Washington: The previous Donald Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA, a crucial agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme, is one of the greatest strategic blunders of US foreign policy in recent years, a top official has said.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, was reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015, between Iran and the P5+1 together with the European Union.
“This (Joe Biden) administration considers the decision on the part of the last administration to withdraw from the JCPOA, one of the greatest strategic blunders of American foreign policy in recent years,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters at his daily news conference on Monday.
The P5+1 includes the five permanent members of the Security Council — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — plus Germany, which during the Barak Obama administration had entered into an agreement with Iran.
The reason the United States was able to get JCPOA to arrive at a diplomatic arrangement was that it worked with allies and partners around the world to put significant economic pressure on Iran, Price said.
“What ultimately brought Iran to the table was not a strategic change in mentality on the part of the regime. It was, I think, a realisation that they were under tremendous economic duress. And rather than provide them with a strategic asset, their nuclear programme at the time was a strategic liability,” he said.
Price said the goal is to ensure that Iran continues to feel pressure until and unless it changes course. Now you can do that as the United States, the last administration attempted to do that with the strategy of maximum pressure, he said.
“That clearly didn’t work. What history teaches us is that economic pressure is most effective when it’s brought to bear with other allies and partners,” Price said.
“So that’s why we’ve put such a premium on working with our European allies and partners, particularly with the so-called E3, the French, the Brits, and the Germans in this case, but also bringing along other EU allies and partners, countries around the world to see to it that until and unless the Iranian regime changes its approach, it is going to feel the condemnation, but even more importantly the economic and diplomatic pressure of the rest of the world,” he said.
The E3 refer to the European co-signers (E3) of the deal.
