It is still unclear what the Biden Administration will do about the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Biden has at times expressed a willingness to rejoin the JCPOA, without any change to the agreement, and at other times, he has suggested that he would join the deal only if it were modified to include limits on Iran’s development of ballistic missiles and its regional aggression, through a network of proxies and allies — from the Houthis in Yemen, to Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, to the Alawite-led army In Syria, to Hezbollah in Lebanon – to create a “Shi’a crescent” from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. Now Iran, has apparently given Washington a deadline to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal. In so doing, it appears to have overplayed its hand.
The latest report, on the time table that Iran now demands be met by Washington, is here: “Will Iran overplaying its hand force Biden to call its bluff – analysis,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, January 14, 2021:
Israel and Iran have both been maneuvering to influence the incoming Biden administration regarding the nuclear standoff. But only the Islamic Republic has given a deadline.
Iran has said that if sanctions are not dropped by February 21 it would kick out IAEA inspectors, a most dramatic nuclear violation since it would make it impossible for the world to follow the status of its nuclear program, absent clandestine efforts.
Iran has thus given Biden exactly one month to remove the sanctions that the Trump Administration had placed on it; otherwise, Iran will expel the IAEA nuclear inspectors, leaving it able, without that monitoring, to go for broke on its nuclear program.
Along with Tehran’s recent jump-starting the enrichment of its uranium to the 20% level, this could signal to Israel, moderate Sunni states and even the West that the ayatollahs are moving toward a nuclear weapon. Iran also demanded this week the dropping of the 2015 deal’s snapback sanctions mechanism.
Given that Iran has violated many parts of the 2015 deal, one wonders why the Biden Administration thinks that this time will be different, and if the Americans lift the sanctions, Tehran will now adhere scrupulously to the agreement, which it has never done in the past.
Though the incoming Biden administration has signaled that it wants to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal and roll back sanctions, there is no way sanctions can be removed in the administration’s first month in office.
Even if it wanted to roll back the sanctions in only 30 days, there is a complex sanctions machinery that may take longer to remove. Moreover, Joe Biden has made it clear that his first priority is the coronavirus pandemic, followed by addressing other domestic priorities, including the fallout from the rioters’ attacks on the Capitol, racial justice issues, and the environment.
In foreign policy, his first priorities are dealing with China and Russia. Biden will not want to waste significant political capital in the first stage of his presidency looking too weak on Iran, even if his general goal is to rejoin the deal. Moreover, having a Democratic majority in the US Senate does not mean that he will avoid a vote against a quick rejoining of the Iran deal, given that some Democrats oppose rejoining….
In insisting that sanctions be lifted by one month after Biden’s inauguration, the Iranians have made an error: they assume that the Biden Administration regards its relations with Iran as the most important issue, the very first thing, it needs to address. But the Biden Administration is of a different opinion: there are many other matters that it believes must be deal with first. The Administration has clearly spoken about those other priorities; they’ve been published in the press. One begins to wonder: don’t the Iranians read our papers? If so, they would discover that even those in the administration who might most favor lifting the sanctions know that it can’t possibly happen during that first month .It is going to happen only after a long political fight; Biden will not want to use up capital on Iran relations that he might want to save for other battles. Biden has listed his other, much more important priorities during his first months n office. First, there is the conronavirus pandemic, and his stated determination to “vaccinate 100 million Americans in the first 100 days.” That will be a complicated effort, involving both logistics and psychology – convincing millions of anti-vaxxers that the vaccines are safe — that will require a great deal of his administration’s attention. And assuming that initial goal is met, Biden will need to continue the breakneck pace of the vaccination effort, to have another 210 million Americans (20 million will have been vaccinated before January 20) vaccinated before the end of 2021.
Then there are the other issues Biden and Harris have promised to immediately address, including racial justice (one wonders just what that means, in the current heated environment) and police reform. And for the Administration the most important issue, over the long term, is climate change. Biden has said he wants to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. But there are many related undertakings that will occupy his administration in its first months. These include providing tax credits to encourage people to buy electric vehicles, and allocating the billions necessary to build out a national network of roadside recharging stations. It will also include greatly increasing residential and commercial use of solar energy through tax credits, and halting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). It will no doubt pain Tehran to realize that the Biden administration has many other matters on its To-Do List before reaching “Iran, Sanctions and Paris Deal.”
Another consideration for the Biden administration is that it cannot be seen to yielding to an ultimatum from Iran (“ lift those sanctions by Feb. 21 or we kick out all the IAEA inspectors at once”); it would make Biden look weak. That’s a perception he cannot afford. The Islamic Republic believes it was successful using brinkmanship to corner the Obama administration into dropping certain issues. It appears that the ayatollahs have seized on the multiple statements by incoming Biden administration officials of their desire to rejoin the deal in order to make additional demands. Of course, it is possible that this could work, and Biden could announce in principle his rejoining of the deal by February 21, with actual sanctions relief applied afterward.
While his domestic agenda – his To-Do List – will keep Biden from dealing with Iran’s demands in the first few months of his administration, the Islamic Republic itself will also need time – three to four months – to fullfil its part of a possible bargain, by undoing all of its violations of the Paris deal, including giving up the stocks of uranium it has enriched, to a level of 20%, well beyond what the JCPOA permits. How long will it take Iran to gather that uranium and ship it out of the country to the IAEA headquarters?
The Iranians have badly misplayed their hand. Above all there is: the coronavirus vaccine rollout, which will be the main focus for many months, followed by attempts to “deal with police reform and “racial justice” measures, and — what is likely for the Bidenites to be the most important task of all — passing environmental legislation. After the country returns to the Paris Agreement on climate, legislative battles will follow, as the Administration tries to meet its commitments under that agreement to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels and to encourage the transition to renewables. The Administration will push for a massive increase, through tax credits, in the use of electric vehicles, and will also push for a government-funded national network of charging stations along our highways. The government can similarly promote – with subsidies or tax credits—a great increase in the use of residential and commercial solar energy. Only then will the Biden administration turn its attention to what deal with Iran it may be willing to consider, and according to its own timetable, rather than to an Iranian ultimatum. I suspect that Iran will be in for a shock; members of Biden’s national security team have been discussing modifications — concerning ballistic missiles and Iran’s regional aggression — they now want to have included in a Paris Deal 2.0.
What should Iran have done? Had it understood Biden’s fear of appearing weak, it would never have issued an ultimatum. Instead, it could have said, striking a conciliatory note, that it “welcomes a more reasonable administration in Washington, has high hopes of collaborating with Washington and other members of the JCPOA, and is prepared, without delay, to immediately renew its full cooperation with the IAEA’s inspectors, just as soon as American sanctions are lifted.”
That’s all lies, of course: Iran will continue to violate its solemn commitments under the Paris Agreement.. It will continue to enrich uranium to a level beyond what was agreed, will continue to work on the nuclear facilities inside a mountain at Fordo, will continue to mislead inspectors about other nuclear sites it still has not revealed. It’s Iran’s modus operandi; it was only thanks to Mosssad’s seizure of Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018 that the world learned of several nuclear sites that Iran had kept secret from inspectors. Why wouldn’t it continue the same kinds of deceptions it had practiced before?
Not only will the new administration not be willing, nor able, to meet Iran’s February 21 deadline, but this display of attempted bullying by Iran will strengthen the hand of those in the Administration who want the sanctions lifted only after Iran has agreed to a more comprehensive treaty, one that includes, as mentioned above, limits on ballistic missiles, and curbs on Iran’s regional aggression, through Shi’a proxies and allies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Iran will be chagrinned, disabused, angry, when it had been expecting a very different result, but in the end, it will have to give in, if it ever hopes to emerge from its current economic collapse.
Frank Anderson says
If you believe Iran does not have some nuclear weapons now “I’ve got some land off the coast of ???? for sale”. How could they not have weapons now considering they have been running thousands of centrifuges for more than a decade, cooperating with North Korea in nuclear weapons and missiles, and playing every game imaginable to keep their collaborators and sympathizers in control. The EU lead representative Mogherini has a background in the Italian Communist Party and Iran writing that calls to me treachery and betrayal of Europe in favor of Iran.
The simplest atomic bomb, Little Boy, required a piece of nearly pure Uranium 235 about the size of a softball when assembled. If the Uranium is enriched to 20 percent, that means that 5 softballs would have to be flown or otherwise transported to North Korea for final enrichment and fabrication. If the Uranium is enriched to the agreed 4 percent, then that would mean flying 25 or so softballs to NK. More modern designs cut that requirement more than half. It is fair to estimate from the models on display at Albuquerque’s Nuclear Weapons Museum, that less than a baseball sized piece is needed now.
Iran has bombs now, just not as many as they want before they start the war to bring back the Twelfth Imam.
Daniel Triplett says
No doubt Iran has at least one bomb. They’re likely waiting to amass at least several dozen of them before they begin using them, which they’re certain to do. Their nuke weapon objectives are clearly offensive rather than defensive. They make clear they’re deadly serious about their sacred and moral duty to force global submission to Islam through violent jihad.
They don’t even need ICBMs, bomber jets, or submarines. With vans, commercial jets, and/or container ships, they can covertly pre-position the refrigerator-sized devices anywhere on the planet for detonation at will, either simultaneously, or more likely individually, using extortion strategies to force Islamic submission through terror and fear of them detonating yet another one. Won’t even matter at that point if we nuke their entire nation in retaliation. Thwarting the continuation of their plan and defending ourselves would be impossible.
The Ayatollah has already said they’re willing to martyr their entire state in the global advancement of Islam. We should take them seriously. Aren’t you glad we have Joementia and Horizontal Harris in charge? Hunter’s probably in Tehran right now negotiating a lucrative payoff for his self and The Big Guy ahead of our new President selling all of us and our national security down the river.
Frank Anderson says
D.T., I understand that Albuquerque New Mexico is not the easiest place to visit in person. There may be some way to see the exhibits online. I have been there twice; and look forward to visiting again in my dreams because it is somewhere around 2,000 miles away..
One of the contrasts to be observed is how large and how small bombs can be made. There is one bomb (no doubt a dummy) that is almost the size of a bus. Then there are bombs for the Minuteman and Trident missiles that are cones about 18 inches in diameter at the base and about 3 or 4 feet tall. The actual bomb inside the heat shield should be about 2/3rds those dimensions. Then there is the Davy Crocket bomb, about the size of a basketball. Where originally the 280 mm Atomic Cannon was built to fire a bomb, the size has been reduced to a 155mm shell. Figure the actual bomb is between 4 and 5 inches in diameter and less than 18 inches long. A refrigerator would leave a lot of room for hiding a bomb. And of course there is the backpack bomb which weighs about 50 pounds and its third generation is rated at 1 kiloton.
According to the publicly available book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, published by the US Government Printing Office, a 1 kiloton bomb would do about half what was done by the 10 kiloton or so bomb on Hiroshima.
Do you remember the scene in Animal House where the ROTC cadet (Kevin Bacon?) is shouting to the stampeding mob, “Keep calm: All is well!” ? How many people are shouting the same thing as we approach Iran opening fire?
Daniel Triplett says
Thanks for the tip Frank. I’ll be visiting the nuke museum in Albuquerque too. Fascinating stuff.
Like you say, the warheads are small and concealable. I believe the UGM-133 Trident II can carry 12 MIRV warheads (although treaty limited to 10). They’d have to be pretty small to fit 12 on 1 missile.
Since the objective is terror, a small 1 kt bomb in a jihadist’s backpack would be plenty. They don’t even need large 1000 kt devices. Very disturbing. Biden, and all Democrats, are frighteningly ignorant about Muslims and nukes.
Now that no one is allowed to speak of election fraud, we can expect the process to repeat every time, because it works. And in the mean time they’ll be legalizing the 20 Million illegals (new Democrat voters), opening the southern border for more illegals (more Democrat voters), making 2 more states (4 Democrat Senators), and attempting to abolish the electoral college. I’m afraid we’ve seen the last GOP CINC America is ever going to see.
Frank Anderson says
D.T. there was a model of the third stage of the Trident with the 12 warheads. I believe they are the same as the Minuteman III, and possibly the cruise missiles, 375 kt.
A Gnostic Agnostic says
Islam has infected the entire geopolitical Left. No wonder the Islamic Deep State wants everyone hating China – the latter already publicly declared Islam an infectious disease & they were 100% correct. The geopolitical Left has the same infectious hatred for the U.S. that Islam does. They just can’t wait to get their pedophile Joe Biden in power to destroy the U.S. from within.
Peace says
China is the only country handling muslims in a realistic way …
Frank Anderson says
Peace, have you heard the teaching that there are no perfectly good or perfectly bad people? Compare the Chinese relations with muslims internally and externally. Consider how they are allying with Pakistan against India. China would love to have 1.5 Billion/Milliard muslims deal with its enemy instead of having to do the work on its own. It’s as cold and calculating a gambit as Hitler supporting Israel while at the same time conducting the Holocaust. And that is almost what happened. Jews who left Germany for Israel were allowed to take far more than those admitted to the US.
Walter Sieruk says
Joe Biden when he becomes president , he will have a great impact on America ,for her worst .Biden will be a catastrophe ,calamity and a curse on the United States.
The awful harm of Biden ,and Harris ,will likewise horrible effect of furthering strengthening the tyrannical oppression of the Iranian people by that “mullah regime” that has total control of Iran as well as further empowering that aggressive and hostile rough state to have more money by the restoration of despicable and terrible Obama Iran nuclear “deal” to the Islamic regime so it will still further its advance for construction and production of nuclear weapons of mass destruction to threaten American ,Israel and many other countries.
That affront of an Obama /Iran “deal” that Biden will promote also give that belligerent Islamic regime of Iran more funds so that it will send even more supplies of deadly weapons to its Islamic stooge terror entities as Hamas and Hezbollah and even to the Taliban in Afghanistan so they they can more effectively murder the few remaining American US troops who still remain in that Asan nation.
Biden and Harris are monstrous disasters just waiting to come to power in Washington DC.
Westman says
It takes a real nutter like Khamenei to think that his recent “missile show” and underground missile base “reveal” will cause a frightened world to come running to appease him. Flashing his sword is a bad idea even at the incoming Biden Admin.
The “reveal” does quite the opposite; showing about 12 carrier/launcher trucks each with 3 missiles (36 total) all queued up in a concrete-lined tunnel that could be destroyed with a few bunker-busters due to the pressure they would create in a confined space. It appears that the first two trucks have been duplicated to make the following truck images in the “photo” – more deceit.
The recent “missile show” would have depleted Iran’s missile stock and backfired on Khamenei as well, causing the US and EU to declare that there can be no return to the JCPOA unless there are added controls on Iran’s missile program.
Peace says
IAEA out,,, MOSAD in,
They want to go big on nuclear aggression, MOSAD will sort it all out for them…
See how long idiots, with aviator glasses and too many medals last with MOSAD on the hunt …
ElderlyZionist says
“Iran will expel the IAEA nuclear inspectors, leaving it able, without that monitoring, to go for broke on its nuclear program.”
That will also clear the field of fire.
Walter Sieruk says
Joe Biden is an incompetent , corrupt lying cheating vote stealing unconscionable politician who is totally and completely unfit and unworthy to sit in the Oval Office.
James Lincoln says
Sounds like you’re not a big fan of Sleepy Joe, Walter. (sarc/off)
Walter Sieruk says
Joe Biden is a vote stealing cheating villian of a politician who doesn’t belong in the White House but in prison.
Walter Sieruk says
Indeed ,Joe Biden has “overplayed his hand” with that “mullah regime” of Iran. For Biden Is controlled by the tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran. at least to some degree, This is because Biden is much indebted to Iran for aiding ,as in helping him obtain the Office ofthe President ofthe United States.
Biden owes Iran much .So naturally, the ayatollahs, mullahs as well as the other regime officials would be very overjoyed at the prospect of a coming Biden/Harris administration.
For a Biden/Harris administration will ,no doubt, will be most un-American, treacherous, subversive and even treasonous to the Constitutional Government of the United States of America,
To make matters worse, this coming awful administration will come into being because a stolen national election by massive voter fraud and rigged voting machines.
This treachery and blatant travesty of a national rigged election is an is a terrible affront and violation to and affront to the Law of the US Constitution the American spirit of a true and honest and real Presidential election system.
Let’s not be hopefully unrealistic and naive 2021 was the last genuine national American election this nation will ever have this coming Biden/Harris administration has the total essence ofthe Red/ Green alliance in it and backing it.
It’s no wonder than that the Muslim tyrants of are in power in that Islamic aggressive, hostile Islamic tyrannical regime are euphoric about this coming Biden /Hariss administration.
It’s also very likely that this despicable “mullah regime” of Iran had it sinister insidious Islamic hand playing apart in that November rigged national election. For in the video documentary entitled TRUMP CARD by Dinesh D’ Souza . His film exposed that their number one, top, goal for the year of 2020 was to scrap the Trump administration and replace it with a Biden administration. So the ayatollahs ,mullahs and other officials of that Islam Iranian regime schemed ,funded ,support and promoted the Biden President campaign in every was that it was able to, by hook or by crook, that “mullah tyranny” aided the Biden campaign.
James Lincoln says
Correct on all points, Walter.
Oh, how I wish you were wrong…
don vito says
I would prefer that the neurotransmitter challenged imitation president’s administration be tied up in knots by the mullahs for the first six months of its existence, to prevent its domestic plans being implemented and delayed as long as possible. As the deep state is fond of doing, slow walking the agenda.
Jabez says
The Iranians are trying to litmus test the Biden administration by gauging to what level the US will scramble to response to its ultimatum. Iran knows full well that it is a weak administration and trying to take advantage of it, at the same time, trying its luck.
OLD GUY says
Biden’s brain is like shifting sand every time he turns his head the sand shifts until his Dr.wife tells him what to do.
Infidel says
NBC: Iran Jails U.S. Dual National Businessman for Spying, Jeopardizing Biden Plan
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/18/nbc-iran-jails-u-s-dual-national-businessman-for-spying-jeopardizing-biden-plan/
Walter Sieruk says
Donald Trump is a splendid and great American President who has accomplished much good for the betterment of the USA in his short few years in power in the White House.
In contrast ,when Joe Biden enters the White House and assumes all the power of the US Presidency ,he will ,no doubt , be a calamity for America and a catastrophe upon the American people.