Here's a pretty comprehensive report from Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-i...-idUSKCN0ZO1F9
Quote:
The NRW intelligence report said procurement efforts in 2015 had been focused on so-called “dual-use” technologies that can be used in both civil and military sectors. While nuclear-related procurement attempts fell slightly, those related to Iran’s missile program rose.
The report said documents had been falsified to suggest technologies were destined for the oil, gas and steel industries. In an apparent attempt to cover its tracks, Iran was seeking to acquire technologies via third countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China, the report said.
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"Dual-use" is always a tricky category to pin down I suspect.
The article suggests that these efforts might have come from revisionist parts of the Iranian regime opposed to the JCPOA.
Quote:
“There are forces within Iran for which the policies of the country’s president and foreign minister are a thorn in the eye,” Schaefer said. “They may be trying, one way or another, to undermine or torpedo the nuclear deal and the normalization of relations between us and Iran. We are watching this closely.”
Schaefer said Germany had a “great deal of faith” in President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and had the impression that Tehran was doing its best to stick to the deal, which ended a 12-year standoff with the West over the nuclear program.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose power far outweighs that of Iran’s elected officials in parliament or the presidency, gave decisive support to the nuclear deal.
But hardline allies of Khamenei, including the elite Revolutionary Guards, are wary of losing their grip in power by opening up to the West and have repeatedly criticized pragmatist President Rouhani’s foreign policy.
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These comments underscore how misleading the "billiard-ball" model of international politics can be. That's the one that sees a world of unitary self-interested states with little thought given to the internal politics of the actors involved. Iran is a large, complex and powerful nation of 80 million people (twice the size of Iraq, and a lot bigger than Saudi, Israel, or Syria). Its politics are a swirl of factional rivalries among the theocratic rulers, the Rouhani "moderates," and the militants like the Revolutionary Guard. The Guard isn't thrilled with the JCPOA. I could imagine them mounting a subversive campaign to disrupt the agreement by making it seem Iran is up to no good. The Guard has been engaged in some other strange activities abroad as well, including one in Azerbaijan that places them
quite near Donald Trump.
It says a lot about the current moment that the Republican President of the United States and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have the same objective, destroying the Agreement. I've lived through the entire Iranian drama (though I was only four when we overthrew Mossadegh). I remember the embassy seizure, the days and days of "America Held Hostage," our aborted rescue mission, Iran-contra, the "Axis of Evil," and "Death to America." There's a deep-seated hatred for Iran in some parts of American society that people like Trump and Bolton can exploit.
For most people, foreign affairs is an arcane world involving other countries they know little about (this is especially true in the US). Politicians present a billiard-ball model because that's really the only model their constituents can comprehend. In our telegenic world, states are replaced with foreign leaders, but most Americans almost certainly view Kim and the DPRK as one in the same thing. That applies to me as well. I have no idea what goes on in the machinations of the North Korean state. I know vaguely about some factional conflicts in the military at the time of Jong-Un's succession, and I suspect there's probably a generational cleavage as well. I'm sure there are respected North Korean observers, some using the "Kremlinology" method, that I could read. I notice they haven't been very prominent in American news coverage despite the significance of the North Korean issue.