Although all the evidence pointed out that Iran was meeting the stipulated requirements with Obama in 2015, Trump unilaterally ripped the agreement in 2018, planting the seeds of the current conflict.
At first glance, it may seem that the climb between the United States and Iran is a recent event and the result of the alliance only between the Americans and the Israelites. However, the roots of the conflict – which reached the boiling point with the recent US direct attack on Iran – Dating from the first term De Donald Trump.
To realize the context, we have to retreat to 2015, when Barack Obama was still the US head of state. After two years of negotiations with the Iranians, Obama got one of her main diplomatic achievements Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on July 14, 2015. The nuclear agreement of Iran, as it became known, signaled a rapprochement between the two countries and a relaxation in tensions.
Despite having a presidential campaign with an anti-war message and repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for her Belicista positions-mainly due to her support for Iraq-Donald Trump rekindled tensions with Iran and left the nuclear agreement in May 2018.
What was agreed in JCPOA?
JCPOA imposed restrictions on the nuclear enrichment program from Iran in exchange for the relief of Western sanctions against Tehran.
In addition to the United States and Iran, the remaining four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom – also aligned in the deal, as well as Germany and the European Union authorities.
The goal was to ensure that the nuclear program of Iran was totally peaceful and only for scientific purposes, crashing the plans for the construction of an atomic pump arsenal. In return, the Western powers would raise sanctions against Tehran and bring some relief to the Iranian economy.
“The agreement blocks all the possible paths that Iran could use to build a nuclear bomb, while ensuring – through a comprehensive, intrusive and unprecedented regime of verification and transparency – that the nuclear program of Iran remains exclusively peaceful in the future,” said Obama’s White House at the time.
The 159 page document also defined strict monitoring safeguards to have regular guarantees that the Iranians were not violating the provisions. These requirements included sending 11 333 kg of uranium enriched out of the country, dismantling and removing two -thirds of their centrifuges and permission for broader international inspections of their nuclear facilities.
After the United Nations International Energy Agency found that Tehran was meeting the requirements, the agreement came into force on 16 January 2016, with the other countries to Suspend financial and oil sanctions and freeing about $ 100 billion in frozen Iranian actives. If they were discovered evidence that Iran was violating what was stipulated, the sanctions would be reactivated.
Many of the restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program They had validity dates. For example, restrictions on centrifuges would be suspended after 10 years and the limits to the amount of uranium would expire after 15 years.
For some, these temporary restrictions were seen only as a first step in the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran, and there is hope that the agreement could eventually be extended or made permanent.
For others, these expiration clauses were just postponing the problem and not solving it. One of the greatest critics of the agreement was precisely Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who described him as a “historical error”And even expressed his opposition during a speech in the US Congress.
Was Iran meet the deal?
Yes. Several international agencies and the US government itself have verified multiple times that the It was going to meet the requirements defined in JCPOA. Between 2015 and 2018, the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Iranians were following what was stipulated.
In 2018, already during Trump’s first term, United States National Intelligence Director, the CIA, and the Defense Department guaranteed everyone who will be respecting the agreement.
When Trump took over the presidency in 2017, JCPOA also had eliminated 98% of enriched uranium stock Iran and had still limited the enrichment to 3.7% – a value well below the level required for a nuclear pump.
Still in 2017, it was reported that the White House was pressing Intelligence agencies to make a violation of the agreement by the Iran that could justify a unilateral exit from the United States.
However, agents were resisting this pressure due to what happened in 2003, when the Bush administration He advanced to a war against Iraq claiming to have evidence that the country was producing weapons of mass destruction – evidence that was never found.
“I heard it from members of the intelligence community, for example, that they feel pressured. They told me that there was a sense of revulsion. A sense of déjà vu. A feeling of ‘We have seen this movie before’”, He said at the time Ned Price, former coalist of the CIA quoted by.
David Cohen, former CIA’s deputy director, also described as “disconcerting” the idea that Trump was trying to manufacture evidence to justify your decision, rather than making your decision based on existing evidence.
“This puts the intelligence process upside down. If our intelligence is degraded for being politicized The way the president wants to do here, it harms the usefulness of this intelligence at all levels, ”he warned.
Trump tore the deal and again imposed sanctions
Despite all this, Donald Trump even decided to unilaterally tear the agreement in 2018 and impose sanctions on Iran, describing it as “The worst agreement in history“.
“It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” said the head of state, stressing that they will “negotiated Jcpoa in bad faithand that the agreement gave the Iranian regime a lot in exchange for little. ”
The US head of state also justified the departure because the deal did not cover the Iran’s ballistic missile program and the country’s regional influence on its neighbors, such as Hezbollah support in Lebanon.
The leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom expressed their “grief and concern” with Trump’s decision and tried to keep the agreement alive, appealing to Iran to continue to fulfill what had been stipulated.
Joe Biden even tried to negotiate The return to JCPOA. However, in the last months of his term, a state department spokesman said they were “far away” to resume negotiations with Iran.
American spies contradict Trump
Following an attack ordered by Trump killed q Soleimani, leader of the Iran’s Elite QDS Force in January 2020, the Iranian government officially announced that would not comply with any of the restrictions operational to its nuclear program provided for in JCPOA.
Although there are signs that Iran is increasing the production of enriched uranium, a report from last month of the International Atomic Energy Agency states that There is no evidence that Tehra will be actively trying to produce nuclear weapons.
The same is said by US intelligence agencies. According to, the American officials point out that Iran has not yet decided whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb, although it has developed a large enriched uranium stock needed to do so.
These conclusions have not prevented Trump from saying several times that he believes that Iran is manufacturing nuclear bombs, denying the spy agencies of your own country.
The contradiction has already reached the bosom of Trump’s own government. Tulsi Gabbard, US National Intelligence Director, who initially became known in Democrats due to her anti-war positions, published a video on social networks on June 10 where warns against “The Political Elite and the Blicists” which are “carelessly fostering fear and tensions between nuclear powers” and that the world is “on the verge of nuclear annihilation.”
The secret boss had also stated in March that she had no concrete evidence that I will be building a nuclear arsenal. Confronted on these statements, Trump was short and thick: “I don’t want to know what she said. I think they are very close to having one. ”According to O, Gabbard’s video will also have irritated Trump, who considered it had spoken out of time.
This disagreement between Trump and Gabbard should have been resolved when the Secretary of the Secrets quickly changed tone. This Saturday, Gabbard went back and said that, after all, Iran may have a nuclear weapon in a few weeks and that its statements had been decontextualized by “dishonest media”
Some American authorities believe this retreat is based on the material provided by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, which believes Iran can.
Although some American authorities consider the reliable Israelite estimate, others emphasized that the evaluation of American intelligence has remained unchanged and is risky for USA blindly follow what is said by Israel. US spies also believe that it can take several months, or even a year, so that they will produce a nuclear weapon.
