There's still 'blowback' to come from decision to leave nuclear deal

The historian James Burke created a series of programs years ago for PBS called "Connections" and "The Day the Universe Changed" that demonstrated how one thing can lead to another - such as how the mathematics behind perspective art led to the mathematics that advanced navigation and allowed ships to sail beyond the sight of land.

Foreign policy can work the same way. Moves by countries have consequences both anticipated and unanticipated. The CIA has an expression for unanticipated negative consequences: Blowback.

So when the president withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), it set in motion a whole set of reactions.

This week, the Iranians have probably exceeded the limit of 300 kg of low enriched uranium (LEU - enriched to 3.67 percent). That limit is arbitrary and pales in comparison to the tons of LEU that the Iranians had prior to the JCPOA and that, under the terms of the agreement, were shipped to Russia.

Bomb grade, highly enriched uranium (HEU) is enriched to 90 percent, so this does not indicate a breakout in a rush to make a bomb. There are many more steps along the escalatory ladder - enriching uranium to 20 percent, increasing the number and quality of the centrifuges it operates (both restricted under the JCPOA), reopening the facility at Fodor, and kicking out the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who are still in Iran monitoring their activity.

As the Iranians point out, under sections 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, they have the right to exceed limits if other parties to the agreement do not live up to their parts. The other parties are the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany - the U.S., the U.K., France, China, Russia, and Germany. In this case, the U.S. broke the agreement first, so the Iranian reaction is predictable.

This past week the other parties to the agreement met in Geneva trying to salvage the JCPOA. The Europeans are trying to set up a barter system that would allow some trade between Europe and Iran that will not run afoul of U.S. sanctions. This drives the Europeans closer to Russia, which is trying to do the same thing.

For its part, Russia is not unhappy that there is a rift between the U.S. and Europe, nor is it unhappy that there is turmoil in the Persian Gulf, which drives up the price of its oil and allows it to sell to new customers denied Iranian oil. It also drives it into closer cooperation with Iran, giving Russia another foothold in the Middle East, though Iran and Russia are competitors for the title of kingmaker in Syria.

Meanwhile, China is Iran's largest trading partner and buys the most Iranian oil. China has the power to mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions. It has smaller companies not exposed to U.S. sanctions that could keep some oil flowing and it could even start buying oil in Yuan, breaking the monopoly of the U.S. dollar for oil sales. Events in Iran are most certainly connected to negotiations with North Korea and the U.S. trade talks with China. Where there is leverage, leverage will be employed.

The U.S. clearly has serious muscle and is severely hurting Iran, but just as clearly it is isolated against the other parties to the JCPOA and that reduces its leverage.

The question that remains unanswered is what does the President want? Does he want a deal? There are those voices in the administration. There are also voices advocating a collapse of the Iranian regime. U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia would not be opposed to that.

Theoretically, the JCPOA should have boosted the fortunes of the so-called moderates in the Iranian government and, if the deal had turned out to benefit both sides, could have served as a platform for further talks and new agreements, just as arms control agreements with the former Soviet Union were built one upon another.

Now the Iranian hard-liners are ascendant, and what little trust that was created by the JCPOA is seriously depleted. Could there still be a deal? Sure. But we don't understand all the blowback yet to occur.

Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.