 Despite months and months of negotiations, the Iran nuclear deal is still not close to being clinched. After the Russia-Ukraine war broke out and European countries became desperate for oil, it seemed a deal would happen very soon. However, despite the Europeans striving really hard and the Iranians willing to make compromises, we are no closer to an agreement. Recently, the European Union's chief diplomat Sepp Paul said that the deal was in danger. Why is the deal not in the bag despite everyone seeming to be in its favour? Who is playing spoil-spot? Rania Khalek of Breakthrough News explains. That would have them back under this strict monitoring regulation of this international agency of their uranium enrichment. And that would severely limit their ability to enrich uranium. But the Iranians are saying that this is actually not something that they're not willing to agree to. They would be willing to agree to this. The problem is that the Americans are refusing to guarantee the lifting of sanctions. And for the Iranians, that is the ultimate issue here is the sanctions. And if the Americans can't guarantee the lifting of the sanctions, then Iran really has nothing to gain from this deal. But I do want to emphasize that this time around, you know, there are, as every time, there are several different players with a vested interest in the Iran deal, either making it happen or blocking it. And that's important to keep in mind too. And here I raised the issue of the Israelis. The Israelis, of course, are aligned with American neocons and doing everything in their power to prevent this deal. And Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid actually went on like a lobbying tour, basically advocating against the deal, begging the Americans not to let it happen. And part of this is due to the fact that elections are coming up in Israel. And Netanyahu has been attacking Lapid as like being soft on Iran. So he wants to look strong. But also the Israelis want Iran isolated and weak. And a deal would, a nuclear deal would bring Iran back into the international economic system because it would come with some sanctions relief. So the Israelis aren't like really scared. They're not actually scared that Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon. Everyone knows that the Iranians aren't trying to obtain a nuclear weapon. Had they wanted to, they could have already. What this is really about is they don't want Iran's economy to flourish because they believe that if Iran has a healthy economy, it can then give more funding and weapons to its resistance allies across the region like Hezbollah, that act as a deterrence against the Israeli aggression and of course as well as the Palestinians. So the Israelis want the Iranian economy to continue to be in ruins over sanctions. And this is of course while Israel continues its campaign of like sabotage against Iran and its regional allies. They're constantly taking credit for sabotaging not just the nuclear deal, but also trying to, you know, kill or assassinate Iranian scientists. Sabotaging Iranian ships and these sorts of things. So all that said, Lapid is also trying to use this as a way to like increase his poll numbers ahead of elections. So there's always like an Israeli election element to this. The Americans, however, are saying, well they've actually told the Israelis don't worry the deals on like stalled for now. That, like I mentioned, has to do with the Americans adding demands that they're not willing to budger on surrounding uranium enrichment. So they want Iran to give up all enriched uranium that they have been enriching throughout the time that the US ripped up the deal. Anything that's been enriched to 20% and 60% that's in Iran's possession. They want them to give that up, which would be like hundreds of kilograms of enriched uranium. And they want them to remove that from Iran and then take whatever they have stored out of like Iranian possession and basically put it under the possession of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, which would then continue with strict monitoring of Iran's nuclear facilities. And the Americans are saying that the Iranians are refusing to allow the strict monitoring. And I think it's important to note here that this is actually a violation of sovereignty. I mean, no other country has to expose themselves to this level of strict monitoring. This is purely just because it's Iran, no other kind. I mean, Israel literally has, it's the only country in the Middle East that actually has nuclear weapons. And that's not even an official admission. Everybody just knows they do. And there's no monitoring whatsoever of their uranium enrichment or anybody else's just the Iranians to this strict level. The Iranians are saying that they're still not receiving any American guarantees that if they sign a deal the Americans will abide by it and not allow the next administration to rip it up like Trump did. And the Iranians for their part are also saying that they are in fact willing to accept the verification of their nuclear activities, even to the extremely strict level of the IAEA. Only if the parties who signed the 2015 nuclear deal fulfilled their obligations to lift the sanctions against Iran. And I mean, as far as they see it, why should Iran right have to abide by these measures if the other side doesn't have to abide by theirs. And Iran actually did abide by those strict measures for a year after the deal was torn up by the US to see if others would continue to abide by the deal. At one point it was just the violations by the United States were just too outrageous. The Europeans were starting to join in on the sanctions that the US was placing under the Trump administration on the Iranians. So the Iranian parliament actually ratified a bill that obliges the government to expand the country's nuclear activities in response to the violations committed by the American side. Of course, none of this is ever mentioned in the Western press, it's just whatever Americans say is the problem so Iran is constantly getting blamed for this deal being stalled. And I mean the last thing I'll mention here is that there's also domestic politics inside the US to consider. You know the deal is stalled now, and according to Israeli media the Biden administration right gave them a guarantee not to worry that there won't be a deal. To do with the fact that you know Biden may have been interested in restoring the deal when he first became president, but it seems that now that interest has faded because it doesn't really benefit him in the upcoming midterm elections Americans don't care about the Iran deal right now. So I mean, as far as like the horse race politics of America is concerned there's nothing that Biden really has to gain from re-entering a deal with Iran if anything, it might even just give his Republican counterpart something to use against him, saying that you know you're soft on Iran you're soft on terrorism. That likely has something to do with the American lack of real interest in doing this. In the meantime the US has continued to sanction Iran, you know denying them like access to food and medicine, and all the kinds of horrible things destroying their economy that comes with sanctions they continue to steal Iranian oil and sell it, which is just like straight up piracy, while the Americans are constantly approved like approving of Israeli sabotage efforts of Iran which again includes assassinating their scientists bombing, you know supposed Iranian militias in Syria. The Americans I think are just they care about Ukraine right now, not Iran. And at the moment though the reason I raise Ukraine is because besides Iran you know another loser in all of this is actually the Europeans because the Europeans are so desperate to increase global output, and to do you know in order to decrease oil prices, as well as you know they want to find another gasoline or another source of gas, their source of energy since they have basically sanctioned themselves with their sanctions on Russia their only way to increase energy exporter until now. So, and you know, as the Iranians keep reminding the Europeans winter is coming, and the Europeans are looking at a very tough winter ahead, possibly with energy rationing maybe even some power cuts, people are not going to be able to afford their electricity bill. And so they're really worried about this leading to chaos and instability in Europe. They were really hoping for a deal they were even hoping to maybe have a specific European Iranian deal that maybe didn't even include the Americans. But unfortunately that's not even happening as we've seen with the war in Ukraine European leaders are perfectly willing to sacrifice their people for us empire. Rather than just pushing forward with an agreement with Iran, they've essentially gone along with the US, and not just enacting sanctions against Iran that they don't even want with Iran they don't really benefit from sanctions with Iran. It would actually behooved them to have Iran as a trade partner, but the Europeans are also echo echoing the American side against Iran.