While the nation is consumed by the Impeachment trial, we have not heard much on Biden’s moves to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran deal. Since President Trump withdrew the US from the Iran deal there has been a massive hue and cry from certain segments of the political spectrum that Iran is going to go Nuclear and the people will starve with any return to sanctions. Iran has never stopped its nuclear program and its people were starving before the deal.

The US as well as the EU has requested re-negotiating the deal to allow for the addition of missile development, more stringent inspections and, very important, inclusion of human rights. In two on-air interviews/debates I have had recently with Iranian foreign policy people it was made clear that there would be no re-negotiation and the US must first recommit to full compliance before going any further.

The US and other allies went too fast and gave up too much in the original agreement. Those calling for a return to the original have never addressed what the problems are. I am not naive enough to believe that Iran will ever be in full compliance or that any attempt at reducing missile development or getting meaningful access to all sites will be successful. What can be hoped for is that the level of human rights abuses can be exposed to the world. The daily killing of Kurds and others as well as the destruction of any religion other then their version of Islam must be exposed and would-be during negotiations.

When so many call out for social justice to ignore the abuses in Iran for political means is disgusting. Iran is the chief supporter of terrorism in the world including facilitating al-Qaeda and ISIS supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and the killing and destruction of Kurdish culture and the Baha’i religion.  These things must be addressed before any return to any negotiation,