Analysts criticize US attempts to target China, Iran

Any move by lawmakers in the United States that targets China and Iran will have a polarizing effect and disrupt talks aimed at reviving the multilateral 2015 nuclear pact regarding Teheran's nuclear program, analysts said.

A group of US lawmakers reintroduced the Iran China Accountability Act on May 31. The bill is aimed at prohibiting a nuclear deal until Teheran severs strategic military and security ties with China. The US House of Representatives' version of the bill was introduced in May last year.

Besides Iran and the US, the other parties to the 2015 nuclear deal are China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany.

Manjari Singh, an associate fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi, said that by putting economic restraints on the administration of US President Joe Biden, the act seems to be focused on targeting Iran-China relations. However, the demands put forth by the US lawmakers "do not seem to have been thought through", she said.

"The introduction of the Iran China Accountability Act adds a new dimension to this already complicated issue. The act has the potential to upset both Iran and China. In the current circumstances, such a decision ... will only contribute to the disruption of the deal and will have a polarizing effect," Singh said.

She said the lack of consensus on revisions to the deal puts the Biden administration in an uncomfortable position.

Mahjoob Zweiri, a professor on Iran and the Gulf region and a director at the Gulf Studies Centre at Qatar University in Doha, gave some context to the Iran China Accountability Act.

"There is a feeling within the US administration that there are complications," Zweiri said, adding that discussions about Iranian assets and how much should be paid back to Teheran may add to the muddle regarding the nuclear discussions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said a move by the US, France, Britain and Germany on June 3 to draft an anti-Iran resolution for the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna was "hasty and unconstructive".

The IAEA is holding its "Technical Meeting on Synergies between Nuclear Fusion Technology Developments and Advanced Nuclear Fission Technologies", which is due to conclude in the Austrain capital on Friday. In a speech, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said the organization remains ready to reengage with Iran without delay to resolve these matters.

"The 2015 Iran nuclear pact, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is the most comprehensive agreement on nuclear nonproliferation ever agreed on by world powers with a non-nuclear state. Rather than losing its relevance, the JCPOA is likely to serve as a template in the future in the quest for nuclear nonproliferation," said Asif Shuja, an Iran expert and senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Shuja said that the problems of implementation are purely "the result of the domestic politics of the United States" and have little to do with the pact's merit. Domestic issues, he added, often are given precedence over international commitments and "the JCPOA has become the victim of this fact".

Since April 2021, eight rounds of talks have been held in Vienna between Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA. Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Teheran.