Two-faced Diplomacy
Do Russia and China want the U.S. back in the JCPoA?
Late in November 2020, days after veteran U.S. democrat Joe Biden won the presidential election, he implied his intent to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) also called Iran nuclear deal, upending former President Trump’s policy preference of economic sanctions over the arms agreement. Since then, the remaining actors of the agreement have all expressed support for the U.S. return to the nuclear deal.
The three member states from Europe, namely France, the U.K. and Germany, collectively the E3, have remained moderate on the issue after the initial self-defeating advice to President Biden to revive the Iran deal by lifting off some sanctions imposed during Trump presidency. The Biden administration is adamant that Iran needs to come under full-compliance of the previous agreement in order for the U.S. to lift sanctions.
Russia and China, the other two signatories of the accord have expressed support for a U.S. re-entry to the deal since Biden took over the White house. The stance taken by these two great powers after President Biden revealed his commitment to make Iran take the first step, contrasts their previous position regarding the Iran deal. Prior to the U.S. election, Russia slammed the U.S. for asserting its involvement in JCPoA in a UN meeting. Similarly, China had reiterated support for the nuclear accord with no mention of a full-revocation of all sanctions. Now both countries want an unconditional U.S. return to the deal. It seems Russia and China are conducting a two-faced diplomacy: taking a public stance on an issue which contradicts with their actual position. Why the two countries changed their public stance on the deal can only be deduced after their actual stance is clarified.
As a Washington Post article rightly stated in 2019, Russia has been a winner of the fallout between the U.S. and Iran. Not only can Russia keep on blaming the U.S. for the instability in the Middle East but it can also reap economic gains from the sanctions on Iran. The holdfast on Iranian oil which consists about ten percent of global oil supply led to oil shortage and pushed the price of oil by around 30 percent in a year since the dealbreaking move by President Trump. Russia, as an oil supplier, has benefitted from this price hike.
The Iran-America fallout has turned out to be economically beneficial to China too. After the U.S. left the agreement, Iran witnessed a void of foreign investment and international trade which has been capitalized by China. With no competition for either sector in Iran, the middle kingdom has pounced upon the opportunity to secure economic deals with greater benefits. Last month, the two countries signed a $400 billion deal which permits China to make investments and assist Iran with its banking, communication, transport, infrastructure development, weapons procurement, among other sectors while Iran has to provide oil at a discounted price for 25 years in return. The deal, which has been speculated to include ports construction in Iran and intelligence sharing, increases China’s influence in the region.
In addition to the benefits in the economic sector, the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal also helped the two actors solidify their interests in the region. Russia and Iran are strategic allies with military alliance in conflicts of Syria and Iraq and joint-partnership in Afghanistan and post-Soviet central Asian bloc. China, also a long-term military supplier to Iran, has recently stepped up in military partnerships too. The three countries conducted a joint military drill in December 2019, a year after U.S.walked out of the nuclear agreement. Since then, such exercises have ramped up with a recent one in February.
Furthermore, both Russia and China have benefited from the west’s focus on Iran which has diverted focus from their own grave actions. As explained in a 2020 report, Moscow sees Tehran as a distraction to keep the west focused away from its actions in Ukraine, Crimea and elsewhere. Extending this argument, China too has been able to cover up its actions including the Uyghur genocide with the level of urgency surrounding the Iran deal.
However, some experts still argue that Russia supports the Iran deal because it does not wish to witness a nuclear-armed Iran. The only and effective counterargument is that Russia is the biggest if not the only partner to Iran in the nuclear advancement program. Russia even helped build the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran just two years prior to JCPoA. In addition, a nuclear-armed Iran will only strengthen Russia’s sphere of influence in the middle east by posing threat to western allies.
The two-faced diplomacy from the two great powers has situated America in a dilemma on whether to rejoin the accord and how to do so. Perhaps, this dilemma was the very target of the two states. It is like the Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security of the U.S. Department of State Jim Warden said during a meeting in a Miami University class, “Russia and China just wish to see the U.S. hurt.” Whatever the duo’s intention might have been, their actions have handed the Biden administration the Herculean task of striking a balance to navigate through these uncharted waters in the region.
