The good news first. The Obama administration is serious about holding other sanctions in place. Indeed, we got Russia to back out of a deal to "launder" Iranian oil exports through Russia:
Meanwhile the U.S. is still strenuously enforcing the economic sanctions against Iran. Many American leaders believe that the Iranians are trying to play the Western nations and get sanctions gradually lifted without really giving anything up. So the U.S. is seeking to keep up the economic pressure. The rest of the West is not so eager and many of Iran’s major oil customers (especially India and China) are ready to get around the sanctions any way they can. The American threats work, as was seen recently when Russia backed off from a barter deal it had proposed to Iran to sell Iranian oil despite the sanctions.
So hey, that's good. Interim. Reset. Yay, resolve! Yay, diplomacy!
Sadly, there is bad news with this:
Thanks to the peace talks with the West and the UN over the sanctions, Iran sold eight percent more oil in January. Iranians in general are now more upbeat and because of that the inflation rate is coming down. All this was not supposed to happen but it’s the result of the change in outlook towards the sanctions. Before the January 24th interim deal (which Iran is declaring as a victory) its oil customers were seriously frightened at the strength and severity of the 2012 sanctions. The interim deal showed that the sanctions could be scaled back without significant concessions by Iran. One Iranian official pointed out that Iran could reverse the effects of the concessions within a month and that Iran was not really giving up anything.
Ooh. I thought Iranian oil exports were supposed to remain flat:
Iranian oil exports soared in January, hitting new highs just months after the United States consented to billions of dollars in economic sanctions relief under the interim nuclear deal.
Exports of Iranian crude oil jumped to 1.32 million barrels, up from December’s high of 1.06 million barrels, according to data from the International Energy Agency. ...
Iranian oil exports have steadily risen since negotiations with the West restored confidence in Tehran’s economy. The increase runs counter to a promise by the Obama administration that “Iran’s oil exports will remain steady at their current level of around 1 million barrels per day.”
That's more nuanced than I'd like.
But still, although we had to pass the interim agreement to find out what is in it, it will be totally worth it when we get a nuclear deal that guarantees Iran won't have nuclear weapons, right?
Oh, God! Back to Strategypage:
The Iranians are telling the West that the disarmament discussions, which are supposed to get sanctions lifted, do not include a lot of items Westerners seem to think are negotiable. For example the Iranians will not discuss their missile program or their conventional military forces. The official Iranian line is that they do not have a nuclear weapons program (nor a chemical weapons program either) and that they will only offer up some limitations on how they enrich uranium for their nuclear power plants. Actually there is only one plant but Iran wants to build more.
Come on! Help me out, here! If I didn't know that we had smart diplomacy with John (I was shot at with real bullets in Vietnam) Kerry leading the charge, I'd think we got hoodwinked by the Iranians.
But that couldn't happen. These guys in charge of our diplomacy are competent.
I think Al Bundy can summarize my feelings about this Holy process.
