Page 8 - DMEA Week 02 2020

DMEA POLICY DMEA
Face off in Iran: cause and consequence
IRAN
LAST week, NewsBase made the reasonably obvious statement that in connection with the Iran-US face-off “the future canvas is very hard to decipher and is a significant worry for the prospects of peace.” Subsequent events have borne this out.
There were three notable reactions: the lim- ited Iranian attack on two US/Iraqi bases; Iran’s statement that the JPOA Nuclear deal is dead and the downing of a Ukrainian airliner by an Iranian missile have moved matters on in var- ious ways.
The missile attacks on the bases at Ayn al Asad in western Iraq and Erbil in Iraqi Kurd- istan last Tuesday was quoted by Iranian state media to be in retaliation for the killing of Gen- eral Qassem Soleimani.
The action appears to have been carefully cal- culated to satisfy the anger of hardliners while minimising the chances of the situation spiral- ling out of control.
For his part, President Trump appears unwilling to respond to the attacks, citing the fact that there had been no American casual- ties, and it has been said that the United States was even given three hours warning through an Iranian tip-off.
Although this tit-for-tat action seems to have run its course, it may well be that the Ira- nian state is lying in wait for a better opportu- nity to make a dramatic response to the general’s assassination.
This brings us to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, which has been in place since 2016. Since the withdrawal of US by President Trump in 2018 the deal has been on life support. The non-US signatories, UK, Germany, France, Rus- sia and China, have tried to keep the deal alive, even while being pressed by the US to ditch it.
Not only are the signatories facing an uphill
struggle with the US on the deal, as a reaction to the general’s killing, Iran has said it will no longer abide by the uranium enrichment limits contained in the agreement.
As President Trump has a habit of making up his own mind on matters rather than listening to his allies, there is very little that the Europe- ans can do to bring the US back on board. The Europeans have expressed concern at the Ira- nian statement – even though the Iranian For- eign Minister has said his country will continue to co-operate with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry was quoted as saying that “it was of vital impor- tance to maintain the JCPOA under the current circumstances,” and European foreign ministers have come together to try to find a way of keep- ing the deal alive and also to diffuse tensions in general between the US and Iran.
The third consequence of last week’s events was the tragic destruction of a Ukrainian pas- senger plane with the loss of 176 lives. Mirror- ing the confrontational political and military situation, claim and counter-claim swiftly arose about whether the jet, which departed Tehran for Kiev on Wednesday, was brought down by an Iranian missile.
Initial comments centred on the fact that the
jet had just undergone routine maintenance and
no distress calls were made by the crew. Shortly afterwards Western intelligence suggested that
the flight was likely to have been shot down by
an Iranian surface-to-air missile, which was fol-
lowed by a flat denial from Iran, quoting techni-
cal cases for the disaster and in particular noting
that the casualties included 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians (many of whom were of Iranian descent) and blaming the US for “spreading lies”
about the crash. 
Iran is responsible for the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in the wake of a US drone attack (Photo: NurPhoto)
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 02 16•January•2020