Nuclear Negotiations or Nuclear Capitulation

There is a great dissatisfaction among Iranians with respect to the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 over the nuclear issue. The question many have is why the government of Iran and its negotiators have not taken a more solid and serious stance in response to the unfair and inhumane sanctions imposed on the country.

Two kinds of sanctions exist; one, the unilateral sanctions imposed by a single country, and two, multilateral international sanctions. If multilateral sanctions are imposed due to rumors and destructive threats by Israel and some Arab countries, thereby convicting Iran of crimes before any trial and in the absence of evidence, then they become some of the most difficult issues to overcome and will influence future negotiations.

In the case of the Iran nuclear negotiations, it is the P5+1 that must give security guarantees to Iran, and it is the P5+1 negotiators who must resist the economic warfare currently imposed on Iran by the US and the Europeans. In reality, the P5+1 negotiators should have prevented certain sanctions from being imposed in the first place.

It appears that the West wants to "sweeten Iranian mouths with an empty spoon." Iranians have had bitter, rather than sweet, experiences with this type of behavior, and the experiences remain with us. The question is, in response to this savage economic warfare, what the P5+1 intends to do. If the level of Iran's cooperation with the IAEA and the international community is to change, but if no attention is ever paid to that continuous cooperation, (then why should negotiations continue under the current circumstances? Why continue with this level of cooperation? Why, in fact, should Iran not reconsider its membership in the NPT at all, when neither Israel nor Pakistan is a signatory to the NPT, and that is of no concern to the international community?

The Supreme Leader of Iran, other than his political leadership, is also the spiritual leader of Iran, and his fatwas supersede even laws passed by Parliament, or articles of the Constitution. When the Supreme Leader has said that we are not developing nuclear weapons and that they are haram, there is no reason for one-sided cooperation between Iran and the West. The nuclear negotiators are representatives of the Iranian leadership, and the leadership of Iran is opposed to a one-sided cooperative relationship with the West.

By the 1st of July of this year, if the P5+1’s approach to the nuclear negotiations as a strategically important issue continues, it cannot be ignorant of the effects of the ongoing and increasingly stringent sanctions. The oil sanctions, the sanctions on Iran's Central Bank, the expulsion of Iranian banks from the SWIFT system, the pressure on insurance companies to withhold insurance for Iranian shipping; all these which are non-UN mandated sanctions must cease, as must the US shuttle diplomacy which is designed to pressure non-European countries to abide by Western multilateral sanctions.

If these sanctions continue and if the P5+1 doesn't intend to cease this economic warfare, then the West may face a new strategy by Iran, a part of which may be Iran's reconsideration of its membership in the NPT and a continuation of its own independent policies. Iran's policies will no longer be geared to "carrots and sticks", but designed to meet "sticks" with "sticks". The Leader and the people of Iran will never accept humiliation or capitulation, which is what the West is apparently seeking from Iran. Mrs. Catherine Ashton, as the negotiator for the P5+1, has a heavy responsibility in the coming months: one, cessation of the economic war, and two, convincing Iran to continue its cooperation.