Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 8 May 2019.  © Richard Kemp

President Rouhani of Iran has issued an ultimatum to European governments: break US sanctions against Iran’s oil and banking sectors within 60 days or we will break our nuclear agreement. Counterintuitively, Rouhani’s demands could help Berlin, Paris, London and Brussels out of the dangerous conundrum they are in over the Iranian nuclear deal.

This deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1, is certain to fail. Its declared purpose is to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear armed state. In fact, it paves the way for the ayatollahs to lawfully implement their nuclear weapons programme in around 10 years’ time.

Despite continuing claims to the contrary the JCPOA failed to put in place a proper verification process and the International Automatic Energy Authority (IAEA) has not been able to certify Iranian compliance with the deal in any one of the three years since it was struck.

The nuclear archive seized from Iran by Israeli intelligence last year confirmed Iran had consistently lied to the IAEA about its programme and strongly indicated the likelihood of continued covert nuclear weapons development.

The deal failed to prevent Iran’s pursuit of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and since 2016 it has conducted missile tests in contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

Instead of restraining Iran, the JCPOA emboldened the ayatollahs and led to increased aggression across the region. Tehran has (more…)