Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday brushed aside President Barack Obama’s claim, made on Tuesday during the President’s State of the Union address, that American sanctions had coerced Iran into negotiating over its atomic program.

“The delusion of sanctions having an effect on Iran’s motivation for nuclear negotiations is based on a false narration of history,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB. Afkham, in comments posted on the IRIB website, dismissed Obama’s comments. “It is a totally wrong interpretation of Tehran’s interest to create an opportunity for western countries to have another kind of relation with the Iranian nation,” she said.

There is nonetheless something approaching a consensus that sanctions were responsible for changing Iran’s calculus at least to the point where Iranian leaders felt compelled to agree to the so-called Joint Plan of Action (JPA) in November. The point may have be moot given dynamics set into motion by the JPA. Though the agreement failed to freeze Iran’s nuclear program – the Islamic republic is permitted to enrich unlimited amounts of uranium to 5% purity, to bolster its plutonium production facility at Arak, and to advance its ballistic missile program –evidence continues to pile up that it badly eroded the international sanctions regime. Iranian leaders have recently begun issuing boasts that the entire framework is “melting while [Iran’s] centrifuges are… still working.”

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