Nuclear Program

The verdicts are in after the seventh round of the Iran nuclear negotiations paused on December 3: doom and gloom across the P5+1, most especially from the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and the United States. Iran came to the talks with maximalist and unworkable demands.

The last time the White House Press Secretary affirmed President Biden’s pledge to get a “longer, stronger” nuclear deal with Iran was 112 days ago.

The two rhetorical pillars of President Biden’s Iran strategy are a “longer, stronger” deal and “mutual compliance.”  The 135 State Department press briefings between January 26 and June 4 reveal that senior officials have uttered these two phrases more than 100 times.

In its latest report the Swedish Security Service revealed that Iran is investing “large sums” in “conduct[ing] industrial espionage, which is primarily aimed at Swedish high-tech industry and Swedish products that can be used in nuclear weapons programs.”  The Iranians are “acting more offensively than before,” and their spy operations are taking place over many years, “even decades.” Yet major global Swedish companies, including firms that makes components used fo

The Iran nuclear deal or JCPOA was atop the agenda during the first call between new U.S. Secretary of State Blinken and his UK counterpart Dominic Raab last week. But while the Biden Administration’s approach remains hazy, Britain could soon embrace a coherent strategy based on a recently published parliamentary committee report.

The Trump administration has begun a 30-day process to “snapback” international sanctions on Iran that were suspended because of the Iran nuclear deal.

Since the U.S. decision to trigger the snapback sanctions mechanism on Iran under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran has responded cautiously. While there have been calls from various officials to further violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the regime appears to have adopted a near-term strategy of restraint. It could morph into agitation depending on how the U.S. complaint is received by the U.N. Security Council.

This week German intelligence confirmed (yet again) that Iran was secretly procuring illegal nuclear and missile technology during 2019. The Germans should also look closer to home though, because you don’t have to be a spy to appreciate that Iran has a less furtive route to the same destination: through international academic collaboration.

As former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and U.S.

The center of geopolitical gravity will descend on Europe this week.  It begins with a NATO Leaders Meeting in London from December 3-4, followed by the Annual OPEC Conference in Vienna from December 5-6, only to be bookended by a meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on December 6 in the Austrian Capital.  There’s one common denominator in all these meetings: the challenge of Iran.