International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) – the Nobel winning anti-nuclear group – had urged American President Donald Trump not to quit the Iranian deal.
ICAN, which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, wanted the US to uphold the Iranian nuclear deal in order to “avoid causing any more conflict”.
Speaking at a press conference in New York over the weekend, Director of the ICAN Beatrice Fihn said: “We really call on the US government to continue to certify and stay in this deal.” “This is not really what the world needs right now… We see no evidence that Iran is not complying with it,” she told the press.

Beatrice Fihn

However, ICAN’s appeal fell on deaf ears as the American president reignited the decades-old US feud with Iran. President Trump vowed to confront the “fanatical regime”, saying that Washington was not ready to tolerate the “Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world”. The president also threatened to abandon the 2015 agreement that curbed Tehran’s nuclear programme, saying that the deal failed to address Iranian subversion in West Asia and its ‘illegal’ missile programme. He sent a strong message to Iran, stressing that he is continuously monitoring Tehran’s activities and (as president) can cancel “our participation in the deal at any time”.

Trump also slammed major global powers for standing by the agreement and blasted them for placing trade profits ahead of security. “Many people talking, with much agreement, on my Iran speech. Participants in the deal are making lots of money on trade with Iran!” he wrote on Twitter. It is to be noted that Iran struck the deal with five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany (commonly known as P5) in July 2015, establishing controls to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic bomb.

As expected, Tehran strongly criticised President Trump’s ‘Iran’ strategy, with President Hassan Rouhani saying that the actions would not only isolate, but also harm the US’ credibility. He made clear that the West Asian nation would never allow Trump to dictate terms, saying: “The Iranian people will not bend down before a dictator. It has never surrendered and will never. No paragraph or article or note will be added to the deal in order to please Trump.”
Rouhani was not the only leader to condemn Trump’s decision. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry, too, urged other countries to respect the deal despite Trump’s announcement, saying: “I strongly hope that the other six signatories will prove to the world what responsible behaviour is, and adhere to this agreement – no matter what false accusations and contrived provocations are put forward by President Trump.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, too, expressed similar view. “Nobody else will trust any US administration to engage in any long-term negotiation because the length of any commitment, the duration of any commitment from now on with any US administration would be the remainder of the term of that president,” he stressed. Zarif expressed hope that the support of most parties to the agreement would allow Iran and other parties to implement the deal despite the US’ efforts to derail it.

Interestingly, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano gave a clean chit to Iran, as he said that the country was complying with the deal. In Rome, chief of the UN nuclear watchdog insisted: “I can state that the nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran … are being implemented.”
Perhaps, ICAN and IAEA have failed to realise the fact that it’s not possible to encourage the US president to resolve sensitive issues through peaceful negotiations. For the warmonger-in-chief, economic sanctions and military might are the only instruments to tackle problems. However, it will not be an easy game for Trump to play this time. The global community is not ready to allow him to do that at a time when North Korea and the IS are threatening the world peace.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das