Last week, audio purported to be of a conversation between the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and an Iranian journalist was leaked to the press. Zarif publicly apologized for his remarks, suggesting that there should be little doubt about the recording’s accuracy. On the tape, Zarif claims that he found out from John Kerry, his then-American counterpart, about increased Iranian military operations in Syria, and the frequent use of the state-owned Iran Air, as opposed to a private entity, to transport men and arms there. He also claims that Kerry informed him of the extent of Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic’s positions in Syria. John Bolton comments on what can be learned from the episode:
When Zarif asked the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC] commander Qassem Suleimani about the flights, Suleimani blew him off, saying, “if Iran Air is 2-percent more secure than [another airline], Iran Air must be used even if this inflicts 200-percent costs on diplomacy.”
Zarif’s confessions show why President Biden should abandon his dream of returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, which the United States exited during the Trump administration. In Iran, it is not the negotiators who matter, nor what they say. It’s increasingly the IRGC, which controls the nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, commands conventional military activities externally, and supports terrorists worldwide.
If Israel is pounding Iranian and allied units in Syria, it is hardly a secret to the IRGC. The real news is that it was a secret to Iran’s foreign minister, and likely therefore to his subordinates responsible for nuclear diplomacy. The killing of Suleimani with a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, while an enormous blow to Iran, does not change the picture. If anything, Suleimani’s demise simply reinforced the IRGC ethos that it alone can protect the 1979 revolution.
With Tehran, we do not face a government where “trust, but verify” makes sense. We have no basis for “trust” in the first place, let alone confidence that verification measures can detect active Iranian violation and concealment.
More about: Iran, Mohammad-Javad Zarif, U.S. Foreign policy