Editorial of “The World”. Each day that passes in Vienna brings additional pessimism about the negotiations to salvage an important deal aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The underlying negotiations that made it possible to reach the 2015 agreement (a freeze of the program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions) had already taken troubling paths, but major differences explain the alarmism currently in force.

The faction of five negotiators (Germany, China, the United States, France and the United Kingdom) facing the Iranian regime initially appears less cohesive than in the past. Since 2015, Iran and China have thus deepened their strategic and economic ties. Tehran’s expectations are undoubtedly inconsistent compared to Beijing’s calculations, but they fuel Iran’s belief that the country can come to terms with Western sanctions by relying on its Chinese partner.

The Iranian representative is no longer 2015. President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Zarif, who made sanctions one of their main foreign policy objectives, have been replaced by Ebrahim Rasi and Hossein after the presidential election in June. Amir Abdullah. Unlike their predecessors, the latter do not regard a new agreement as a top priority, which also reduces the room for maneuver by their negotiators.

The explosion triggered in 2018 by the United States’ unilateral exit from the accord at the initiative of Donald Trump is finally producing its effects. This precedent shattered the minimum confidence required to reach a new agreement. Iranians have a good time to argue that the American word, now, is worth little more than a presidential mandate. And that no one would risk investing in Iran when the country’s re-integration into the world economy was the equivalent of overseeing a controversial nuclear program.

splendid nuisance

When he withdrew the United States from the 2015 accord and reinstated US sanctions that had been pushed by ideologues strong in the federal capital, Donald Trump sought to bring the Iranian regime to its knees. point made. The latter will be forced quickly, he assured, to accept both the tightening of measures on his program (the now bloodless pact ends in 2025), as well as to bolster his ballistic program with its regional impact. As for controlling, two other points of contention.

Everyone can now measure the foresight of the former President of the United States of America. Iran is not broken even though the internal situation has deteriorated significantly. The regime has hardened and it has unilaterally restarted its program, taking advantage of this US violation. This final tangent is the point of no return more than ever, while International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are now routinely kept at bay.

This spectacular nuisance now apparently allows only bad solutions: to save at least appearances, without the slightest progress on nuclear power, two other issues that are preoccupied with the West; Or the military escalation that the 2015 agreement made it possible to avoid. Everything should be tried to avoid such an option.