As the U.S. and Europe encounter self-inflicted energy shortages while simultaneously attempting to stop Russia's fossil-fueled conquest of Ukraine, the Biden administration is incredulously trusting Russia to negotiate a return to the disastrously dangerous 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) "nuclear deal" with Moscow's military and trade ally, Iran.
A resurrected Obama-Biden administration JCPOA that Donald Trump ended in 2018 would provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for temporarily slowing nuclear development ... more money that Tehran can spend fomenting Middle East mayhem.
The original deal was based on a false assumption that the West would receive a full accounting of Iran's nuclear program. In any case, even if Iran abides by the deal again, its provisions already have started to expire and by 2031 Tehran will be able to freely produce and stockpile weapons-grade uranium.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reportedly believes that Iran has already produced about three-quarters of the amount of 90% enriched weapon-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapon, and is weeks away from completion.
Russia has played a central role as America's Iran mediator since JCPOA negotiations began in Vienna last year and Tehran officials refused to meet directly with Washington representatives.
Unbelievably, as claimed by a U.S. State Department official, "We continue to engage with Russia on a return to full implementation of the JCPOA. Russia shares a common interest in ensuring Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon."
Russia has an active history of working to help Iran evade sanctions, and greatly benefiting from doing so.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on March 5: "We have asked for a written guarantee ... that the current process triggered by the United States does not in any way damage our right to free and full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with the Islamic State."
It was always understood by Western officials that Russia's role within JCPOA would be protected from sanctions, including receipt of enriched uranium from Iran in exchange for yellowcake along with work to turn Iran's Fordow nuclear facility into a research center and other nuclear-specific deliveries to Tehran's facilities.
Apart from JCPOA, it's also worth noting that Russia has provided Iran with weapons, including an S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system, Kilo-class submarines, T-72 tanks, BMP-2 infantry armored vehicles, Mi-17 helicopters, and various anti-tank systems.
From 1995 to 2005, more than 70 percent of Iran's arms imports came from Russia, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
During a recent visit to Moscow in mid-October, Iran's armed forces Chief of Staff General Mohammad Bagheri met with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and confirmed that Tehran might be interested in buying more armaments.
The JCPOA discussions come at a disastrously catastrophic time that illustrates that Russian tactical and strategic weapons aren't the only threat.
Their Ukraine missile attack on a facility at Europe's largest nuclear power plant — the Zaporizhzhya plant in Enerhodar — which, if shut down, would have violated Russia's terms of membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency as a party to multiple agreements including the United Nations Charter and Geneva Conventions.
Ukraine is highly dependent on nuclear energy for about 54% of its power.
This is occurring at a time when Western European countries that are vulnerable to Ukraine invasion fallouts have become heavily dependent upon Russia for about 40% of their natural gas and 25% of their oil.
Making matters even worse, a lag in heavily subsidized intermittent "green" wind energy production last summer has contributed to soaring fuel prices as Europe has now entered winter with little reserve storage.
Germany, a dominant EU economic power which depends on Russia for over half of its natural gas and a quarter of its oil imports, has further sabotaged itself by shutting down three nuclear plants in December, with three more to be mothballed this year.
Here in America, over merely a year, the Biden White House and Democrat-controlled Congress has transformed President Trump's America from not only being energy independent, but also a leading global exporter, to an energy pauper frantically seeking to purchase oil from countries that are hostile to our interests.
This, while ending the Keystone XL pipeline that would deliver precious crude from friendly Canadians and strangling our own petroleum drilling industries with permitting delays and costly regulations.
Consequential skyrocketing U.S. pump prices and plummeting poll numbers attributed in large part to Democrat anti-drilling policies have since incentivized President Joe Biden to pathetically plead with OPEC and Russia to produce more oil.
Throughout 2021, the U.S. imported between 12 and 26 million barrels of Russian oil monthly.
On March 8, following strong bipartisan congressional support, the U.S. belatedly banned Russian coal, oil, and natural gas imports, whereas the EU has not.
The Wall Street Journal reports that desperate White House officials have met with the Venezuela regime to discuss buying oil from them in exchange for dropping sanctions, and when asked whether the U.S. might even purchase Iranian oil, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded that "all options are on the table."
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have joined with European NATO allies in exempting Russian energy trade from punitive Ukraine invasion SWIFT sanctions imposed against their banks which would raise politically and economically painful global prices.
As for addressing the Biden administration's "greatest existential threat," climate envoy and former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry who originally pushed JCPOA made his greatest worries clear.
Kerry recently expressed concern that the Ukraine conflict might distract from the threat of climate change, "hoping" that "President Putin will help us to stay on track with what we need to do for the climate."
Apart from Kerry's apparent disregard for the tragic plight of besieged Ukrainians, it's also inconceivable how JCPOA will make us safer, how buying oil from foreign adversaries who hate us will benefit the global climate, or how ending energy independence will prevent price hikes.
America must terminate such insanity by ending Democrat control over Congress in 2022 — and throwing the rest of the bungling bums out of the White House in 2024.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 11 books, "Beyond Flagpoles and Footprints: Pioneering the Space Frontier" co-authored with Buzz Aldrin (2021), is available on Amazon along with all others. Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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