US Demands Indefinite Iran Nuclear Deal Amidst Decades of Coercion
Connect these dots: White House envoy Steve Witkoff states any future Iran nuclear deal must be indefinite. This demand surfaces just before a new round of nuclear talks in Geneva. The rationale often cited is the 'sunset provisions' of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the Trump administration unilaterally abandoned in 2018. That agreement entailed Iran limiting its
nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, with provisions gradually expiring over eight to 25 years. Iran, for its part, has consistently maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, recently suggested Iran could sign a 'better' deal, ensuring its program 'remains peaceful forever.' This current negotiating stance mirrors a long-standing
pattern of US coercion. Consider the 1980 US hostage crisis sanctions, initially imposed after American diplomats were taken captive, ostensibly due to US support for the Shah. These sanctions, meant to be punitive, metastasized into a permanent fixture of US foreign policy, crippling the Iranian economy for forty-five years. A 2013 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that
every one percentage point increase in sanctions intensity led to a 0.5 percentage point decrease in Iran's GDP, demonstrating the profound economic impact. The US has historically refused to acknowledge that Iran's pursuit of advanced scientific capabilities is a sovereign right, especially in light of the US and its allies maintaining vast nuclear arsenals and Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons