Germany and the atomic deal with Iran: the history of a misunderstanding

It got out loud on Saturday in front of the Red City Hall: More than a thousand exile-iran from all over Germany came together in Berlin to promote their third way. Neither there should be war nor appeasement to the regime – instead, their own people should overthrow the mullahs.

The protest was organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the larger opposition groups that once stood on the EU terrorist, but is now recognized. It was only this week that her leader Maryam Rajavi recalled the MPs in the European Parliament of their attitude towards discussions with the regime that had always been rejected: “We said that negotiations and appeasement would not be anywhere and would be a time loss.”

Appacement from Germany?

The addressee of this criticism is not least Germany. Since the nuclear program became known in 2002, the Federal Republic of Great Britain, France, the USA, China and Russia has been aiming for a negotiation solution to contain the nuclear activities. When it was finally ready in 2015, the nuclear deal was celebrated as a showcase project.

One of the architects in the background still sees it that way. “The 2015 nuclear agreement was a diplomatic masterpiece because Iran’s military nuclear program managed to restrict it for the first time,” says Christoph Heusgen, at that time Chancellor Angela Merkel: “The enrichment stopped, centrifuges were closed.”

In principle, he believes that the German policy of Irano in the past two decades is still correct. “On the one hand diplomacy, on the other hand, pressure through sanctions – although the sanctions could have been even harder,” said Heusgen.

Skepticism in Israel and Trump

As a reward for the agreement, they should be canceled gradually and the end of economic isolation. The very first that ended up with a large entrepreneurial delegation in Tehran was the German Minister of Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel (SPD).

Israel, whose security is explained by German state rats, remained skeptical. The government there believed that the regime in Tehran, which threatens the Jewish state with annihilation, continued to hide parts of the nuclear program before the international inspectors, which now arrived regularly.

In the United States, the agreement was associated with President Barack Obama’s person despite its international character. Of course, this was not the sole reason why his successor Donald Trump finally terminated the agreement abbreviated with JPCOA in 2018.

Not only the man in the White House said that the mullahs in the shadow of the atomic deal could continue to work. From the perspective of the CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen, the Federal Foreign Office “put both eyes on Iran”, as he said to the Tagesspiegel last year: “Both the regional terrorist network that the regime in Tehran developed bit by bit, as well as the brutal human rights violations in their own country were not adequately addressed.”

The German diplomat Helga Maria Schmid, who has a significant negotiating and received the Federal Cross of Merit, has been negotiated. “When the negotiations started, Iran 200 had 19,000 centrifuges at the time of completion,” she recalls in conversation with the Tagesspiegel: “The pressure was already very high back then. Iran had a lot of highly enriched material, which was then destroyed.”

Germany takes a new negotiation start

According to how Schmid admits, the sole focus on the nuclear question was planned to devote itself to the other problems. “Human rights have always been an issue,” said the ex-general secretary of the European Foreign Service: “This was addressed after the JCPOA. But Iran’s problematic role in the region, with the support of proxies and militias.”

Could something of it have become? In this reading, the US withdrawal becomes a decisive factor for today’s situation. “With a consistent compliance with the nuclear agreement, Israel would certainly not be threatened equally today, but at that time the United States left and then Iran no longer adhered to the agreements,” believes Schmid. “Today’s escalation,” says Heusgen, “is a result of these missed Trump politics.”

Both employees of the agreement at the time also welcome that the new Foreign Minister Johann WadePhul (CDU) on Friday in Geneva with his British and French counterpart undertook a new attempt in this direction. Finally, according to Schmid, “Iran’s nuclear program has an absolutely worrying level”.

The Europeans see them well equipped for this. They had “a lot of knowledge about the program” and on the other hand a lever in the old agreement that the United States no longer have after leaving. The EU could return the international sanctions against Tehran.

Heusgen cannot say where European diplomacy leads this time. “Whether this is sufficient to convince the American president not to rely on violence like George W. Bush over Iraq, but rather to negotiate.”