The brinkmanship exhibited at the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5 +1 international consortium is breathtaking, and suggests, for the first time in several months, the actual possibility of failure. There’s too much invested by all parties to make walking away appealing, but the United States reminding Iran that this remains a possibility emerged as a key factor last week.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was the American suggestion that the talks could simply continue on a lower-level and open-ended basis into the foreseeable future. The grounds for that would be an extension of the interim accord. This was a not particularly subtle way for the American side to say to the Iranian one: “We can live with the status quo a lot more easily than you can.”
After all, the interim accord provides very limited sanctions relief to Iran and yet commits Tehran to some significant measures to reduce its low-enriched uranium stockpile and other steps that roll back its nuclear programme.
At the same time, Iran has not been able to extricate itself from the diplomatic, industrial and financial box that the last wave of intense sanctions managed to construct. The American message was designed to remind Iran about the difficulties they continue to face as a result of the sanctions regime.
In the final analysis, Washington’s proposal in this regard is not serious. How could it possibly be in Iran’s interests to agree to make the interim agreement less temporary? It’s conceivable that they could agree to such an arrangement, but only to buy time. But there is simply no way that Tehran could live with the interim arrangement as a long-term formula.
This might well have played into the widely-reported and uncharacteristic outburst of anger by Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who reportedly shouted at his interlocutors: “Never threaten an Iranian!” Most speculation focused on the heavy attention this remark got in Iran’s domestic media, suggesting that the whole thing was a play for public opinion. And certainly all sides are doing their best to try to look tough to assuage domestic hardliners.
But the possibility that the outburst was genuine and meaningful should not be dismissed. If it was, what was the threat in question? The major threat coming from the American side has to do precisely with the idea that the talks could be mothballed in favour of an indefinite extension of the interim agreement arrangements. And that would indeed be enough to make any Iranian diplomat lose his temper.
The American side has also been provoked of late by Iran’s demands that any nuclear agreement should also involve a lifting of the UN arms embargo. This suggestion didn’t provoke an outburst, but it did produce a strong reaction from the outgoing chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey.
He told a Congressional hearing that “under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking,” seemingly ruling out any support for an American agreement to lift the embargo.
Russia and China, however, are reportedly strongly backing the new Iranian demand. This is hardly surprising, given that they are Tehran’s primary weapon suppliers. But it does mean that Iran has found a wedge issue dividing the P5+1 group, which has otherwise been surprisingly coherent across a variety of potentially difficult issues.
The Russians apparently also could not resist getting involved in the outrage game. “Or a Russian,” foreign minister Sergey Lavrov reportedly chimed in after Mr Zarif upbraided his interlocutors about threatening Iranians. The newfound Russian-Iranian common cause on not being threatened apparently came after European Union foreign policy head Federica Mogherini suggested that the talks might break down precisely because of Iran’s refusal to compromise on the arms embargo.
It’s entirely possible that Mr Zarif was basically playing tough for a domestic audience in preparation for unveiling an agreement that includes significant concessions to the West. But it’s also possible that his remarks, and those of Mr Lavrov, are actually public positioning in anticipation of a potential breakdown in negotiations. Either way, the uncharacteristic outbursts bear all the hallmarks of political manoeuvring before a major development.
It’s still far more likely that a deal will be achieved in the coming days than not, primarily because the core outlines of a deal were already laid down in the interim agreement: Iran will continue to enrich uranium but on a small scale and subject to intensive international inspections, in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. This would hold for 15 years, after which the issues would have to be revisited in some other context. Yet for both sides the devil is in the detail.
But as the United States has finally got around to reminding Iran in recent days, it can live with the status quo, including as laid out in the interim agreement, much more comfortably than Tehran can. And that ought to be enough to give the United States sufficient leverage to ensure that the details break largely in its favour. Or, everyone is now on notice, they really might just walk away after all.
Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
On Twitter: @ibishblog
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Challenge Cup result:
1. UAE 3 faults
2. Ireland 9 faults
3. Brazil 11 faults
4. Spain 15 faults
5. Great Britain 17 faults
6. New Zealand 20 faults
7. Italy 26 faults
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%20%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Steffi%20Niederzoll%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Reyhaneh%20Jabbari%2C%20Shole%20Pakravan%2C%20Zar%20Amir%20Ebrahimi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
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Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster with a decades-long career in TV. He has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others. Karam is also the founder of Takreem.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
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Dates for the diary
To mark Bodytree’s 10th anniversary, the coming season will be filled with celebratory activities:
- September 21 Anyone interested in becoming a certified yoga instructor can sign up for a 250-hour course in Yoga Teacher Training with Jacquelene Sadek. It begins on September 21 and will take place over the course of six weekends.
- October 18 to 21 International yoga instructor, Yogi Nora, will be visiting Bodytree and offering classes.
- October 26 to November 4 International pilates instructor Courtney Miller will be on hand at the studio, offering classes.
- November 9 Bodytree is hosting a party to celebrate turning 10, and everyone is invited. Expect a day full of free classes on the grounds of the studio.
- December 11 Yogeswari, an advanced certified Jivamukti teacher, will be visiting the studio.
- February 2, 2018 Bodytree will host its 4th annual yoga market.
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
Western Clubs Champions League:
- Friday, Sep 8 - Abu Dhabi Harlequins v Bahrain
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Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B
Gulf Men's League final
Dubai Hurricanes 24-12 Abu Dhabi Harlequins
Team Angel Wolf Beach Blast takes place every Wednesday between 4:30pm and 5:30pm
New Zealand 15 British & Irish Lions 15
New Zealand 15
Tries: Laumape, J Barrett
Conversions: B Barrett
Penalties: B Barrett
British & Irish Lions 15
Penalties: Farrell (4), Daly
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Important questions to consider
1. Where on the plane does my pet travel?
There are different types of travel available for pets:
- Manifest cargo
- Excess luggage in the hold
- Excess luggage in the cabin
Each option is safe. The feasibility of each option is based on the size and breed of your pet, the airline they are traveling on and country they are travelling to.
2. What is the difference between my pet traveling as manifest cargo or as excess luggage?
If traveling as manifest cargo, your pet is traveling in the front hold of the plane and can travel with or without you being on the same plane. The cost of your pets travel is based on volumetric weight, in other words, the size of their travel crate.
If traveling as excess luggage, your pet will be in the rear hold of the plane and must be traveling under the ticket of a human passenger. The cost of your pets travel is based on the actual (combined) weight of your pet in their crate.
3. What happens when my pet arrives in the country they are traveling to?
As soon as the flight arrives, your pet will be taken from the plane straight to the airport terminal.
If your pet is traveling as excess luggage, they will taken to the oversized luggage area in the arrival hall. Once you clear passport control, you will be able to collect them at the same time as your normal luggage. As you exit the airport via the ‘something to declare’ customs channel you will be asked to present your pets travel paperwork to the customs official and / or the vet on duty.
If your pet is traveling as manifest cargo, they will be taken to the Animal Reception Centre. There, their documentation will be reviewed by the staff of the ARC to ensure all is in order. At the same time, relevant customs formalities will be completed by staff based at the arriving airport.
4. How long does the travel paperwork and other travel preparations take?
This depends entirely on the location that your pet is traveling to. Your pet relocation compnay will provide you with an accurate timeline of how long the relevant preparations will take and at what point in the process the various steps must be taken.
In some cases they can get your pet ‘travel ready’ in a few days. In others it can be up to six months or more.
5. What vaccinations does my pet need to travel?
Regardless of where your pet is traveling, they will need certain vaccinations. The exact vaccinations they need are entirely dependent on the location they are traveling to. The one vaccination that is mandatory for every country your pet may travel to is a rabies vaccination.
Other vaccinations may also be necessary. These will be advised to you as relevant. In every situation, it is essential to keep your vaccinations current and to not miss a due date, even by one day. To do so could severely hinder your pets travel plans.
Source: Pawsome Pets UAE
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