Seance Diplomacy: Has the US Violated the Geneva Accords?

From foreign ministry representatives to official and unofficial media news outlets, everyone is talking about the “spirit of the Geneva Accords” and attacking the U.S. for violating this “spirit.” Apparently, in our diplomatic system, international contracts, deals and treaties — like living creatures — have a body and a “spirit.” We seem to have no interest in [consulting] the actual contents of the agreement to determine whether the Americans have violated its terms or not. Rather, we have to consider the spirit of the agreement, and since the diplomats are not capable of summoning ghosts, therefore, in order to advance the nuclear negotiations, the Foreign Ministry should put out a help-wanted ad for a few employees whose specialty is holding seances. Then, the spirits of international agreements and negotiations can be conjured according to special rituals, and they can ask these spirits, “Have the recent actions of the United States breached the terms of the Geneva Accords or not?”

Oh, how I wish that instead of joining radicals and opponents of the nuclear negotiations in their outcry, the president, Mr. Zarif, Mr. Araqchi, Mr. Takht-Ravanchi and co. would announce that although we do not accept Washington’s actions, these developments have nothing to do with the Geneva Accords and are in fact a result of previous legislation passed by Congress. Long before the Geneva Accords, the U.S. Congress had passed a law that required the American government to punish any individual or entity that helped bypass the sanctions. Such legislation has been passed a number of times; not only Iranian but also non-Iranian banks, organizations, individuals and entities have been included under this law. Last week’s decision was simply the continuation of this law’s implementation and has no relation to the Geneva Accords. Of course, the question may be posed: To what extent is the president free to disregard the implementation of this law? Could Obama have ignored the bypassing of sanctions to prevent harm to the negotiations?

According to our information, the new sanctions were those that Congress wanted to implement. Obama not only opposed them, but we will remind the reader that he also stated that if Congress passed the law despite severe opposition from the executive branch, the president would exercise his legal authority to veto it. Whether or not Obama wanted to go back on his word, the interests of Congress have won out, and the Americans have chosen to walk a less contentious path.

We have no need for summoning spirits! What we need is for the custodians of our diplomatic mission to stand a little firmer behind their own decisions where the interests of the nation require it and not to be blown back and forth in the winds of radicals’ demands.

On this subject, a third question has been posed: Could the president have turned a blind eye to implementing this law, realizing that in order to meet their own needs, Iranians have been forced to bypass some of the sanctions, as he did during the six-month period of joint action after the Geneva Accords? This question goes back to two essential points: First, how likely does Obama believe it is that a final agreement with Iran will be reached? And second, how worried is Obama that radical members of Congress will attack him if he does not punish Iran for circumventing sanctions?