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The whole point of the JCPOA was to lift sanctions on Iran so it could be a rival to Israel and Europeans could buy more oil from them. The nuclear program restrictions were a thin veneer erected on top of that framework with no enforcement options (nor did any party have any interest in enforcement as we have seen subsequently).
The point of the JCPOA was to entice Iran away from getting a nuke, in return for sanctions relief. Calling the nuke program restrictions a "thin veneer" isn't accurate -- it was the central point! The deal included quite invasive monitoring and the snapback enforcement.
Then why didn't France, the UK, etc enforce those snapback provisions at any point?
The snapback was supposed to be a threat preventing Iran from breaching the treaty unilaterally, but Trump had the US crash out of the treaty first. After that the Europeans tried to keep Iran in the deal by themselves without Iran, but eventually it became clear that Iran and the US would never come back to the deal, and they actually did initiate the snapback provisions.
They were apparently completely ineffective, again bolstering all critics of the deal
It's not fair to conclude that the JCPOA wouldn't have worked since most of its provisions were set up to prevent an Iranian breach of the deal, while in reality it was America unilaterally exiting that killed it. This was explicitly brought up when the US tried to trigger the snapback.
Another document illustrating Europe and the "international community's" inability to deal with Iran in any serious matter.
I suppose you might think JCPOA was failed by Trump and not flawed from the beginning, I vociferously disagree and think it was a failure the day it was entered into and would have done nothing to prevent Iranian arming of terrorists or progress to the bomb. I think the European response to Iranian piracy on the high seas proves me wholly correct in my assumptions as to why they entered into the deal, it was not to restrain Iran, but to profit with Iran and to restrain the US. This makes further sense because, restraining America is and was a goal of the American Democrats, and particularly the Obama administration. And even further because the Obama admin severely disliked Israel and wanted them to have less power in the region.
Is there a JCPOA-like agreement that actually could be taken seriously? Yes. Its not one the Ayatollah would ever have accepted, because steps 1-5 would be France an the UK doing the following: 1) Seizing all their Uranium; 2) Seizing all their Uranium manufacturing equipment; 3) Seizing all their ICBMs and Drones etc; 4) Setting up DMZs on Iran's borders with Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, & Armenia; and 5) Engage in a joint taskforce in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria eradicating Hamas and Hezbollah.
Then step 6 would be doing all the things the JCPOA actually did, like lifting sanctions, imposing an inspection regime, giving back seized assets could happen after something like 5 years of compliance. Etc.
But the lifting of sanctions and empowering Iran financially was the true purpose of JCPOA, and we know that because it was the first thing that actually happened, AND we further know this because France and England and Germany are not currently bombing Iran for engaging in piracy against their vessels and vessels destined for their ports.
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