FROM AUTHORS
Hasan Servet Öktem

Recent Elections Prove Tunisia is Moving Away from Democracy

10 October 2024
PAYLAŞ

Tunisia, a Mediterranean country of 12.5 million people, neighboring Libya and Algeria, held presidential elections last weekend. The results of elections are normally not known in advance, they are not supposed to be known, various predictions are made, sometimes the predictions don’t work out, there are surprise results and everyone is surprised. The Tunisian elections are one of those elections that do not arouse excitement and whose results are known from the beginning. The most curious aspect this time was probably the turnout. Only 28 percent of voters went to the polls. As expected, the incumbent president, Kais Saeed, retained his seat for another term. The Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) described the turnout as “respectable”.

Elections in which opponents were not allowed to compete

To briefly summarize what made the Tunisian elections less than democratic: Of the 17 candidates who submitted their dossiers to the Supreme Electoral Council (SBE) to run for the presidency, only two, with the exception of Kais Saeed, were able to enter the race: Ayashi Zammel, an unknown businessman, could not campaign because he was arrested in early September for “falsifying documents”, while the other candidate, Zuhir Mazrawi, is widely recognized as a token candidate. In other words, the SBE vetoed all of the strong candidates who could have challenged the incumbent president. 8 candidates were blocked because they were prosecuted and subsequently arrested. Worse, these bans and crackdowns are not unique to this election period. In Tunisia, for the last two years, opposition politicians, media, NGOs, trade unionists, lawyers have been under pressure, arrested and silenced for one reason or another. The leader and leading figures of Ennahda, the country’s well-known conservative and Islamist party, are in jail.

Pity for those who lost their lives in the Arab Spring

“What happened to Tunisia, the trigger of the Arab Spring, the country that forced the authoritarian and corrupt president Zine El Abidine to flee the country in a hurry, the country that brought about change and democracy in the Middle East?” I can hear some readers asking in astonishment. Unfortunately, Tunisia, which made a lot of progress towards democracy between 2011 and 2021, has hit a wall. The country has fallen prey to a supposedly legalistic leader who was elected president in 2019 by the marginalized masses. Tunisia now looks like a country going downhill, the economy is not doing well, debts are rising, borrowing from the IMF is being discussed, unemployment is rising, immigration problems and repression are intensifying, politics is under pressure, dissidents are being arrested, the judiciary and legislature are losing power in favor of the executive. The country’s fall from 53rd to 82nd place in the democracy index summarizes the negative picture painted above.

Is it possible to maintain power with 28 percent of the vote?

The main problem here is that the populist leader, who came to power in 2019 with 73% of the vote in a reasonable turnout of Tunisian voters (first round: 45%, second round: 58%), has once again been deemed worthy of the presidency by the same voters, despite failing in the tests of economy, democracy and human rights. In July 2021, Kais Saeed declared a state of emergency, suspended the parliament, started ruling the country through decrees, enacted a new constitution based on the presidential system the following year (2022), and eventually concentrated all power in his hands and intimidated the opposition. The only reaction was the decline in the number of voters going to the polls. 5 years later, turnout dropped from 58 percent to 28 percent. To put it differently, in the October 2024 elections, out of 9.5 million voters, 2.5 million went to the polls and 2.1 million voted for Kais Saeed. According to this calculation, 80 percent of the Tunisian people are not in favor of him.

Elections are different in countries south of the Mediterranean

In analyzing the Tunisian elections, it is useful to look at the region and make comparisons. We see similar problems with elections in other countries south of the Mediterranean. Libya has been unable to hold elections for 4-5 years, and it is not clear when it will hold them, as the political elites cannot reach an agreement on the legal and political infrastructure for elections. Egypt has been ruled by the military class for decades, with the 2013 Tahrir Square events being the exception. The military nominates candidates and the Egyptian electorate fulfills its duty at the ballot box, this is the rule in the land of the pharaohs. Algeria seems to be doing a little better. There, too, the army, the intelligence services and the revolutionary party (the National Liberation Front), the vanguard of independence, run the country together. Everyone knows that Abdel Majid Tebbun, who was elected president of Algeria last September for a second term, was not the candidate of a political party, but of the regime. I won’t mention the Kingdom of Morocco, where you vote in polling stations, but the king appoints the government and this activity is called an election.

Senegal has a stronger tradition of democracy than Tunisia.

It is interesting to compare this crippled electoral system on the Mediterranean coast of Africa with elections in other African countries. In the March 2024 elections in Senegal, it was possible for opposition candidates to participate in the elections, albeit with great difficulty, and the candidate nominated by the well-known opposition leader Osman Sonko was elected president. Today, in comparison, Tunisia is clearly lagging behind Senegal in terms of democratic elections. I can safely say that Tunisia is also behind countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria in this respect. Tunisia is only a few steps ahead of Cameroon, which has kept Paul Biya in power for 40 years.

If Tunisia turns its back on the European Union

Tunisia under Saeed Kais is likely to face problems in terms of prosperity, peace and freedom in the coming period. We are faced with a leader who characterizes all opposition to him as conspirators and corrupt, and whose idiosyncratic behavior is difficult to analyze. The authoritarian leader, who acts with the concern of “interference in our internal affairs” even when it is necessary/obligatory to cooperate with the European Union, saves the day with Algeria’s generous aid. If you look at the relations with the European Union in terms of threats or undermining sovereignty, the country’s direction will turn towards Russia and China. Who knows, maybe soon we will read in the media that Tunisia has applied for BRICS membership.

İlgili Yazılar

WHERE ARE THE OLD REFUGEES?

29 June 2023

THE MYSTERIOUS LIFE OF YANOSH BANGYA, WHO WAS MADE CHIEF OF POLICE IN ISTANBUL

Throughout history, many foreigners from the West and the East have defected to our country. Some settled, some migrated to other lands. Arrivals were first and foremost a sign of trust in our land. It was easier for those coming from the West to integrate into society than others. However, defections have always occupied the agenda from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic.

The Second World War and the migration movements experienced by Europe in its aftermath brought about the need to regulate the refugee issue in accordance with international law. For this purpose, the 1951 Geneva Convention was established. This Convention granted refugees concrete and advanced rights such as health, education, labour, residence, and nonrefoulement to the country of origin. Although these opportunities seemed to cover a wide range of areas, they naturally meant a status inferior to that provided to “citizens” with constitutional guarantees such as the right to vote and be elected. 

Turkey is also a signatory to the Geneva Convention. However, our elders, who foresaw that those coming from the East would turn the country into a refugee depot, put a geographical reserve when signing the Geneva Refugee Convention in 1951, saying, “We only grant refugee status to asylum seekers coming from member countries of the Council of Europe”. For this reason, a Syrian or Iraqi asylum seeker cannot get refugee status in our country. They are granted “Temporary Protection” status, which provides a minimum level of shelter security and has a place in the United Nations experience. On the other hand, according to the second paragraph of Article 42 of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection, these people with Temporary Protection status cannot be granted a Permanent Residence Permit. In other words, the legislator stipulates that the return of such foreigners to their country of origin is considered essential. However, the fact that a Syrian can skip two steps – temporary protection and permanent residence permit – and be made a citizen directly has become a matter of debate. 

Unlike the refugee problems we are experiencing today, we have had refugees in the past who did not cause us such brooding. For example, we can count tens of European scientists who fled the Nazi persecution, made significant contributions to our universities and Anatolian enlightenment, and were able to integrate with our society. Among the first to come to mind are the orientalist Helmut Ritter, the architect Bruno Taut, the mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, the composer Paul Hindemith, the economics professor Fritz Neumark and the theatre director Carl Ebert. It is also worth considering why these people chose Turkey of that period for their freedom when many European countries did not. This choice will also help us to understand the atmosphere of trust and thirst for light provided by the Atatürk era. 

During the Republican period, interesting personalities such as Trotsky and Imam Khomeini also resided in our country. 

In the Ottoman Empire, we had some very interesting refugees from the West who left unforgettable traces behind them. There have been such incidents that one really feels like saying “Where are the old refugees?” in the face of both the refugees and the behaviour of the Ottoman administration. 

GENERALS, STATESMEN WHO TOOK REFUGE

In the nineteenth century, some Polish and Hungarian generals who had been defeated in the war had taken refuge in the Ottoman Empire. Those of these soldiers who accepted were given senior positions in the army as soon as they arrived. The refugees were left free in their beliefs and preferences. One of them, Jozef Bem (1794-1850), of Polish origin, took refuge in Turkish lands after the suppression of the Hungarian freedom and independence movement by the Habsburg dynasty in 1849, converted to Islam voluntarily, took the name Murat Pasha and was immediately appointed to Aleppo with the highest rank at that time. Many years later, the Hungarians erected a large statue of Bem, whom they regarded as a national hero, in the square in front of the Foreign Ministry building in Budapest. Among the Turks in Budapest and the Hungarians who knew Turkish, there were those who called that square “Murat Pasha Square”. In October 1956, the first spark of resistance against the Soviet occupation was lit when university students gathered in this square under the statue of Murat Pasha. One arm of this statue portrayed Pasha with one arm in a bandage, while the other arm pointed to the East. How could he have known that one day he would become an Ottoman Pasha and bid farewell to life there?

Likewise, the Hungarian general Richard Guyon (1813-1856), who took refuge in the Ottoman Empire in 1849 when he was the Chief of General Staff, converted to Islam and took the name Hurşit Pasha. General Kmetty (1813-1865), who also converted, took the name İsmail Pasha and served the Ottoman army in various capacities (İsmail Pasha later used the name Kmetty again when he went to England). 

Lajos Kossuth (pronounced Layoş Koşut) (1802-1894), one of the statesmen who took refuge in the Ottoman Empire, wrote the following in his memoirs written in London about the Turks who did not extradite him despite the pressures of Russia and Austria and hosted him in Kütahya for two years: “The Turks, with their high feelings and respect for human rights, did not succumb to threats. The Turkish nation has a superior power in this respect… I will live with the memories of the favour and respect I received from the Turks.”

LET’S COME TO MR MEHMET KARABATIR

Among those who sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, perhaps the most mysterious and controversial figure was Janos (pronounced Yanoş) Bangya, who took the name Karabatır Mehmet Bey after arriving in Istanbul and served as Istanbul Police Chief between 1864 and 1868. Bangya, born in Hungary in 1817, came from a noble family of landowners, received officer training in the Austrian army, was promoted and joined the Hungarian war of independence in 1849 with the rank of Colonel. However, Bangya fled after the defeat and defected to Vienna, where he began working for the Austrian secret police in 1850. In the same year, Bangya travelled from Vienna to Paris, where he became vice-president of a committee of Hungarian, Austrian and German refugees. However, strangely enough, five of the seven members of this committee were rumoured to be spies. 

Colonel Bangya managed to establish contacts with the German philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883), who was active in Paris at this time and who was interested in the German refugees for political reasons, and with his trusted political circle, for reasons that can be easily surmised. In February 1852, Bangya approached Marx, pretending to be authorised by the exiled leader of the Hungarian revolution, the aforementioned Lajos Kossuth. During this period, Marx, together with his friend Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), was writing political criticism, but was having difficulties in getting it printed. For this reason, they could not get their criticism of Proudhon’s book published. Similarly, in April and May, when they were trying to find a way to publish the pamphlet “The Sages of Revolution”, a response to the views of German “petty bourgeois” leaders, they came across Bangya. Bangya took the manuscripts, telling Marx that he would take them to Berlin to have them printed. 

The habit stuck; there was no news of these writings ever again. When Marks realised that Bangya had handed them over to the Prussian police, he immediately made a statement to the New York Criminal Zeitung and exposed Bangya, but it was too late. The manuscripts were never to appear again. On page 219 of David Maclellan’s book Karl Marx, His Life And Thought, there is an unfavourable statement about Bangya: “Bangya is an agent in the service of whoever pays him the most money.”

OTTOMAN ADVENTURES OF KARABATIR

It is not known what effect this event had on the European philosophical world, and whether Proudhon profited from it or not. However, upon these developments, Bangya, perhaps because his connection with the Austrian police had been exposed, found the solution to “cross over” to the Ottoman Empire in 1853. As soon as he arrived in Istanbul, the Ottoman state accepted him into the army with the rank of colonel. 

Meanwhile, the Crimean War (1853-1856) begins. The House of Habsburg sided with England and France against Russia. During the war, the Ottomans assigned Bangya to the Caucasian front. On pages 33 and 34 of the book titled Summaries from the Biographies of Hungarian Refugees who were granted asylum in Turkey, published by the Turkish-Hungarian Friendship Association in 2010, there is a detailed article titled “Yanoş Bangya”. In this book, it is recorded that during the Circassian war in the Caucasus, Bangya was appointed as the chief of staff of Sefer Pasha of Circassian origin, and interestingly, when the Russian general Baryastinsky raided and captured Sheikh Shamil (1797-1871), the freedom hero of the Caucasus, on 6 September 1859, it was rumoured that Bangya had betrayed him. Of course, this has not been proven to be true.

Bangya’s adventure in the Caucasus must have been really interesting. If he played a role in the capture of Sheikh Shamil by the Russians, it is not known whether he did so on behalf of a third state. Did he do it in exchange for material benefits, as the allegation against him in the case of the manuscripts above suggests? This is also unknown, but let us explore the matter a little further:

Balıkesir University faculty member Zübeyde Güneş Yağcı’s interesting historical research titled “International Leader of the North Caucasus: Sefer Zaniko”, it is stated that Colonel Karabatır Mehmet Bey was on duty next to Sefer Pasha who fought on the Caucasian front. In this article, it is noted that after a while, it was revealed that the Colonel acted in both directions, exchanged letters with the Russian General Fillipson, and in these letters, it was understood that Karabatır wrote that the Circassians could live under Russia like Georgia. Thereupon, Karabatır was declared a traitor on 3 January 1858. Especially the anti-Russian Polish officers in the army pressured for his execution, but with the intervention of Sefer Pasha, he was not executed and sent to Istanbul. The fact that there was a long period between 1858, when Karabatır was sent to Istanbul, and 6 September 1859, when the Caucasian Muslim leader Sheikh Shamil surrendered, reveals that the issue of whether he really gave Shamil up or not is not fully clarified. 

Karabatır Mehmet Bey came to Istanbul in 1864 and became the Undersecretary of Security and then the Chief of Security of Istanbul until 1868, when he passed away. The Ottoman state must have made an assessment of his background and personal qualities when giving him this important position, but unfortunately not much information has been found about the period he was in charge in Istanbul. It is only known that he was given honours and gifts and that he married the beautiful 15-year-old daughter of a Tatar prince, and that three daughters, Hatice, Fadime and Adile, and a son, Mustafa Asım, were born from this marriage. In the light of this information, it may seem normal to be interested in researching the genealogy of the Karabatır family, but such an endeavour may mean failing to respect the privacy of private life. Therefore, let us end our story here with the part based on the available data. 

It is not easy being a political refugee and having to leave your homeland.  When leaving, there are always deeply buried secrets, and in the country of origin, there are countless trials to overcome and dozens of adventures to live through. Yanoş Bangya’s life, which began in the Austrian army, also took some adventurous turns; He participated in his country’s war of independence, joined the Austrian secret police, worked as a newspaper reporter in London and Paris, took Marx’s manuscripts under the pretext of printing them and handed them over to the Prussian police, then “crossed over” or took refuge in Ottoman territory, changed his religion and name there, was alleged to have betrayed Sheikh Shamil while serving in the Ottoman army with the rank of colonel on the Caucasian front, was declared a traitor there, but was later made chief of police in Istanbul. He married and had children in Istanbul. It is not known whether the fifteen years he spent as a refugee on Ottoman soil until his death has other mysteries.

What should we say?  May God have mercy on him, or may he rest in peace?

JCPOA: Hidden Realities and Beyond

5 October 2022

*Hale Kıvanç Bökeer

 

Over eight rounds of talks in Vienna for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), some progress has been noted between Iran and US, the UK, Russia, China, Germany and France, with the coordination and negotiation of the EU, which brought the parties close enough to draft a final text. However, by early 2022, Russia-Ukraine war has drastically changed the agenda and diverted the focus of the world powers. This has limited the cooperation and halted the progress. Adding on the elevated friction between US and Iran on key articles, the agreement is now considered “frozen”.  

 

A brief history of JCPOA

 

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a detailed, 159-page agreement with five annexes. It was signed on 14 July 2015 by Iran and China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (the group known as the P5+1). This nuclear deal was then endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, adopted on 20 July 2015. Iran’s compliance with the nuclear-related provisions of the JCPOA was to be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in accordance with certain requirements outlined in the agreement.

 

By November 2016, in less than a year, IAEA reported that Iran was breaking the terms of the deal. Although the Iranian government promised not to continue with its path for developing a nuclear weapon, it raised concerns with the international community, when a classified report by the UN nuclear watchdog proved that Iran has trespassed the articles, undermining the JCPOA.

 

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal of 2015, was abandoned by the US President Donald Trump and US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA on 8 May 2018, and subsequently re-imposed all US sanctions on Iran lifted by the accord. UN Security Council Resolution 2231 still names the United States as a participant because the text was never amended to reflect US withdrawal from the deal in May 2018.

 

The JCPOA aimed to rigorously restrict Iran’s nuclear program, in return for removingthe sanctions. However, in 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal, due to reports showing Iran not reducing its missile program and regional influence. The JCPOA agreement said that Iran would dispose of its medium-enriched uranium, reduce the low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce the number of its gas centrifuges by about two-thirds for 13 years. If this agreement had been signed in 2018, Iran would have only developed uranium up to 3.67% in the following 15 years. This proposed deal would have limited Iran from advancing its nuclear program until 2031. However, after a year from Trump’s withdrawal, Iran chose to ignore the limitations on its nuclear program and continued to accelerate enriching its uranium which suited the regime.

 

On September 2020, the US announced that all UN sanctions lifted in accordance with the nuclear deal were re-imposed on Iran. The Trump administration subsequently threatened to penalize any individuals or states that failed to enforce the re-imposition of sanctions. However, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and many UN member states, including the other parties to the JCPOA, disregarded the US call to re-impose sanctions, citing the US withdrawal from JCPOA in 2018 and therefore not recognizing US entitlement to trigger any further UN sanctions on Iran to be re-imposed. Then the newly inaugurated President Joe Biden administration formallyrescinded Trump’s restoration of the UN sanctions on Iran on 18 February 2021. This announcement was considered to help US move forward with 2015 nuclear agreement that aims at oversighting and influencing Iran’s nuclear program.

 

Since 2021, there have been several attempts for the revival of JCPOA by the parties involved. A diplomatic solution is still in the interest, however for the moment it is hard to see how the tension between Washington and Tehran regarding the issue can be lowered. The only hopeful perception is that none of the parties involved, including the United States, Iran, and the European countries, is in favour of declaring the collapse of the negotiations. From the perspective of the US administration, the interest still remains as achieving a diplomatic solution to control Iran advancing its nuclear program.

 

Despite the intentions to find ways to create a platform for a compromise, no quick solution is on the horizon for now, especially, with the upcoming US congressional elections on 8 November 2022. The US administration is putting off dealing with this issue, due to the increased pressure of the opposition formed within the Democratic Party. Even after the midterm elections, the Biden administration will primarily focus on the increasing domestic problems such as its economy, its socially polarized society due to the income inequality, real-estate fluctuations and beyond. Needless to say, the war between Russia and Ukraine and dealing with China remain as the external threatening challenges.

 

Increasing worries over Iran’s unchecked activities

 

Returning to JCPOA, this current picture is now urging the parties involved to come up with, at least, an interim agreement, to mitigate or eliminate the risk of any armed confrontation that may arouse from the region.

 

On 2 December 2020, Iran’s Guardian Council passed a new legislation entitled “Strategic Action Plan to Lift Sanctions and Protect Iranian Nation’s Interests”, mandating Iran to significantly increase its nuclear activities. This legislation explicitly outlines a series of phased measures to be taken in the months following the approval of the law. Under the new law, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) is obligated to boost enrichment levels to 20% uranium-235, and store at least 120 kilograms of 20% enriched fuel annually. It is also required to start enrichment and Research and Development activities with at least 164 IR-6 centrifuges and increase the number of centrifuge machines to 1,000 within one year after the ratification of this law.

 

On 23 February 2021, reports indicated that Iran was in the process of installing one cascade of 135 IR-6 centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility, which was transferred from the pilot fuel enrichment plant. According to the IAEA’s report of 3 March 2022, installation of the IR-6 cascade was planned but had not begun. Iran has already been accumulating enriched uranium from a cascade of 164 IR-6 centrifuges, along with several smaller IR-6 cascades, at the Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant, amounting up to about 200 machines. Iran has also installed two cascades of 166 IR-6 centrifuges at the Fordow facility but only one was operational.

 

Iran claims that all its activities initiated are in accordance with their new law. However, it also declared that these activities along with all other breaches of the JCPOA, could be fully reversed, should the sanctions be lifted. However, based on these developments, the disagreement between Iran and the US over the mutual commitments still disable a full return to the nuclear agreement.

 

On 10 September 2022, a joint statement by the UK, Germany and France indicated serious concerns on the intentions and commitments by Iran to pursue a successful outcome for the JCPOA. Iran has demanded that IAEA should conclude their investigations before the re-implementation of the agreement (120 days after the signing).

 

EU continues to hold its clear and firm position emphasizing the urgent need for Iran to cooperate, in good faith, by providing satisfactory explanations to the IAEA’s concerns on the declared and undeclared locations of all its nuclear material within Iranian borders. EU statement also indicates that Iran cannot evade its legal obligations to Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by using JCPOA as an excuse.

 

The US administration and the EU countries involved have claimed that IAEA investigations are not related to the nuclear agreement and therefore, Iran cannot make this conditional to a return to the agreement. On the other hand, IranianPresident Ebrahim Raisi has said that it is meaningless to return to the agreement without resolving the open investigations of the IAEA. As a response, Rafael Grossi, the Director-General of IAEA clearly stated that until Iran provides satisfactory and credible explanations regarding the evidence found, IAEA would continue its investigations.

 

In response to this, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran declared that this attack is driven by international pressure and political interests, and blamed mainly Israel.However, since Trump’s withdrawal, Iran chose to ignore the limitations on its nuclear program and continued to accelerate enriching uranium. This allowed Iran to accumulate more on its stockpile and experience. In addition, Iran slowed down cooperation with IAEA, which makes it difficult for IAEA to further monitor the diversion of the enriched material and continue its effective supervision on the ground.

 

The Institute for Science and National Security (ISIS) in Washington, also reported that the current stock of uranium in Iran would suffice to produce several bombs in a short time. This news has alerted especially Israel to formulate a new concealed regional security strategy with the cooperation of the regional powers along with USsupport.

 

Dangerous pacts

 

Current US administration is not interested in intervening into any wars, especially in the Middle East. The administration is more focused on diverting the resources towards the consequences of the war in Ukraine and their alertness for China. This reduces the likelihood of building an effective coalition against Iran. The US doesn’t seem to have any organised strategy apart from rather generalized statements for a scenario of a final collapse of reviving talks with Iran. This may be perceived as a major achievement for the parties opposing the agreement in the short term.

 

However, Iran’s accumulation of high-grade enriched uranium and its continued progress on the development of its other capabilities with its nuclear program,especially its collaboration with North Korea is one that needs to be addressed strongly. China’s critical role in supporting access to its airspace and ports for the transport of arms to Iran, including ballistic missiles, needs to be addressed. Another point of concern is its facilitation of the exchange of the Hwasong-12 missile from North Korea to Iran in return for oil as a part of its 25-year military/security partnership with Iran. This supports China to supply enough oil to North Korea, which returns as a big threat to the global security.

 

US should work more closely with China to control the sea and air procurement routes that North Korea and Iran are enjoying with very little or no interference. The flightroute between Pyongyang and Tehran with a stopover in Beijing, should have a control mechanism for the possibility of illicit nuclear materials or undeclared sums of cashbeing carried. There is also tendency for Iran to seek civilian aviation support to establish undercover transport for the nuclear and ballistic missile components and technologies.

 

Iran uses its strategic cooperation with North Korea in the development of ballistic missile technology as an essential component to achieve regional dominance and to destabilize the Middle East. In violation of Resolution 2231, Iran kept the ongoing transfer of arms to its proxies like the Al-Ashtar Brigades in Bahrain, to the Houthis in Yemen, the Assad regime and potentially Hezbollah and other Shiite militias on the ground. Despite the JCPOA, Iran retains a pathway to nuclear weapons capacity through its ties with North Korea, threatening the deal’s efficacy.

 

Iran is currently enjoying the luxury of the unclear situation of the agreement, which enables further progress for its nuclear program, without any pressure applied. In the meantime, Iran is using Oman and Qatar to signal to European partners that if sanctions are removed, they would volunteer to provide EU with natural gas supply, but Russia would not be pleased with an alternative source of natural gas flowing into the market. On the other hand, the other two partners of the JCPOA, Russia and China, are in a “honeymoon” with Iran, without stating any major concerns over Iran’s nuclear program progress. They also don’t seem to be too concerned about US/Biden administration achieving any success for an agreement to return to the table. Having said all this, the European partners are already preoccupied with their domestic economic issues due to the advancing Ukraine war. They are trying to avoid declaring that the negotiations are over, in order to avoid any confrontation or a furtherdeterioration, due to Iran’s continued progress in accumulating high-grade enriched uranium, or due to the continued development and advancement of the other capabilities of the nuclear program.

 

Turning eyes to the Middle East and Israel, the worst scenario for Israel is the continuation of the current situation, where Iran is accumulating enough fissile material for weapons-grade enrichment for several nuclear facilities, which increases the temptation of a sudden nuclear breakout. It would be best for Israel to maintain a discreet dialogue to get the support of the US administration to focus on advancing the military and strategic needs, including developing an effective cooperation with the regional neighbouring countries. Israel needs the US for this and is well aware that even if the Biden administration does not win a majority in both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, they still have two more years in power, and maintaining a good relationship with the administration over the regional political and military developments is a must. The current state of the negotiations, is also likely to have major implications on Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid in his forthcoming election campaign in Israel, particularly against opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who keeps attacking the current government on the issue. (However, there is also a lot of criticism on how Netanyahu tackled this issue with the Congress in the past.)

 

Keeping a nuclear Iran in check

 

In the case of a return to the deal with sanctions being lifted, there will be some new emerging regional military partnerships and financial sponsors that may support Iranto widen its regional military infrastructure, such as garrisons, tunnel networks, and arms manufacturing plants; and transfer some game-changing military hardware such as missiles, drones, and other air defence systems. But even if all these scenarios were to materialize, in the event of a full-scale military conflict between Israel and its neighbours, Israel seems confident to maintain almost full dominance within its borders at all fronts; land, sea and air.

 

Last week during UNGA, Iranian officials were asked by the US officials to have direct talks, however, Iran wants these talks to have substantial gain for their side. Iran also stated that they would not reject this initiative, even if these talks were to be arranged by EU partners. Iran declares their deep concern as having to continuously face accusations created by third parties and that IAEA is influenced by regional political pressures despite Iran’s cooperative approach.

Reaching an agreement currently seems like a rocky road, but having the sides still declaring their wish to find common path to continue with the deal signals a possibility for light at the end of the tunnel. If the agreement is renewed and implemented, the main achievements will be less enriched uranium within Iranian borders, a reduced level of enrichment, freezing the process of installing advanced centrifuges, which would mean reduced concern of a nuclear breakout. This would also mean revisions will be made on the IAEA supervision on the ground. From a different angle, based on previous experiences, lifting sanctions off Iran, would allow billions of dollars to free flow into Iran. This may be perceived to increase support for the regional terrorist groups said to be supported by Iran, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It could also help accelerate the vision of a “Shia crescent” stretching from the Iraqi border to the Mediterranean, including the Houthis in Yemen and pro-Iranian militias in the region. This scenario could be a strategic regional disaster. Along with this comes the reality of the extensive nuclear knowledge already accumulated in Iran. The advanced centrifuges remaining in Iran will always have the potential for Iran to quickly return to its enrichment program, especially with the free flow of its frozen funding of millions of dollars outside its territory and with the gained profits from its oil and gas exports.

 

This is the bottom line and it is the grave reality. At the end of the day, sky is the limit for possible scenarios concerning nuclear capabilities. It is actually not a matter of returning to the JCPOA table to continue with the deal or not. The picture is much bigger than JCPOA itself. What Iran has accumulated in terms of its nuclear expertise, its stockpile and its self-justified reactions against sanctions structured the inevitable reality of today. Underestimation could be a big mistake for the West. This requires all the parties involved to originate a new strategy to deal with Iran, its potential regional power and its wider powerful connections. It is a matter of the spur of a moment for Iran to ignite another crisis. Before it is too late and while Iran is still at a negotiable mood, the world powers and experts should come up with a stronger, wiser and longer term culture to deal with Iran that will potentially serve the global peace.

 

Hale Kιvanç Bökeer is a Ph.D.student and she has a Master of Arts Degree at the Human Relations Department of the Institute of Social Sciences at the Ankara University. Hale has a Bachelor of Arts in IAED from the Bilkent University, Ankara and graduated from the British International School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

 

–https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/jcpoa-sunset-alert

–https://frontierindia.com/iran-nuclear-deal-jcpoa-expires-but-us-arms-embargo-remains/

–https://www.niacouncil.org/publications/iranian-parliament-bill-on-nuclear-program-full-text-in-english/?locale=en

–https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/21/mideast-leaders-express-concern-over-ukraine-war-regional-crises

–https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/nuclear-agreement-%E2%80%93-jcpoa_en

–https://theiranproject.com/blog/2022/09/19/jcpoa-talks-possible-in-new-york-iranian-spokesman/

–https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/What-Iran-Should-Do-If-JCPOA-Fails.html

–https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2022/09/23/No-positive-developments-on-JCPOA-but-US-still-committed-to-deal-State-Dept

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@2025 – Ankara Politikalar Merkezi

Yayın Politikamız:
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