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Trump's anti-JCPOA actions, Rouhani's main challenge in 2nd term: Analyst

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani delivers a speech after being sworn in at the Iranian Parliament in Tehran, on August 5, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for a second term in office, was attended by more than one hundred foreign delegations. At a time when the United States seeks to isolate Iran over its defensive ballistic missiles, it seems that international support for the Islamic Republic conveys an important message. What follows is a synopsis of an interview Press TV has conducted with Hamed Mousavi, an adjunct professor at Carleton University, and Michael Lane, the president of the American Institute for Foreign Policy, about the effectiveness of the US pressures on Iran and Rouhani’s main foreign policy challenge in his second term.

Michael Lane maintains that one should not interpret the presence of high-ranking international officials in Rouhani’s inauguration as total failure of the US policies towards Iran. 

“There has been some success on that part to put pressure on Iran government. There continue to be some success. The removal of nuclear sanctions has not led to the robust investment in Iran that President Rouhani had hoped for...,” Lane said.

He further noted that removing the non-nuclear sanctions and absorbing more foreign investment would be the two main challenges President Rouhani would have to deal with in his second term.

“As we look at the next four years, I look at the needle that Rouhani really has to thread in terms of foreign policy," the analyst noted, adding, "At least there are two main objectives that he campaigned on before his re-election.The first was to rid Iran of all non-nuclear sanctions that now exist against the country and the second was to solve the problem of lack of foreign investments to have sustainable investment that will create more robust economy and help the Iranian people.”

The image grab shows Hamed Mousavi (L), an adjunct professor at Carleton University, and Michael Lane, the president of the American Institute for Foreign Policy at Press TV's 'The Debate' show on  August 5, 2017.

However, Hamed Mousavi, the other panelist on the show, stated that the European countries' measures to preserve Iran's nuclear agreement with the world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and their eagerness to sign business deals with the Iranian companies were major reasons one could mention for the failure of Washington’s pressure policy towards Tehran. 

“The efforts to isolate Iran have failed in the sense that the Europeans are very keen on keeping the nuclear agreement, whereas the Trump administration essentially wants to scrap it,” Mousavi underlined.

He added that, in his opinion, the main foreign policy challenge that President Rouhani would face in the next four years was to nullify the efforts of the US President Donald Trump to destroy the JCPOA.

“I think it is true that Rouhani is going to have a difficult time in the next four years in the sense that the Trump administration is actively trying to sabotage the nuclear deal,” Mousavi said.

The JCPOA was inked between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, France, Britain, China and Russia – plus Germany in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016.

Under the deal, which was later endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution, limits were put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of all nuclear-related bans imposed on the Islamic Republic, among other things.

The administration of Donald Trump, which took office in January 2017 and one year after the JCPOA entered into force, has slapped sanctions on Iran in violation of the nuclear deal.


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