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Editorial 1: on Iran, It Is Decision Time for Biden Context • the Recently Elected U.S

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Editorial 1: on Iran, It Is Decision Time for Biden Context • the Recently Elected U.S www.gradeup.co Editorial 1: On Iran, it is decision time for Biden Context • The recently elected U.S. President Mr. Joe Biden faces lots of challenges at home and abroad. • In the foreign policy arena relationship with China and Russia are not in good terms and also in Europe due to Trump's isolationist rhetoric and gratuitous insults relations are not good. • The pressing issue faced by the Biden administration is America's relations with Iran due to Washington's non-proliferation strategy and increasing tensions in the energy-rich Gulf region. • Several of Mr. Biden's top appointees were involved in the negotiations with Iran that led to the nuclear deal of 2015. Wendy Sherman was the original deal's primary negotiator, and now has been nominated as Deputy Secretary of State, and William Burns, who was involved in the early stages of forging the Iran nuclear deal, is now head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Trump action, Iran reaction • In 2018, U.S. withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — signed by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (China, France, Russia, U.K., and the U.S.) plus Germany and the European Union with Iran. • The JCPOA re-imposed sanctions on the shipment of Iranian oil, to put pressure on Tehran to accept America's maximalist demands. • The Trump administration argued that the 15-year time limit on Iran's nuclear programme was not sufficient and that Tehran must renounce its right to enrich uranium. • The U.S., also demanded a moratorium to be imposed on Iran's ballistic missile programme and that Iran to withdraw its support to regional allies and proxies opposed to the U.S. • After a year when U.S. did not return to the agreement even after persuaded by other signatories of JCPOA, Iran in 2019 breached the limit for uranium www.gradeup.co enrichment imposed by the JCPOA and also increased its stockpile beyond the amount permitted under the agreement. • In a confidential document, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimated that as of November 2020, Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium is more than 2,442 kilograms, which is eight times the limit permitted by the JCPOA. • The pressure from Mr. Trump's policy has produced the opposite result, bringing Iran closer to weaponization. • And now, the Biden administration has additional pressure to bring Tehran into compliance with the JCPOA by renewing America's commitment to the agreement and lifting sanctions. Biden strategy, complexities • Mr. Biden's administration intends to constrain Iran, through diplomacy, not sanctions. • Mr. Biden's is planning to return to the JCPOA if Tehran does the same. • Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has signalled that Iran is willing to enter into JCPOA agreement if the U.S. withdraws all sanctions imposed on Tehran by the Trump administration and fulfil their obligations. • However, a return to the JCPOA is not simple as there is a wide divergence between Washington's expectations and those harboured by Tehran. • The U.S. sees a return to the JCPOA will help in curbing Iran's missile program and its regional ambitions that clash with those of the U.S. and its allies, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. • While Iran considers the JCPOA as a stand-alone agreement only for Iran's nuclear programme and subjects such as Iran's missile programme and its regional policy were extraneous and should not be linked to the nuclear deal. • The consensus in the U.S. has shifted to an uncompromising position because of consequences faced by the U.S. due to Iran's refusal to change the course of its West Asian policy. • Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has played a major role in training proxy Militants, helping the Assad regime in Syria to turn the tide of war against U.S.-supported opposition forces. • Tehran continues to finance and arm anti-Israeli Lebanese Hezbollah, support Houthis in Yemen who have attacked major Saudi oil facilities with Iranian- supplied drones and missiles and also trains and arms Shia militias in Iraq and to checkmate American policies in that country. Boost to hardliners • With Iran continuing to train proxy militants against U.S. allies and the U.S. decision to withdraw from the JCPOA has helped Iranian hardliners and discredited Mr. Zarif and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani who were in favour of the JCPOA. • In Iran, Rouhani government signed the JCPOA in 2015 even after it was rejected by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, But Trump administration s www.gradeup.co • stringent actions have reinforced the belief that America's principal goal is regime change in Tehran. • Moreover, Mr. Rouhani has become a lame-duck President because Under Iranian laws a President can serve only two terms and now he cannot run again for presidential elections being held in June 2021. • Tehran legislature is dominated by the hard-line conservative faction known as the 'principlists', and mostly next President will belong to the same group unless an agreement is reached with the U.S. about lifting economic sanctions and returning to JCPOA. • The new radical Iranian Principlists would not likely accept a mere return to the original JCPOA but would also insist on a foolproof clause. • Even if the Biden and Rouhani administrations agree to return to the JCPOA, the hardliners who dominate the Iranian Parliament are likely to insist that the renewed agreement must include a clause that would preclude a signatory from unilaterally abandoning the JCPOA. • This was foreshadowed in the legislation passed by the Iranian Parliament and approved by Iran's Guardian Council watchdog body that requires the government to boost uranium enrichment and limit United Nations inspections if sanctions were not taken off by February 2021. Within the U.S. • The U.S. returning to JCPOA agreement without the imposition of restraint on Iran's ballistic missile programme has expressed opposition among America's leading regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who consider Iran to be their principal antagonist. Conclusion • It is decision time for the Biden administration. Where it has to overcome the multiple hurdles in its path and reach an agreement with Iran in the next couple of months, otherwise after the Principlists are elected in Tehran in June, ensuring that U.S.-Iran relations will be mired in hostility well into the future and instability shall continue in West Asia. Source • https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/on-iran-it-is-decision-time-for- biden/article33651453.ece Editorial 2: The shipping sector is at sea Context • The major economies of the world have always realized the potential of shipping as a contributor to economic growth. • Control of seas is a major component of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is trying to take control of the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean Region. www.gradeup.co • According to world shipping council, seven of the top 10 container ports in the world are in China, though it is not geographically blessed like India and has coast only on the east. • Before the 16th century, both India and China were equal competitors on GDP and India had maritime supremacy in the world. • But over the past 70 years, India lost its global presence in shipping due to poor legislation and politics. • While China made strong efforts for marine and infrastructure to carry and handle merchandise all over the world. Helping foreign shipping liners • Establishment of ports in India has been visionless as it concentrated on short term solutions and helping foreign shipping liners. • Establishment of new ports in independent India to the establishment of the present-day Chabahar Port in Iran, all ports have been counter effective. • In the past, colonial traders developed strong merchant marine along with optimum shore-based infrastructure with road and rail connectivity to facilitate their trade, thus having a balanced at sea and onshore to cater carrying capacity. • Today, foreign ship-owners carry our inbound and outbound cargo. We have still not optimised our carrying capacity in container ports. • Foreign carriers charge huge in the logistics cycle due to which much of our foreign currency is drained as transhipment and handling cost every day. • Also, members of our maritime business community have chosen to be agents for foreign ship owners or container instead of becoming ship owners and container liners themselves. • This historical mistake led to the major economic failure of the country, and now there is a wide gap between carrying capacity and multi-folded cargo growth in the country. www.gradeup.co • In the name of coastal shipping, Now Ministry officials are happily relaxing "Cabotage" regulation benefiting only the foreign container-carrying companies and not Indian ship-owners. • Due to the Official actions which allow foreign carriers to enjoy the situation here and push the Indian tonnage owners to vanish from the scene. • Starting from the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company of V.O. Chidambaram Pillai to the Scindia Steam Navigation Company of our times, Indian owners have not got the blessings of successive governments. • In the port sector due to the bureaucracy of the government, it has repeatedly allowed the similar infrastructural development of multi-cargo handling ports resulting in Indian ports competing only for the same cargo. • Making our major ports cargo-specific and developing infrastructure on a par with global standards, also connecting them with international sea routes and hinterlands, would make Indian ports transhipment hubs. • We need to concentrate on developing the contributing ports to serve as the regional transhipment hubs for which improving small-ship coastal operations is mandatory.
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