INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
TEHRAN - United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in a meeting in Paris on Sunday
website.The statement by the Department of State came a few days after European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the stalemate
in the nuclear talks in Vienna has been broken.Borrell made the remarks immediately after his deputy Enrique Mora, who acts the coordinator
chief diplomat said, "The negotiations were blocked and they have been unblocked and that means there is the prospective of reaching a final
Policy Fellow and currently serves as Policy Director.Ryan Costello, who joined the National Iranian American Council in April 2013, has
the article:It has been more than a month since multilateral negotiations in Vienna broke amid a celebratory mood, with the text of the
nuclear agreement all but finalized
But the thorny bilateral issues that remain constitute a key part of the trap set for President Joe Biden by the Trump administration
Iran policy and push the United States and Iran toward a devastating military conflict.The main issue at hand is the Foreign Terrorist
and which Iran has demanded be removed in any nuclear deal
It would be difficult, if not impossible, for any Iranian political leader to sign off on a deal that leaves the IRGC in the same category
as non-state actors like Al Qaeda and ISIS
The Biden administration has appeared to waffle on its willingness to rescind the designation while pushing for non-nuclear de-escalatory
concessions in exchange for the delisting, with no visible progress for several weeks
Iran was still complying with the nuclear deal months after the United States had unilaterally withdrawn and snapped back sanctions
United States and Iraqi Shia militias supported by Iran had been operating in close proximity in Iraq to retake ISIS-held territory, with a
tentative truce still holding
Senior military and intelligence officials warned that designating the IRGC as terrorists would break that truce and directly threaten
also recognized the danger at the time
push the United States and Iran toward war
Trump from restoring the JCPOA
all but resolved except for the FTO sticking point, inertia risks setting in
The Biden administration can and should see if any non-nuclear concessions can be secured from Iran in exchange for the delisting
But it would be a profound mistake to choose a Trump-era designation that ignited the shadow war between the United States and Iran over the
The FTO added almost nothing in terms of additional pressure and was a major net-negative for regional security
politics stand in the way of policy
Republicans have been just as inflexible as they were in 2015, with the exception of Sen
A handful of Democrats have joined them in an ill-advised campaign to pressure Biden against making the kinds of concessions he will need to
But the vast majority of the Democratic party wants this deal back and quickly, well before the midterm elections
the Biden administration has to sign that deal
Let us do the work of selling that deal in Congress
The political fight on the deal will be won, as Democrats control each chamber and the vast majority support the agreement
But it will take political will to reach the finish line
Biden will have to remove one last shackle put on him by Trump in order to save the deal and avert a march to war
He should do it while he still has the chance.
