Matthias Küntzel is a German political scientist with a focus on the Middle East. He provides astute analyses of the German and more broadly the European role in responding to the challenges posed by the Iranian regime; two of his books are available in English from Telos Press. His current piece, published here, sheds important light on the challenge of the moment: the Biden administration’s vocal commitment to returning to the JCPOA—a long-standing position during the presidential campaign—but facing continued intransigence from Tehran, willing to accelerate its nuclear program, indeed all the more so in the wake of the Biden election. Once it became clear that Trump and Pompeo were on their way out and that the incoming administration, which had been advertising its support for the Obama-era deal, would take over, Tehran became more, not less, aggressive on the nuclear front. It is presumably calculating that increased pressure will lead Washington to buckle by lifting sanctions first, in a way that would certainly not have succeeded with the previous administration. That makes the moment all the more fragile and fraught. Küntzel leads us through this maze.
Such is the negotiations game currently underway. Who moves first: Washington by lifting sanctions or Tehran by returning to the terms of the JCPOA? That however is only one dimension. A second aspect involves domestic politics within the United States. The Obama administration had to circumvent the Senate because the agreement would not have received ratification. Trump abandoned the agreement, at least in one reading, because it was his predecessor’s signature foreign policy achievement; and precisely for that political reason, Biden wants to return to it, despite changed circumstances in the region, notably the ties between Israel and a number of Arab states.
A third frame around the current discussion involves the more substantive question as to whether and how additional concerns with Iranian behavior, beyond its nuclear ambitions, should be addressed. These issues include human rights (to which the Biden administration has so far claimed it intends to give priority), regional destabilization (via Hezbollah, for example), and its robust missiles program. If however one ascribes absolute priority to blocking an Iranian path to nuclear weapons, then all those other matters necessarily become secondary. If securing Iran’s return to the JCPOA requires a lifting of the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, then as Küntzel points out correctly, the United States would lose all leverage on Iran even before addressing rights, regional destabilization, and missiles. Putting nonproliferation first and putting human rights first (two stated administration goals) turn out to be incompatible here, at least if one believes that the JCPOA is an effective vehicle to achieving nonproliferation by blocking a nuclear Iran. That fiction, regularly reasserted by the agreement’s defenders, has been called into question repeatedly in light of sunset clauses in the agreement itself, the evidence of nuclear activity in Iran that even the IAEA admits, and the documents seized by the Israelis that demonstrate a long history of pursuit of an Iranian bomb.
These three frames are all pertinent at the current moment: (1) the negotiating strategy regarding a return to the JCPOA; (2) American domestic politics concerning the agreement; (3) the implications of separating the nuclear file from other topics. Küntzel reviews these, but the most important addition he provides for American readers is a fourth dimension, the significance of the JCPOA discussion within the evolving character of transatlantic relations. Put bluntly, JCPOA diplomacy is not only about the Iranian bomb. It is also about the dynamic of relations between Washington and Europe, for which the Iran debate is just one more data point (along with, for example, Nord Stream 2, the Paris Accords, NATO burden sharing, and so forth).
To be sure, “Europe” is hardly a unified foreign policy voice (nor for that matter is Washington). The UK is no longer part of the EU and therefore does not contribute to EU foreign policy formation, but it is part of the E-3 signatories of the JCPOA. As part of what now seems like ancient history, during the initial JCPOA negotiations, France reportedly tried to maintain a firmer stance than did U.S. Secretary of State Kerry but ultimately caved in to American pressure. Nor are France and Germany necessarily on the same page, despite their best efforts so far to present a united front in public. Nation-states have differing interests. While conceding these differences within Europe, it is clear that, as Küntzel reminds us, Europe, i.e., the E-3, took steps to undermine the Trump sanctions. That transatlantic divergence was not as dramatic or high profile as the one that took place when Paris and Berlin lined up against the War in Iraq (with the UK siding with the United States), but it nonetheless highlights different foreign policy agenda.
Such differences between Europe and the United States are important now because the Biden administration has made clear its intention to repair the transatlantic damage it attributes solely to Trump-era policies. Such an approach sounds like a goal to realign American policies with Europe’s, as if there were no possibility of divergence between U.S. and European interests. Does the “return” to multilateralism really mean giving Brussels (or Berlin, to the extent that there is any difference) veto power over American foreign policy?
Particularly worrisome is the December 21, 2020, joint statement that came out of a meeting of the foreign ministers of the JCPOA participants—E-3, Russia, China, and Iran—convened by Josep Borrell, the EU minister for foreign affairs. Although Iran was already proceeding to 20% uranium enrichment, the statement only criticized the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement: this is after the Biden electoral victory. Furthermore the statement criticized the potentially pending U.S. prospect of pursuing changes to the agreement (e.g., missiles, human rights, destabilization). That statement was worrisome because America’s notional European allies were content to join with Russia, China, and Iran to support the Iranian position of a return to an unamended JCPOA. Of course, one cannot imagine Iran signing on to a statement critical of its own behavior, but neither were the Europeans compelled to participate in this propaganda coup. The next day, the Iranian press celebrated the statement as a European rejection of any conditionality on an American return to the JCPOA. One has to assume that the Europeans knew what they were doing.
That snapshot moment shows how JCPOA diplomacy is also a transatlantic power struggle in a multidimensional chess game. With the United States still outside the agreement, the E-3 are evidently comfortable in a treaty with Russia and China—and Iran—and they are willing to use it against Washington. That the Europeans may have different national interests than the United States is the realistic way of the world and should not surprise anyone. Understanding that allies may have different goals however has implications for judging the Biden administration’s declared intention to rebuild transatlantic ties through multilateralism, given the European effort to bend Washington’s will for its own purposes. This is not only about Iran. Europe does not want to be a junior partner to the United States, and since it cannot compete militarily, its primary vehicle is diplomacy. Diplomacy sometimes involves compromise and give-and-take. If the Biden administration makes concessions to Europe in some areas, such as the Paris Accords or even the JCPOA, we will have to wait and see if it will expect European concessions in return. What might such concessions entail? If our strategic competitors are China and Russia, why did our European allies just forge an investment treaty with China (even as it violates its treaty obligations to the UK concerning Hong Kong), and why is it so committed to pursuing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with Russia?
The vital point in Küntzel’s argument comes in his conclusion, when he reports on a potentially significant shift in German strategic thinking, which returns us to the question of the separability of the nuclear file, mentioned above. Sequestering the Iranian nuclear program from consideration of other issues reflects the policy prioritization of nuclear nonproliferation: one must stop the Iranian bomb in order to avoid a destabilizing arms race in the region, with Saudi Arabia, Gulf states, and perhaps others trying to join the nuclear club (Pakistan is already a member). Yet there is growing recognition that the JCPOA did not freeze Iranian nuclear activity, and, in any case, the agreement’s sunset clauses start kicking in four years. Apparently the maximum pressure campaign also did not constrain Iranian activity—we do not know if it might have succeeded if the Europeans had not tried to circumvent it. In any case, given the expectation that the Biden administration will be willing to make concessions, Iran has accelerated nuclear program development in the wake of the American election. The appeasement rhetoric has made matters worse.
The logical conclusion: if neither JCPOA nor maximum pressure has stopped the Iranians, and if nonproliferation is an absolute goal, and if the Iranians do not walk back from their stated positions, then the remaining alternative is preventive military action. Küntzel reports on how precisely this proposal has entered the German strategic debate: of course not a German strike, but German support for an American or an Israeli strike. That would be an enormous shift in German policy, and one unlikely if the Green Party enters a governing coalition after the September Bundestag elections. Nonetheless the logic of the argument is indicative of the urgency of the emerging situation. In one sense, a development along these lines might be viewed as strengthening of transatlantic ties through German support for an American strike. In another, however, it would be one more example of Europe expecting the United States to take on the tasks it prefers to avoid.
Küntzel references Guido Sternberg’s article on this point which concludes with these lucid and stark sentences:
In preparation of the next months and years it is additionally appropriate to rethink the existing German definition of interests. Politicians, diplomats, and scholar have often argued in recent years that it is above all vital to avoid a military conflict between Iran and its opponents. However the more important interest of the Federal Republic should be the nuclear armament of the states of the region. A necessary consequence of this interest definition could be in the extreme case to support a military strike by the United States and/or Israel, if it becomes necessary in order to prevent Iran’s nuclear armament. A clearer formulation of this interest could also help raise pressure on Iran, which has often tried during recent years to cause divisions between Europe and the United States.[1]
Such is the ominous logic of transatlantic relations in the context of the conflict with Iran.
1. Guido Sternberg, “Kalter Krieg im Nahen Osten: Der iranisch-saudische Konflikt domminiert die Region,” Bundesakadmie für Sicherheitspolitik Working Papers 1/2021.
