Be ready to go on the military offensive against the Americans but increase the pressure while remaining in the diplomatic field against the others: three days after the assassination in an American strike of the Iranian general Ghassem Soleimani, chief of the Forces Al-Quds Revolutionary Guards, Tehran seems to be playing two separate scores. In the United States, Iran is increasingly aggressively promising a "military response." Faced with the international community, he emptied the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 of its substance without isolating himself completely.
Sunday, January 5, while the whole region seemed caught in a noxious climate harbinger of a war, the Islamic Republic announced that it no longer considered itself bound by any limitation on the number of its centrifuges, the last obstacle foreseen by the agreement and still weighing on the production of enriched uranium in the country.
Every sixty days since May, Iran has gradually disengaged from the nuclear deal in response to Washington's policy of maximum pressure against the Islamic Republic. It was long overdue for Monday to reach a new level. It will have been announced with emphasis and a few hours in advance while the world remains suspended from the "vengeance" promised by the Islamic Republic. Under the circumstances, however, the measures released by Tehran on Sunday appear to be relatively moderate.
Iran frees itself from the content of the nuclear deal
In fact, access by the International Atomic Energy Agency to Iranian sites, a guarantee of visibility for the international community, remains guaranteed. The reversibility of the measures taken is recalled by Tehran, which says it is ready to renounce it in exchange for an illusory lifting of American sanctions, as Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif reminded again on Sunday evening. According to the usual elements of language used by Tehran on Sunday, the nuclear dossier seems to evolve in its own reality, even in a parallel world, far from the regional powder keg and its noises of boots.
"The Iranians are finishing, comments a source close to the file. They de facto freed themselves from the content of the agreement but kept its shell intact because, in their confrontation with the United States, they could not afford to completely alienate the other signatory parties, Europeans, Chinese and Russians. " Tehran could have, in a more offensive manner, directly announced an enrichment above 20% which would significantly shorten the timeframe for developing a nuclear bomb or even limit access to its sites by international inspectors.
