https://www.newsweek.com/reviving-dead-corpse-opinion-1728909
Robert Malley, the man who led the American delegation sitting outside the “Iran talks” in Vienna while American interests were represented inside those talks by the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese, has now thrown in the towel. “You can’t revive a dead corpse,” he has said.
Question: Can you revive a live corpse?
It isn’t a fully sarcastic question. American bribes thrown at Tehran—both for the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal (JCPOA) and the hoped-for-2021 reprisal—were intended to invigorate what was seen by two Democratic administrations as a live, but perhaps comatose, body. It was actually dead then, although the bribes were numerous.
Before the JCPOA, the U.S. had issued warrants for, arrested, tried, and/or convicted a number of Iranians for violations of American export laws regarding high technology or equipment that could have military application. The 2015 deal unfortunately reversed most of that.
Three Iranians were pardoned before trial, and a fourth in the same case had his charges dropped. Three men were released from prison for providing or planning to provide technology: fiber-optic gyroscopes and electron tubes, satellite service, and high-tech industrial parts. Charges were dropped against another man in the case, as well as the company he worked for. Charges against an Iranian accused of shipping lift truck parts, one accused of shipping antennae, and one accused of sending aircraft parts to Iran were also dropped—as were charges against three fugitive defendants wanted in federal court for cases involving alleged export controls or sanctions violations regarding goods headed for Iran.