, barring slight violations of some technical aspects. French President Emmanuel Macron’s assessment that the US withdrawal from the deal ‘could mean war’ too comes in as a bit of hint at the US designs in the context of the Middles East situation.

And with a second round of US sanctions all set to take effect from November 4 — under which President Trump expects India and other countries to cut oil imports from Iran to ‘zero’ — Iran finds itself in desperate need for diplomatic partners to sympathise with its growing financial woes. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s recent visit to Pakistan came in the same context. But it only happened after India — in a US-centric repositioning — shied away from fulfilling its investment pledges with Iran, including those for the expansion of Chabahar port. However, Pakistan did respond to Iran’s pleasure, with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi saying the country stands by its next-door neighbour. More important, though, for Iran from a business point of view are the European parties to the nuclear deal. Iran needs to strengthen its diplomatic channels with these European countries, a few of which are already plotting their ways to bypass the US sanctions. 

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

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