Two years ago, Barack Obama hailed the signing of the Iran nuclear deal in Vienna as a historic landmark that “offers an opportunity to move in a new direction” with the Islamic Republic.
But any hopes that the former US president had of a political transformation from the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on July 14, 2015 are all but dead.
As for the deal itself, dubbed by Mr Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, “the worst deal ever”, the disarmament component of it appears to be holding and Mr Trump has backed away from his campaign promise to “rip it up” or even renegotiate its substance.
The deal between Iran on one side and the US and other world powers on the other was designed to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon by imposing restrictions and strict monitoring of its nuclear programme. In return, tough international sanctions that had crippled Iran’s economy were eased.
A US state department official told The National that the "Trump administration is currently conducting a comprehensive review of our Iran policy, and once we have finalised our conclusions, we will meet the challenges Iran poses with clarity and conviction".
The official stressed US adherence to the nuclear deal “will ensure that Iran is held strictly accountable to its requirements” until this review is completed.
Another official told Reuters on Thursday that Mr Trump is “very likely” to recertify Iranian compliance with the Iran nuclear agreement although he continues to have reservations about it.
Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the deal's tragedy “is that it is as successful as it is fragile”.
“It has delivered so far on its narrow objective: effectively and verifiably blocking all potential pathways for Iran to race toward nuclear weapons, while opening the door to the country’s international rehabilitation and economic recovery.”
However, Mr Vaez added that the accord is vulnerable because it has not begun to transform the enmity between Iran and the US “leaving it exposed to an unstable political environment”.
Even opponents of the deal such as Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the agreement “has partially and only temporarily succeeded in pushing Iran's nuclear breakout time from a couple of months to one year”.
Its failings, he said are “in giving Iran patient pathways to nuclear weapons and international ballistic missile capabilities while rescuing the Iranian economy and giving the regime hundreds of billions of dollars in current and expected sanctions relief with which to expand its regional dominance and immunise itself against future pressure".
Mr Vaez said Mr Trump decided to keep the deal in place based on a pure cost-benefit calculus.
“Killing the accord or allowing it to die when Iran is in compliance would lead the other signatories — representing a near international consensus — to blame Washington squarely and likely destroy the broad coalition critical for sanctions enforcement that provided leverage for negotiating the accord in the first place,” he said.
Mr Vaez added that “the administration probably prefers to kill it with a thousand paper cuts, so that the blame game is muddy”.
The Trump administration has imposed new treasury sanctions on Iran, and the US Senate voted by a margin of 98-2 on a bill that also allows for more sanctions on Tehran’s banking sector and its powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Mr Dubowitz said the deal may stay in place but the US administration will probably mount a massive campaign to pressure Iran outside the deal while insisting that Tehran agree to accept changes in a follow-on agreement.
These changes would be to key areas such as access for the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, to military sites, among others. Both experts agree that any talk of a rapprochement between US and Iran after the deal is in the realm of fantasy. “Even the limited thaw in bilateral ties has now dissipated,” said Mr Vaez.
In both Tehran and Washington, powerful stakeholders moved to ensure the nuclear deal was “a ceiling on, not a foundation for, rapprochement”, he said.
In Tehran, the forces come from the conservative core of the political system — the supreme leader and the revolutionary guards. In Washington, the biggest resistance to the deal comes from the US Congress.
Mr Dubowitz said the deal has made Iran's behaviour worse in the region.
“A revolutionary regime with imperialist ambitions is now flush with cash and emboldened to continue a plan of achieving regional dominance,” he said.
On the fate of the Iran nuclear deal that is set to expire in 13 years, Mr Vaez said that such a period is “an eternity in Middle Eastern politics” and “the real question is whether the accord will survive the Trump presidency”.
Mr Dubowitz was more fearful, however, that Iran could emerge over the next decade with an “industrial-size enrichment programme, a near-zero breakout time, an easier clandestine path to a nuclear warhead”, all the while becoming “increasingly immunised against Western sanctions.”
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
Honeymoonish
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THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
The%20specs
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Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
John Murray
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Company%20Profile
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SPECS%3A%20Polestar%203
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Company profile
Company: Verity
Date started: May 2021
Founders: Kamal Al-Samarrai, Dina Shoman and Omar Al Sharif
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech
Size: four team members
Stage: Intially bootstrapped but recently closed its first pre-seed round of $800,000
Investors: Wamda, VentureSouq, Beyond Capital and regional angel investors
If you go
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct to Nairobi, with fares starting from Dh1,695. The resort can be reached from Nairobi via a 35-minute flight from Wilson Airport or Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, or by road, which takes at least three hours.
The rooms
Rooms at Fairmont Mount Kenya range from Dh1,870 per night for a deluxe room to Dh11,000 per night for the William Holden Cottage.
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
SERIE A FIXTURES
Saturday Benevento v Atalanta (2pm), Genoa v Bologna (5pm), AC Milan v Torino (7.45pm)
Sunday Roma v Inter Milan (3.30pm), Udinese v Napoli, Hellas Verona v Crotone, Parma v Lazio (2pm), Fiorentina v Cagliari (9pm), Juventus v Sassuolo (11.45pm)
Monday Spezia v Sampdoria (11.45pm)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
Confirmed%20bouts%20(more%20to%20be%20added)
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Name: Brendalle Belaza
From: Crossing Rubber, Philippines
Arrived in the UAE: 2007
Favourite place in Abu Dhabi: NYUAD campus
Favourite photography style: Street photography
Favourite book: Harry Potter
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League quarter-final (first-leg score):
Juventus (1) v Ajax (1), Tuesday, 11pm UAE
Match will be shown on BeIN Sports
More on Quran memorisation:
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight, Wednesday, BeIN Sports
Company%20Profile
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What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
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Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shantanu Maheshwari, Jimmy Shergill, Saiee Manjrekar
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Rating: 2.5/5
Company%20profile
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5