by Editor (Editorials, Crescent International Vol. 55, No. 4, Dhu al-Hijjah, 1446)
Officials from Iran and the US have held four rounds of talks in Oman and Rome since mid-April but progress appears slow. Despite periodic optimism that the talks are going well, American officials keep introducing new, untenable demands.
Iran has stated quite categorically from the beginning that these talks will be about two issues: the level of Iran’s enrichment at home and the lifting of all US sanctions. No other issue, such as Iran’s ballistic missile program for self-defence or its relations with regional resistance movements, will be discussed. Initially, the Americans agreed to this formula but in recent days, they have brought up other issues, coupled with threats.
Take the latest statement by Donald Trump’s representative at the talks, Steve Witkoff. Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Witkoff said that while the Trump regime wants to solve the stand-off with Iran diplomatically, “we have one very, very clear ‘red line’, and that is enrichment.”
Is he talking about the level of enrichment? No. “We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability,” Witkoff stressed. “Enrichment enables weaponization. And we will not allow a bomb to get here.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the US demand “unrealistic”. He went on to say that Tehran would continue enriching uranium with or without a deal. He scorned the US demand as “completely detached from the reality of negotiations.”
The Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei was even more explicit. Speaking at the May 20 commemoration ceremony for the martyred president Ibrahim Raeisi, the Rahbar described the US insistence that the Islamic Republic stop its peaceful uranium enrichment “utterly wrong”.
He went on: “To say that ‘we will not allow Iran to enrich uranium’ is a huge mistake.” The Rahbar ridiculed the American demand as detached from reality. He said: “No one is waiting for permission from anyone. The Islamic Republic has its own policies, its own methods, and it pursues its own agenda.”
Based on America’s maximalist demands, the Rahbar expressed doubt that the talks will yield any results. It is universally acknowledged that US President Donald Trump is unpredictable. He can flip on a dime.
Even America’s closest allies are frustrated by his outlandish demands. He has said that he wants to take over Greenland as well as make Canada the 51st state of the US. And Trump has imposed a raft of tariffs on goods from many countries only to make a hurried retreat in the face of detrimental effect on consumer prices at home.
Trump is unhinged but has the entire cabal around him also become unhinged? Witkoff is a real estate lawyers. One would expect that he would have some sense but he is displaying all the characteristics of his mad boss. How else can one explain his assertion that “We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability” in Iran. He went on: “Enrichment enables weaponization. And we will not allow a bomb to get here.”
Witkoff may not be a nuclear expert but he knows that as signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is entitled to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. This can be for medical, agriculture or industrial purposes, as well used as fuel in civilian reactors to produce energy. Further, other member-states are required to assist Iran in this process.
Let us consider what non-enrichment will entail for Iran. It will be dependent on imports for nuclear fuel for energy and other sectors. Since 1979, Iran has been subjected to illegal sanctions and it is not permitted to import even spare parts for civilian aircraft resulting in several crashes. It is also not permitted to import desperately needed medicines for patients. These sanctions amoun to war crimes.
The Americans are saying—these are actually the zionist war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands—that Iran should have no nuclear program. He cited the Libya model as example. The world knows what happened to Muammar Qaddafi and Libya once he dismantled his rudimentary nuclear program. Iran will not and must not go down that route.
The zionists have been saying since 1996 that Iran will have a nuclear bomb in one year. It is now 29 years but Iran has not produced a bomb. It does not want to; nuclear weapons are not part of its defence doctrine. Besides, the Rahbar has issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons calling them weapons of mass destruction.
Even US intelligence agencies have said that Iran is not making a bomb. So, why the repeated assertions that it must not have a bomb? These are pressure tactics designed to force Iran to surrender its fundamental rights.
While in Qatar, Trump again repeated these demands amid threats of more sanctions. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian shot back.
“He thinks he can come here, chant slogans, and scare us. For us, martyrdom is far sweeter than dying in bed,” he said on May 14 in comments broadcast live on state television, according to Reuters. “You came to frighten us? We will not bow to any bully.”
For the record, the US is the only country in the world to have used atomic weapons—not once but twice—against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. It also used depleted uranium shells against Iraq in 1991 whose deletrious effects are still being felt in grotesquely deformed babies being born.
The illegitimate zionist entity also possesses nuclear weapons, the only country in West Asia to do so. It refuses to open its nuclear facilities to international inspection but it is widely believed and known that it has at least 200 to 400 nuclear weapons. And the zionist entity has dumped nuclear waste in Palestinian territories.
Thus, for these nuclear lepers to demand that the Islamic Republic should have no nuclear program is outrageous. Iran is a responsible state; it has not initiated war against any country in 250 years. True, it has vigorously defended itself when attacked but that is its fundamental right. One cannot say this about the US or zionist Israel. Both entities thrive on war, death and destruction.
Given America’s maximalist demands coupled with more sanctions and threats, the chances of indirect talks yielding any results are limited. What the Americans fail to understand is that Iranians do not give in to threats or coercion.
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