Vienna
So today is not D-Day. No landing in post-Wall of Mistrust territory. A nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 won’t be clinched today — for a number of very complex reasons, way beyond the vicious media information war; not least finding the absolute, exact wording in every line of 85 pages of text.
It still amounts, for all the bluster and the dramatic turnarounds, to a question of trust. Rather, breaching the 36-year-plus Wall of Mistrust between Washington and Tehran.
There are breakthroughs, of course. On the status of the Fordo research site, for instance, for the first time both sides reached an agreement. Compare it to the cosmic gap – exacerbated by the American wordplay – on the gradual lifting of sanctions.
This is at the heart of the Viennese diplomatic waltz; what happens after the adoption of an agreement — what some negotiators define as “operationalization.” Only after the US Congress reviews the deal, “iron-clad guarantees” would be provided that sanctions will be lifted. That’s the much-lauded but still hazy “phase three” — when the whole US, EU and UN infrastructure of sanctions is supposed to vanish.
There’s the rub – as a top Iranian official told Asia Times: The main issue for Tehran is how to have complete assurance this complex process will be fully implemented.