US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the right call in Brussels on Friday when he pledged there would be “no rush’’ by the Biden administration to conclude a new nuclear deal with Iran. Last week’s alarming International Atomic Energy Agency conclusion about the stockpile of highly enriched uranium Iran has built up should have been enough to persuade Mr Blinken to put the kybosh on speculation that a new agreement was imminent. France, Germany and Britain, US co-signatories in the 2015 Obama nuclear deal, warned on Saturday that the 3941kg stockpile was “beyond any plausible civilian justification”, “well above’’ what was needed for a nuclear weapon.
Just as concerning is Iran’s expected participation, alongside Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at Thursday’s summit in Uzbekistan of leaders of the anti-Western Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), known as the “dictators’ club”. Founded and run by Beijing, the SCO is emerging as a major new force in Central Asia. Its members include Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Mr Putin’s close ally Belarus is about to join. This week is also expected to see Saudi Arabia and Qatar become “dialogue members”, a prelude to full membership.
For the US, rushing to agree to a new nuclear deal with a regime as anti-Western as Iran’s, with its support for terror groups, would have been a grave mistake.
Read the editorial in The Australian.