MESOPOTAMIA NEWS BACKGROUNDER : Iran’s “Admit Nothing, Deny Everything, Make Counter-Accusations” Tour
EAST KURDISTAN (IRAN)
27 April 2018 – Cipher Brief – Norm Roule, who served as the National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI until last fall, is quite familiar with how Iran seeks to spin the press regarding the P5+1 nuclear deal. With President Donald Trump (and France’s President Emmanuel Macron) making noise about the issues with the deal as signed in 2015, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif went on a U.S. whistlestop tour to reach “every conceivable advocate” of the deal.
According to Roule, here is Iran’s JCPOA spin formula: • “Zarif begins his press routine by pointing to multiple International Atomic Energy Agency statements that Iran is adhering to its nuclear commitments. Here he is on relatively solid ground. The IAEA routinely conducts intrusive inspections in Iran and has yet to be denied the access it judges necessary to achieve its work.”
- “Zarif often salts his statements with a variation on three falsehoods. First, he insists that the lack of interest by international banks and businesses in the Iranian market is the product of U.S. actions or a Western conspiracy.”
- “Zarif’s second falsehood has to do with Iran’s ability to quickly withdraw from the deal should the U.S. do so, should the international community press for additional nuclear concessions or introduce any new significant non-nuclear sanctions…Last, Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani proudly claim that Iran is capable of immediately and significantly expanding Iran’s nuclear program.”
Read Roule on Iran’s familiar press routine regarding the JCPOA.