 The eighth round of talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal, or the JCPOA, are going to start on December 27th. Now this year has seen a lot of ups and downs as far as these talks are concerned. Just at the beginning of the month, there was a lot of gloom, as experts predicted, that the deal might not happen at all. Over the past few weeks, the signs have been a bit more hopeful. To discuss the latest on the deal, we have with us Prabir Purkayastha, and this is Mapping Fault Life. So first of all, like I said, from early December onwards, there's been a lot of mixed messaging regarding this deal. At some point, even the Europeans were issuing threatening statements on one hand, the United States and Israel were talking about war at least some sections. Now we hear that there is a possibility of some agreement on a draft which might mark the beginning of some more reconciliation. So first of all, where are we right now with these talks and what does it look like? Well, at the moment, I don't see any positive resolution as yet. Of course, what's happening behind the scenes, we don't know. We've heard this enough number of times and been disappointed as well enough number of times. I think two issues are extremely important. The US and Israel, and at least sections in Israel, are beginning to realize that JCPOA was their best bet not to have Iran develop nuclear weapons. Now having walked out of JCPOA as the US has done, the Iran today is much closer to the nuclear threshold, the weapon threshold than they ever were. And they are actually in a position, if they want, to make nuclear weapons within one, two years. And that's not something that's very happy for the United States, who had argued that nuclear weapons, in fact, ability to make nuclear weapons is what they would take away by walking out of JCPOA. They just have made it much, much closer. And this is what, again, important sections in Israel, particularly the security state of Israel or people who have retired from the security establishment of Israel have said that JCPOA, walking out of JCPOA was a big mistake and Israel was responsible for it as much as Trump was. So I think this is the background that Iran is now closer to nuclear threshold. They had, in fact, earlier asked Biden for assurances that the US will not walk out of JCPOA again. And under the back room negotiations, people had told them that Biden cannot give a guarantee beyond his presidential regime. But it appears that when Iranians had backed down a bit on that and said, okay, can he give an assurance at least till the end of his term, even that apparently was not accepted. So given all this, I do not know which way this is going to go because Iran's stake in the deal reduces as the day of signing of the deal or restarting of the deal gets postponed because then the day that Biden becomes lame duck becomes nearer. Secondly, we have seen that in the earlier deal where it was struck, the sanctions were not fully rolled back. In fact, a lot of the sanctions remained and they snapped back. So given that, there doesn't seem to be that much hope in Iran that the sanctions, if they are promised to be lifted even that they will really take place in any significant way. But what would bite Iran is they have to take immediate measures of different clients. So I think behind all of this is the military option that the Israelis and the Americans are now weighing up. Do they have a way of militarily forcing Iran to come back to the JCPOA because the negotiations means each day the hand that the Iranian negotiators have become stronger because they don't get much out of the deal anyway. So they are willing to play more of a hard ball than the Americans or the Europeans would be willing to. The essential part of it still remains, what has Iran got out of the deal and why should it agree to a deal again when the sanctions, lifting of the sanctions, all of these doesn't seem to be promised and they can be drawn out even after the JCPOA is re-entered by the United States. Right. So in this context of course, the other key question like you said is of what is the agenda of the United States in Israel. One of the key aspects has been to further tighten restrictions in Iran. We talked about earlier how they want to restrict Iran's role in the region. They want to impose further control on Iran's missile program for instance. So are these issues still, do they look like these issues are also playing in the background or are they still not the agenda as well? Well you know as far as Iran is concerned they are not the agenda, they never were. So the JCPOA was supposed to be restricted to a specific part which is really the nuclear arrangement within Iran and therefore linking the sanctions that the U.S. is imposed on the basis of nuclear program of Iran basically those sanctions to be lifted. Now this is the limited shall we say brief that the JCPOA has. So linking regional role that Iran plays, asking them to give up a certain kind of technology, missiles for example, is really asking Iran's sovereignty to be given up. Now that no self-respecting country is going to accept and Iran is not Iraq. It is a much bigger country, it has much more capability and each day it in fact increases its technological capability. It makes military action that much more difficult and after Afghanistan for the American people to believe there is a military option in Iran would be rather stupid but of course stupidity is something which people may not have but it doesn't mean the strategic establishment in the United States and Israel will not have. They may have stupidity and they seem to have showed this time and again. We have the invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraq invasion, we had the attack on Libya, destroying Libya and Syria. We have all the consequences thereof. Do they want another failed state in Iran? I think that is a disaster for the world as well as for them. The other part of it is that it's not going to be easy to militarily destroy Iran's nuclear program. Even if they want to bomb it out of existence because without an occupation of Iran it doesn't seem that's possible because they have hardened bunkers, they have really fortified what they are doing, this deep underground. So it's not going to be easy to destroy whatever the Iranians nuclear facilities are and Iran has a very good missile force capability as we have seen. They have also their allies in the region who also have a lot of missile capacity. So this is really playing with destruction at a very large level. So I don't know what the Americans are thinking, why Biden would not straight away walk into the JCPOA, lift sanction, normalize relations, blaming it on Trump, why was he trying to play hardball and it does appear that the Israel influence in the American establishment and the American media does play a big role and it appears that the Americans tends to follow Israel's lead or rather accept Israel's concerns as far more important than his own concerns should be in the region or at least of its own other allies in the region. And Praveen finally what about the other signatories, we have of course Russia and China who have been playing a very important role in this. European countries since 2018 making a lot of noises about how they want the deal to be sort of brought back but actually doing very little concretely when it comes to this and often doing the United States line. You know the only issue that is there is if sanctions have to be lifted the European countries have very little role because essentially the American sanctions are the ones that operate. As we know the financial world operates on the dollar and therefore if American doesn't lift sanctions no other country can really do much except Russia and China who have entered essentially into barter deals with Iran and therefore they are able to handle this American sanctions and they don't really accept American sanctions in Iran. But for other countries they just too enmeshed economically financially with the United States to take an independent position that's why when they rejected America's walking out of JCPOA and said we will try to be in the JCPOA and continue relations with Iran they could not really do anything as far as economic relationships go because essentially even German companies and banks for example were not willing to enter into any deal with the Iranians. So that is the basic issue and this we have seen in India also Reserve Bank of India State Bank of India was threatened that if you touch Iran then all your external transactions would come under American sanctions. So I think this is the key issue that is that is the God year not for the Europeans and I don't see any will to do anything about it as yet. So I think we are going to see I'm relatively shall I say much more pessimistic about resolution now coming about. I think they had a window six or eight months back they could have done it very quickly. I think more they have delayed more they have built up expectations of delivering better a better deal both in the United States and Iran and at the moment the gap seems to be too wide. So for me doesn't look like we are going to have the deal. I think it is the shall we say teetering on the edge for quite some time now on West Asia and particularly with Iran Israel this axis supported of course at one side by the United States and backed up not militarily but otherwise but Russia and China to see that Iran doesn't sink as a country as an economy. I think this is what we are going to continue unless good sense dawns on Israel who are the real rivals it seems of the American policies. But that is a hard call because Israel is also as you know because of its electoral scenario everybody is doing game and chip over there who can one up other Naftali Bennett or Netanyahu you have the same same kind of scenario. So I think we are in an unstable equilibrium with no signs of it moving towards a stable equilibrium as of now. Let's hope things turn better as you have said but fingers crossed and my pessimism on this. I'm going to wishfully hope again that your pessimism is proved wrong but we'll come back to you soon next week with the same topic. What will happen on December 27th remains to be seen. The world will be definitely watching. We'll be talking about this also on mapping photo lines soon. Until then keep watching news click.