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Europe and the Iran nuclear threat by Luigi Scazzieri, 6 February 2023 Efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have stalled and Tehran is closer than ever to having nuclear weapons. Europe needs a new strategy. Of all the challenges the EU faces in the Middle East, the nuclear threat from Iran is the most urgent. In late January, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) director, Rafael Grossi, said that Iran has enriched enough fissile material to build several nuclear bombs. Iran’s foreign policy is also a problem for the West. Iran has developed a network of proxy armed groups like militias in Iraq or Hezbollah in Lebanon to increase its influence in the Middle East. Tehran has supported Russia in its war against Ukraine by providing drones to attack Ukrainian cities. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime’s suppression of the protests that started in September, with hundreds killed, has yet again underscored its brutality. The EU was the driving force behind the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which placed strict limits on its nuclear activities. After former US President Donald Trump stopped abiding by the agreement in 2018, re-imposing sanctions that the US had lifted under the deal and imposing additional ones, the EU tried to keep the JCPOA alive. Iran initially stuck to the deal’s limits for one year, before gradually beginning to expand its nuclear activities. Iran also retaliated against Trump’s sanctions, harassing and attacking shipping in the Persian Gulf, attacking Saudi oil facilities and using its proxies to attack US forces in the region. Once Biden became US president in 2021, the EU attempted to engineer a synchronised return to the JCPOA, as both Iran and the US said that they wanted to revive the agreement. The two sides came close to a deal in August last year, but then momentum waned. Specifically, Iran demanded guarantees in case a future US administration reneged on the deal as Trump had done, which Biden could not legally give. Iran also asked for a long-running IAEA investigation into its past nuclear activities to be terminated – which was unacceptable both to the US and the Europeans. A third major point of contention was Iran’s demand that the US de-list the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation. More broadly, advocates of a rapprochement with the West had lost influence in Iran’s ruling circles while hardliners had become stronger. Meanwhile, Iran’s support for Russia and its suppression of protests made it increasingly politically costly for Biden to push for a revived agreement. CER INSIGHT: Europe and the Iran nuclear threat 6 February 2023
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