48

I keep seeing articles in the US media recently, claiming that Iran is in violation of a 'nuclear deal'. For example:

The head of Iran's nuclear program said on Monday that Tehran was now operating double the amount of advanced centrifuges than was previously known in violation of its atomic deal with world powers.

NBC News - Iran spins more centrifuges on U.S. Embassy crisis anniversary

Iran announced new violations of its collapsing nuclear deal with world powers as it also marked Monday the 40th anniversary of the 1979 student takeover of the U.S. Embassy ... The head of Iran's nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the Middle Eastern nation is now operating 60 IR-6 advanced centrifuges in violation of its 2015 landmark atomic deal with world powers

USA Today - Iran announces nuke deal violations 40 years after U.S. Embassy takeover, hostage crisis

However, didn't Donald Trump withdraw the US nuclear deal with Iran? In that case, in what sense can they be viewed as violating a deal that the US chose to cancel?

Philipp
  • 76,766
  • 22
  • 234
  • 272
Time4Tea
  • 4,920
  • 3
  • 28
  • 43
  • This should be an interesting, related question: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/47540/under-international-law-can-a-country-partially-withdraw-from-a-treaty – the gods from engineering Nov 09 '19 at 11:47

5 Answers5

48

The deal was not only between the USA and Iran, as other countries and the EU were signatories:

  • China
  • France
  • Germany
  • European Union
  • Russia
  • United Kingdom

The situation with those signatories is complicated, as neither they nor Iran have withdrawn from the treaty. Those signatories are not trading with Iran due to USA sanction regimes; the pact is formally in place even if the U.S. has withdrawn.

Even if we ignore the above point and consider the nuclear deal extinct, the provisions of the deal could be considered a "measuring unit" to give some context to the public. For example, saying that "Iran has 1000 centrifuges" can be factual but not very informative; saying that "Iran has 1000 centrifuges while by the pact they agreed to have 500" gives more information and would definitely be different from "Iran has 1000 centrifuges while by the pact they agreed to have 999".

52d6c6af
  • 10,391
  • 2
  • 32
  • 75
SJuan76
  • 31,715
  • 8
  • 87
  • 112
  • 9
    The JCPOA is not a treaty. It's non-treaty nature is very relevant to exactly how the Trump administration was able to quickly withdraw from it. – Joe Nov 04 '19 at 21:01
  • 50
    It's not a treaty in terms of how it was implemented in the US legal framework, but it is a treaty in the colloquial sense of an international agreement signed by two or more countries. The treaty / non -treaty distinction is a peculiarity specific to the US, and I doubt that e.g.Iran's internal legal structures make the same distinction. – PhillS Nov 04 '19 at 21:14
  • 3
    @Joe: I agree with PhiliS. See more discussion in the 2nd part of my answer on another question https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/32810/18373 – the gods from engineering Nov 04 '19 at 21:43
  • 9
    Although not by their own choice, the other signatories are failing to carry out their obligations under the agreement. – Patricia Shanahan Nov 05 '19 at 04:29
  • 25
    @PatriciaShanahan - Yes. If Iran agreed to the terms of the agreement in exchange for concessions and lifting of sanctions, and the US backed out and is now forcing other nations to bend to the US's wishes, from Iran's perspective, why should they be the *only* nation that has to abide by the agreement? I think it's unrealistic to think that any nation would accept that. Furthermore, when you look at conditions like the amount of uranium they can stockpile/have on hand, a mechanism was built for them to export enough to stay under the limit. That mechanism has been shut off, for example. – PoloHoleSet Nov 05 '19 at 15:12
  • @PatriciaShanahan I don't see how it is not their choice. They don't have an obligation to favour US in this matter. There would be consequences but they choose to dishonour their treaty to avoid the consequences. – OganM Nov 05 '19 at 21:41
  • 2
    @OganM Everything is a choice. That said, one side (the non-Iran side) is not holding up their end of the bargain. Countries other than the US can't change that, but it's definitely questionable if the other side (the Iran side) should hold up their end of the bargain, if the other side is not going to provide the full benefits promised. – Jasper Nov 06 '19 at 14:26
  • @PhilS Several US Senators sent a letter to Iran detailing explicitly why the deal was not regarded as a treaty in the United States and warned them that as such, a future President could withdraw from it at any time. If they didn't have that internal understanding then it was only out of deliberate ignorance. – Joe Nov 06 '19 at 16:12
  • 2
    European Union is not a country. – Lucas Nov 06 '19 at 20:15
  • 2
    @Joe the issue is not whether the US could withdraw, the issue is whether Iran should remain bound by an agreement that the US has withdrawn from. I wouldn't expect anyone to "internally understand" that the agreement they were making only worked one way. – Jontia Jan 15 '20 at 08:53
  • RE: "Those signatories are not trading with Iran due to USA sanction regimes...", and yet it is also reported that China is buying 70% of Iran's oil production. Both can not be true simultaneously – BobE Jan 15 '20 at 18:18
32

American media is, unsurprisingly, biased with a pro-American viewpoint. Thus, we see that Trump "withdraws" from the agreement where Iran "violates" the agreement. In fact, it is more correct to say that America violated the agreement, as the word violation suggests acting in bad faith. By every account, Iran had held to the terms of the deal in good faith until the Trump administration decided to sabotage the whole thing. Iran is no longer bound to honor the agreement because it has already been dishonored by the other side.

American media works constantly to skew the perspective to present Iran in the worst light, and the US in the best light. They do this with the words that they choose, strategically applying euphemisms to influence public opinion.

klojj
  • 2,709
  • 11
  • 17
  • 12
    As someone who is immersed in American media, I'd push back on the implication that accurately reporting the facts would somehow nessecarily be anti-American. It might be inconvenient for Trump, but the two are not the same. At some point you have to operate in the Real World, so lying to yourself serves you ill in the long run. – T.E.D. Nov 06 '19 at 14:23
  • 6
    @T.E.D. where does klojj imply that accurately reporting the facts would be considered 'anti-American'? – Time4Tea Nov 06 '19 at 14:30
  • @Time4Tea - Perhaps that's overstating the case, but the term "pro-American" is used in a context where the party being helped by the misreading is decidedly not America, but its rather its current administration. Nothing about this situation had been good for long-term US interests, and lying to itself that it has only compounds the damage. – T.E.D. Nov 06 '19 at 14:38
  • 2
    @T.E.D. And I'd say it's naive not to think that the media from is pro-. Surely, the current populist trend in politics has the Western world more divided than it has been in a long time, but that doesn't eliminate bias all-together. – Jasper Nov 06 '19 at 14:42
  • 5
    @Jasper The vast majority of American media is presently anti-current-American-administration and takes any opportunity they get to cast said administration in a bad light (and, to be fair, said administration gives them lots of opportunities to do that.) – reirab Nov 06 '19 at 17:29
  • 3
    The only "acting in bad faith" that could really be said of the agreement in regards to the U.S. was Obama "signing" it in the first place, against the express will of Congress. Of course, the Iranians were fully aware that Obama did not have the support of Congress and that Obama did not have the authority to bind the U.S. to the agreement. This would be basic knowledge for any diplomat dealing with the U.S. (or at least any even remotely competent one.) They hoped they could put enough political pressure on future administrations to honor it anyway. They were wrong. – reirab Nov 06 '19 at 17:33
  • 5
    Trump "withdrew" from JCPOA because he formally indeed did so. Iran "violates" JCPO because it did not formally withdraw from it, so is in fact violating it. Simple. – Genli Ai Nov 07 '19 at 00:06
  • 1
    -1 because of the exact point made by @GenliAi - true that the US media is biased, but the language here is clearly relevant to the reality of the situation. –  Nov 07 '19 at 15:48
  • 1
    @GenliAi and wrong. There is no provision for "withdrawing" from the deal. Thus it is a violation. Having been already dishonored, there is no deal for Iran to violate. – klojj Nov 07 '19 at 16:16
  • 1
    you show most basic misunderstanding. Tyranny allows, law prohibits. Does JCPOA sets consequences for USA withdrawing from it? Does it for Iran? Simple. – Genli Ai Nov 08 '19 at 04:01
  • @GenliAi: Iran is openly violating (or gradually withdrawing from, as they phrase it) the treaty too. See my answer for some detail. – the gods from engineering Nov 09 '19 at 11:13
  • @T.E.D. Did actually read what he wrote? He's not saying it's inconvenient for Trump. He's saying American media is biased against Iran. – dan-klasson Nov 09 '19 at 20:41
  • 1
    @GenliAi Does the JSPOA set consequences for Iran to pull out of it when the U.S does? Why would Iran sign a deal that allows the U.S to pull out and for them to be liable to consequences for doing the same? That doesn't strike me as particular intelligent. – dan-klasson Nov 09 '19 at 20:45
  • 2
    @Fizz it's not a treaty. --- they are sovereign country, they can do as they please, there's no World Government to forbid them, only other sovereign countries to threaten them with war/sanctions. Or not. --- They got reprieve of sanctions under the deal; they go back on it, they get status quo ante, is all. The new American sanctions carried with them the explicit invitation to new negotiations to strengthen the old deal to really preclude the nukes/missiles development by Iran and renew the sanctions reprieve, as a package, but Iran chose to renew the confrontation instead. Their choice. – Genli Ai Nov 09 '19 at 22:09
  • 2
    @dan-klasson "why would they"? there's no "would" here. whatever happened, happened. Why would the US get into the deal that green-lights Iranian nukes in a few years? Surely seems outrageously stupid, yet they did. The Senate could easily have stopped it, but they worked out the "Corker deal" with Obama admin to paint themselves into a corner so that they couldn't. Why would they do that? Who knows. People usually have to be super intelligent though to do such stupid things, to outsmart themselves so much. – Genli Ai Nov 09 '19 at 22:21
  • 2
    @GenliAi You haven't offered any proof of your non-sensical claim. Also, the deal put a stop to Iran developing nuclear weapons and put in place inspections to ensure that. Without the deal, Iran is free to develop nukes. Talk about getting things backward. – dan-klasson Nov 10 '19 at 09:15
  • 2
    @dan-klasson "the deal put a stop to Iran developing nuclear weapons and put in place inspections to ensure that" factually wrong on all accounts. – Genli Ai Nov 10 '19 at 10:19
  • 1
    @GenliAi From Wikipedia: A comprehensive inspections regime will be implemented in order to monitor and confirm that Iran is complying with its obligations and is not diverting any fissile material. – dan-klasson Nov 10 '19 at 10:22
  • 1
    Soothing words. When we look at the reality we see that Iran has prohibited access for IAEA inspectors to military sites, and that the IAEA have signed an unpublicised agreement with the Iranians, permitting the Iranians to self-inspect their most sensitive sites. The JCPOA is about militarisation. Iran have ruled out inspection of the very sites that need to be inspected. This puts the truth to the baseless claim that "the deal put a stop to Iran developing nuclear weapons". – 52d6c6af Jan 15 '20 at 02:48
10

The basic issue US media has with this situation is the same issue they have had a lot in the Trump era: accurately reporting what was done (in this case, the US broke its word on an international agreement) would look a lot like a partisan political attack. This would violate the principle of "balance", which by training and ideology they just cannot make themselves do.

US mainstream media during the 20th century essentially grew up during a period of consolidation and monopolistic competition. This meant the consumer had some, but not a lot, of alternatives (usually 2 or 3), so everyone had to play for a general audience and build up loyalty with a "brand". They couldn't really shoot for a niche and survive. If a reader lost trust that what they were reading was going to be an attempt at truth, but instead simple political propaganda, they'd change channels or switch their subscription to the morning paper.

So mainstream US media developed a semi-formal code of political "balance". The idea was that on political issues they would try either not to weigh in at all, or failing that, give the side that the reporting made look bad some chance to respond. In practice this works out to a heavy bias in favor of centrism and normalcy.

Political operatives in the US started learning how to play this media desire for "balance" to their favor back in the 1970's to get themselves softer coverage (particularly the Tobacco companies and arguably the conservative movement).

The difference can be seen quite starkly any time a US ideologue foolishly agrees to be interviewed overseas. (See the relatively tame Frost Nixon interviews, or a lot of folks from the US far right interviewed lately by the BBC). Even relatively savvy US political operatives don't know how to deal with a proper adversarial press interview, because they get so little experience with that in their native country.

This "balanced" reporting works pretty well in normal times for normal stories where normal things are being done and both sides are acting in good faith performing actions that can reasonably be argued are not to the detriment of the honor or interests the political unit they are leading. However, it fails spectacularly when that condition does not apply.

From a Krugman op Ed (during a government shutdown crisis, but I think the point is timeless):

this is no laughing matter: The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism. Voters won’t punish you for outrageous behavior if all they ever hear is that both sides are at fault.

With today's proliferation of media and pseudo-media outlets, conditions may be changing. A lot of newer media outlets are starting to reject what they call false balance. A bit of that is starting to leak into more mainstream outlets, but organizational culture there does not change easily.

T.E.D.
  • 14,342
  • 1
  • 29
  • 62
  • 1
    I have to say that the picture you paint of US media in general espousing balanced reporting doesn't match at all with my experience of it. As someone who grew up in the UK and moved to the US a few years ago, there seem to be many US media outlets that are extremely biased politically. Political bias seems much more common in the media here than in the UK or Europe. In fact, it was one of the things that really hit me in the face when I first moved here. – Time4Tea Nov 06 '19 at 18:54
  • 1
    @Time4Tea - By and large those will be non-mainstream sources, like I was talking about in the final paragraph (Admittedly, throwing the likes of MSNBC and Fox News under the rubicon of "non-mainstream" is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but they are relatively new and non-traditional sources.) – T.E.D. Nov 06 '19 at 19:48
  • The US didn't break it's word on a treaty, because the Executive Agreement was never ratified as a Treaty. – Drunk Cynic Jan 15 '20 at 02:55
  • @DrunkCynic - You're right in a technical sense. "treaty" has a specific constitutional meaning in the US, and it wasn't one of those. It was actually an agreement by the executive to cease some economic sanctions that Congress had authorized by law, but not dictated. (Why Congress chose to give the POTUS that kind of latitude is a different issue). But I think you're right that this technicality is important, so I've changed the verbiage. – T.E.D. Jan 15 '20 at 17:17
  • @Time4Tea Anyone who has lived through the last four years of the Brexit imbroglio, would be unlikely to recognise large sections of the right-wing British press as free from "political bias". – WS2 Jan 15 '20 at 20:14
1

Note that Iran themselves point out how they are gradually disengaging from the deal, e.g. news from Oct 16:

On Wednesday, the spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, Hossein Naghavi-Hosseini, said: “In the fourth step of reducing JCPOA commitments, we will probably impose limits on inspections, which means the International Atomic Energy Agency’s surveillance on Iran’s nuclear activities will be reduced.”

“We will certainly take the fourth step of reducing commitments to the JCPOA; Europeans have not honoured their part of the commitments and we have not seen any practical step taken by the other side.”

Community
  • 1
the gods from engineering
  • 158,594
  • 27
  • 390
  • 806
-1

By leaving the JCPOA in May 2018, the US did not cancel the agreement.

The agreement continued, with the agreement of the remaining parties.

The US was not in violation because no rule was broken. There is no rule in the agreement stating that a signatory cannot exit the agreement unilaterally.

Furthermore, under US law, the JCPOA was not even a treaty, making exiting the agreement even easier for the US President.

In May 2019, Iran announced an “increase” in uranium enrichment activity in violation of the terms of the agreement.

In May, Iran announced it was quadrupling its uranium production capacity and mid-June it would exceed the stockpile limit by the end of the month.

Of course the relation of such pronouncements to the truth is open to debate. The move was leveraged by both the Iranian regime and US domestic opposition, to discredit the incumbent US administration.

Counterintuitively, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani indicated in November 2019 that Iran was continuing to pursue the JCPOA agreement to win the benefits of a lifted arms embargo in 2020 as part of the terms of the deal.

As to whether Iran violated the JCPOA, the wording of the agreement is such that as long as a majority of the EU+3 are happy with the evidence provided by Iran, then no violation occurs (para. 78).

Until May 2018 the IAEA maintained that Iran had been in compliance with the JCPOA. This is the source of the numerous "Iran is [or was] in compliance" claims.

However, since the original signing of the agreement in 2015 - including before the Trump administration - Iran repeatedly (2015) stated (2017) that IAEA inspectors are denied access to their military sites - even those at which nuclear research was previously known to have been conducted.

Remember: the entire purpose of the JCPOA is to ensure Iran does not militarise nuclear technology.

From the preface (my emphasis):

[the signatories] welcome this historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which will ensure that Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful...

Iran therefore stayed in "compliance" of the agreement on the volition of the EU+3, and then latterly, after the 2016 Presidential Election, the EU+2 (ie. without the US).

In other words: if a majority of the EU+3 were to demand access to an Iranian military facility to check for compliance, then Iran would likely immediately fall into non-compliance.

But the signatories other than the US never requested such access, and hence Iran stayed in compliance.

Compliance checking necessarily involves verification of stated compliance. Simply accepting Iran saying "we are in compliance" does not suffice. If we fully trusted Iran, then the JCPOA and the inspection regime would not be necessary.

A thorough check, therefore, cannot be completed without access to military sites; yet, per the above, no violation occurs until the a majority of the signatories agree it has. The US executive was, for good reason, not happy with the inability of IAEA inspectors to access Iranian military sites for compliance checking.

The US requested access for the IAEA inspectors, and were denied. The terms of the treaty gave them no veto power, so they exited the agreement in May 2018 - as was their right.

The reason why the IAEA never requested access to military sites for the checking of compliance - when it would seem a straightforward matter of due diligence - is open to speculation.

With the persistent refusal to ask for inspectors' access to likely sites of nuclear weapons development, the nature of the JCPOA changes hue. It becomes a fig leaf - a pretence - that the Iranian regime is on a path to rehabilitation. Clearly all sides know this.

In addition to the nuclear-related aspects of the JCPOA, it encodes more than $100 billion in sanctions relief for the Iranian regime.

Also noteworthy, is the January 2015 flight, in an unmarked plane, of $400 million in cash to Iran. The Obama administration denied this was payment for the release of hostages.

The Wall Street Journal reported that this was the only the first instalment of a $1.7 billion payment to Iran. These "repayments" were claimed to settle an outstanding "debt" to the Iranians for non-delivery of military equipment in 1979.

Due to the fungibility of money, these payments can easily be argued to have subsequently been used to support Iran's various proxies against the coalition effort in the region.

This debt repayment and sanctions relief at a time when the theocratic regime was involved in a kinetic proxy war with the US; plus the fact that the agreement doesn't actually close-off a path to a bomb informs us about possible motivations for the US (and possibly others) signing the JCPOA.

One can speculate that the deal - presented as a way to prevent an Iranian nuclear break-out - was, instead, realpolitik designed to empower predominantly-Shia Iran as a counter to other powers in the region: Israel and predominantly-Sunni Saudi Arabia. Possibly to engineer a regional stalemate of sorts.

52d6c6af
  • 10,391
  • 2
  • 32
  • 75