Iran knows that their leverage isn’t what they thought it was. With the United States having withdrawn from the nuclear deal, the Islamic regime is hoping against hope that European signatories to the agreement will keep the bargain in place. However, the Trump administration is warning even U.S. allies that when sanctions snap back into place against Tehran, America will expect Europe, China, and Russia to abide by those sanctions. If they don’t, more sanctions – against our friends and allies – could be forthcoming.
Other than the lure of a profitable relationship, Iran has little to offer that would make France, Germany, and the UK consider inducing the wrath of the United States. So instead of putting anything tangible on the table (as they have nothing), they are going another route: Threats. Not military threats – they’re not that stupid – but threats of releasing to the public information that political negotiators would undoubtedly like to keep hidden under a cloak of secrecy.
An adviser to H.J. Ansari Zarif, a senior official in Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warned that if European signatories to the deal stopped doing business with Iran, they would rue the day.
“If Europeans stop trading with Iran and don’t put pressure on U.S., then we will reveal which western politicians and how much money they had received during nuclear negotiations to make #IranDeal happen,” he said.
The clear implication is that Iran directly bribed Western officials to agree to certain concessions at the negotiating table. Any revelation of these pay-to-play details would have an enormous impact on how the deal is viewed in every respective country where bribes were handed out. One can only imagine how nervous some Obama administration officials are right about now, and we’d guess you could say the same about the governments of Britain, France, and Germany.
Now, would it be beyond the Iranians to bluff? Of course not. And seeing as how they’re in a desperate situation, this could be nothing more than a last-ditch effort to drum up support among the hardliners in their own country.
On the other hand, bribes would make perfect sense. After all, this deal was so one-sided and astonishingly incompetent that you can only find justification through one of two lenses: Either Obama really, really wanted something to slap on his resume…or there was some major corruption going on.
Of course, these two situations are not mutually exclusive.
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