Before Starting Another Meeting of the 'Six,' the US is Putting Forward New Requirements for Iran

Even before his official inauguration, Rouhani, the new president of Iran, has gotten his first very difficult task, which seems to require an immediate solution. Iran’s nuclear program is used by the West to pressure it. The West is using it with impudent manipulations and outright lies, like red marks drawn by a pen on obscure pictures shown at the highest committees.

The U.S., supported by Israel, put forth unacceptable demands for the next meeting of the “six” with Iran. A threat of new sanctions was declared in case Iran refuses to satisfy these requirements.

Two things are worth noticing here. First, there is nothing surprising in this sudden activity by the U.S. On the contrary, everything is going according to plan.

A new president means a new strategy. Thus, it makes sense to try to “break” him. Like in any other negotiations, both sides start with mutually unacceptable offers in order to be able to make some concessions. The U.S. has always been successful with this strategy, pushing for the results it needs with this policy of “small steps.”

This is a specialty of the Anglo-Saxon school of diplomacy, which guarantees excellent results. Everybody knows it as well as “Garrincha’s trick,” but they fall for it anyway. Will Iran’s new president fall for it as well? It is hard to say. However, he will have to make some concessions for sure. Most likely it will pertain to increasing the number of objects accessible to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors. About a year ago, the U.S. and Israel spread the word about possible tests of neutron initiators in the lab of the Parchin military complex. It was quite a serious accusation because the tests could have proved that Iran’s nuclear program has military grounds.

Although the U.S. knew that the issue of access to this military complex was impossible to solve right away, it used Iran’s denial of access as a reason to toughen its position. It is still not clear how true the United States’ information about these hypothetical tests was. By the way, the U.S. has been caught a few times in forgeries and falsifications in similar cases (such as the white powder tube at the U.N. Security Council and chemical weapons use by Assad’s regime). Both cases of forgery were exposed, but the U.S. achieved its goals with the help of them.

The second thing worth mentioning is that the U.S. hints at strengthening sanctions. This hypothetical strengthening means that all previous sanctions were ineffective. In any case, the U.S. failed to force Iran to make concessions. It makes sense to ask if these measures are even effective to start with. Sanctions, in general, are a weak tool of influence and pressure. In recent history, they were only effective against Iraq during the time between the two Gulf Wars. At that time, Iraq was a defeated country; it had neither resources nor the possibility of avoiding sanctions.

Iran is not defeated. It keeps its sovereignty, and it has one of the world’s biggest economies, which is connected to the economies of other leading countries. While sanctions can make serious problems, most of Iran’s current economic problems are a result of former president Ahmadinejad’s unsuccessful experiments. Sanctions play only a secondary role in making problems for a country.

The threats of the U.S. mean that it has no other tools to pressure Iran, and the ones it does use do not bring any changes in the politics of Iran’s leadership. This means that Iran can easily take the threats of the U.S. At a time when the U.S. cannot afford a military solution to the Iranian problem, all other options are futile. Most likely, Iran’s leadership is aware of this. Thus, there will be no significant changes in its position at this coming meeting.