Is the JCPOA better or Trump?
Is the JCPOA better or Trump? These days, with the rare opportunity to stroll in the clean air of the city of Vienna, whenever I pass by the Coburg Hotel, which is usually the venue for JCPOA negotiations that have been ongoing without any specific results for twenty years, I first thank the honorable organizers of this program for choosing this summer resort location for these negotiations. A city unparalleled in terms of clean air, environmental cleanliness, tranquility, art, and music.
A city of thousands of cafes and restaurants that are always full, as if people don’t have kitchens of their own. A flat city ideal for using bicycles and scooters, both simple and electric, and they are indeed used. A sprawling city with only one side having elevations overlooking the cityscape, covered with vineyards that are allowed to offer their products in their own restaurants, serving as a promenade for local artists, art lovers, and foreign tourists. Perhaps Goethe wrote his ‘West-Eastern Divan’ in praise of Hafez in the pleasant atmosphere of these very hills.
A city with the highest amount of green space in the world, a city without smoke, traffic, or honking, devoid of street fighting excitements. A city where people don’t retreat to a corner to use their mobile phones, nor do they anxiously look around. A city where it seems the number of stone and bronze statues, from street corners and squares to the walls of buildings, churches, imperial palaces, and museums, standing in rows on rooftops, outnumber its real human inhabitants.
A city where people stroll in waves on its wide sidewalks in the early evening, and there is no sign of traffic in its streets. A city where if the morality police were to arrive, even with an army, they would be overwhelmed by a million highly questionable subjects, making them appreciate the modest tranquility of Tehran.
A city through which the not-so-blue Danube and its branches meander, a city with a metro and tram lines, with long and beautiful carriages taking on the main burden of transport in this vast and delightful garden city, without noise, smoke, or fumes. A city where artists’ setups are present in its corners, parks, and squares.
Opera houses, halls, and theaters are a given. From all these observations, I thought perhaps this is why the back-and-forth between JCPOA teams, without the motivation to conclude it, has dragged on so long. Honestly, seeing these advantages, twenty years is nothing; if it takes another thirty years, it’s not surprising. Across from that Marriott hotel and beside it, the best restaurants await.
I only regret why the municipality didn’t send an official to this marathon conference to report that the emptiness of this city isn’t just due to expensive gasoline. Gasoline is expensive, no doubt, but the metro and especially the tram are widespread everywhere. You haven’t succeeded in completing underground metro stations; why not set up surface tram lines to move millions along the current highways and streets? I have no hope in the JCPOA; build a tram.
Fereydoun Majlesi, Source: Etemad Newspaper