Iran has time on its side
, עודכן
The deadline for reaching preliminary understandings ahead of a permanent agreement on Iran's nuclear program -- to be signed in late June -- expires at midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Does this mean Iran has just a few more hours to abandon its intransigence? Does it mean Iran has only a few more hours to forego its endless list of demands in regards to lifting economic sanctions or preserving its enriched uranium stockpiles -- in its territory without transferring them to Russia -- while ensuring it gets to keep as many centrifuges as possible; centrifuges that are incidentally also the most efficient and sophisticated model? Does Iran only have a few hours remaining to acquiesce to the West and stop advancing its nuclear project? It's rather unlikely. Iran realized a long time ago that time is on its side. It has a 22-month insurance policy (the remainder of the Obama administration's time in office). So why be hasty? Why make concessions-
It is more reasonable to assume that in the coming hours the world will witness a touching ceremony in Geneva, where the foreign ministers of the six Western powers will warmly embrace one another, each one of them looking at least like a Nobel Peace Prize candidate after having saved the world from both an Iranian nuclear bomb and an Israeli attack. Obviously they will be looking haggard, depleted, exhausted, but content. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will struggle to conceal his satisfaction. He, of course, will tell the world all about the concessions made by his country in the name of world peace, as Iran is prone to do, and journalists from across the entire globe will witness the spectacle while pinching themselves, having trouble believing their good fortune at being in Switzerland to cover one of modern history's defining moments.
On Monday, Britain's Sky News reported that Iran wants the signing ceremony to take place in Geneva, not in Lausanne. The reason: In that same city, in the same exact hotel where the delegations convened in recent days on the banks of Lake Geneva, the Ottoman Empire was dismantled on July 24, 1923. The Persians do not want a Lausanne II, because in that city the Ottomans signed their surrender, effectively marking the end of the last Islamic caliphate. Iran, as we know, wants to re-establish its former glory, or in other words establish a new caliphate. Lausanne is not a particularly ideal location for a revolutionary Islamic republic.
The U.S. State Department said on Monday there was a 50 percent chance that a deal would be reached by the deadline. In actuality, ever since the Americans began speaking in percentages we've heard about a 50-50 chance of success. If I had to wager, I would put my money on a 100 percent chance that a deal will be struck in Switzerland.
The world powers cannot afford to come away empty handed. Certainly not the American administration, which knows the Republicans are lying in wait. Iran knows this. And this is precisely the problem.
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