Despite the best efforts of American neoconservatives, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the French, it seems that a deal of sorts has been reached between the West and the Islamic Republic of Iran on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. This necessarily raises three questions. What does this deal consist of? Why did it occur? And what may be the fallout from it? For those who have not heard about the deal, the modus vivendi consists of the following set of arrangements.
First, Iran agrees to halt construction of its Arak reactor, which could be used to produce plutonium, halt uranium enrichment, dilute or otherwise eliminate its current stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent of bomb grade, and allow in more UN inspectors to ensure compliance. In exchange, the United States has agreed to an initial lifting of sanctions that allows Iran access to about $6 billion in funds.
Second, the U.S. has admitted that Iran has the right to a peaceful nuclear program, but has fudged the issue as to whether this means Iran has the right, under international law, to enrich uranium. For domestic political reasons, Iran has taken this to mean it can, though it remains to be seen what this will mean on the ground or whether defining this right further will be a stumbling block in future negotiations. As it is, differences of opinion on this matter have been diplomatically papered over and effectively kicked down the road for resolution at a later date.
Third, if Iran sticks to the agreement, after six months of compliance Iran can expect a resumption of negotiations aimed at reducing further the crippling economic sanctions that have been imposed upon it by the U.S. and it allies. In short, then, the deal is a victory for diplomacy. Iran has agreed to freeze its program at its present level of development while Washington gives up relatively little in return in except for the promise of eventually normalizing economic relations between Iran and the outside world.
This, in turn, raises a serious question. Having come so close, why has Iran stopped at the inner threshold that separates a non-nuclear state from a nuclear one? What do they have to gain from not going further? As an explanation, there are likely several reasons.
First, economic sanctions on Iran have noticeably hurt – especially the politically important urban middle and working classes that rose up to protest the fraudulent reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. While unsuccessful in forcing the regime to rescind the election results that year, the violent crackdown against peaceful protesters nonetheless seriously damaged the credibility of the Iranian government by casting doubt on the popular legitimacy of the Islamist regime led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Bubbling domestic unrest in turn, led to the surprise, in the West at least, election of Iran’s current president, Hassan Rouhani, earlier this year. Rouhani, a political moderate with long-time connections to both the religious and national-security establishment, promised, among other things, to lessen Iran’s acute international isolation and stood in opposition to the hardline positions promulgated by Iran’s more conservative elements. Bowing to popular will through his truly impressive electoral mandate, hardliners allowed Rouhani to take office and Iran changed course by engaging in serious negotiations with Washington.
Besides domestic pressure that produced the Rouhani electoral win, another factor likely at work is the degree to which a nuclear bomb may not be much of an advantage for Tehran. True, a nuclear weapon may intimidate its neighbors and ensures that any crisis or armed conflict between Iran and its neighbors takes on dramatically higher stakes, but it does not meaningfully change the country’s strategic position. A nuclear Iran would be just as isolated as it is today, with the only difference being that the nascent alliance between Israel and Arabs would grow tighter and more overt. Already, such an alliance is putting a squeeze on Tehran’s allies in Lebanon and Syria, where a brutal civil war in the latter country is draining away not only Syrian lives but Iranian resources.
Second, crossing the threshold from non-nuclear to an overt nuclear state brings additional problems. Nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are expensive and, unless dispersed in hard-to-detect mobile units or based in hardened silos, extremely vulnerable to being destroyed by a disarming first strike. Indeed, a vulnerable nuclear force makes any crisis dramatically worse. Faced with the possibility of a disarming first strike, for instance, Iran might be forced to launch its weapons first, thereby giving its enemies even greater incentive to strike first and so on in a terribly dangerous, destabilizing downward spiral that could take any crisis from ice cold to thermonuclear hot in short order.
Thus, crossing the threshold now would in effect create new strategic vulnerabilities for Iran while simultaneously forcing it to pour even more precious resources into the military in order to close them. This, needless to say, is not an arms race Iran, hamstrung by sanctions, can really afford. Nor in the end, does it seem that what Iran mostly likely really wants – security and recognition as a regional player of influence – can be had by going nuclear. Indeed, it merely compounds Tehran’s problems, just ask Pyongyang.
Third, using its nuclear program as a bargaining chip to be negotiated away can bring strategic advantages of its own beyond economic benefits and a lessening of tensions with the West. Suddenly being seen as a peacemaker in a region wrought with conflict could make its regional opponents, Saudi Arabia and Israel, out to be the main roadblocks to a broader Middle East peace. This would be a major public-relations coup and put immense pressure on both countries to ratchet down their anti-Iranian rhetoric, thus relieving significant pressure on Tehran.
Even more daringly, suppose Iran goes further and offers to dismantle its entire program in exchange for Israeli nuclear disarmament, the creation of a Palestinian state recognized by Israel, or both? Such an announcement could shake the very foundations of regional politics and would, overnight, see Iran take a place of prominence and leadership throughout the entire Middle East. That it came about at least partly due to democratic elections, however limited, in Iran itself would also be powerful symbolic boost to democratic movements throughout the region.
It would also, more to the point, put immense pressure on Israel to produce some concessions while highlighting the continued impotence of Iran’s Arab rivals on an issue of critical importance to the Arab street. What’s more, if such an offer were rejected by Israel, it would give Iran the political legitimacy it would need to proceed with making a bomb if it so desired while also undermining the broader U.S. case for why Iran should be disarmed. After all, if this were to occur, it would be America’s allies, not Iran, undermining the peace process.
As for the U.S., a deal with Iran comes at an extremely opportune time. The public is exceedingly weary of war and does not relish the prospect of undertaking another prolonged campaign in a region of the world that has proven quite resistant to U.S. machinations. A war fought to disarm Tehran, moreover, would not even be very successful politically or militarily. Even if all of Iran’s nuclear sites were knocked out, they could be repaired, replaced, and hardened even further – merely setting the stage for another conflict in the future. At the very least, in addition to staving off another war for at least a little while, if the deal falls through due to Iranian cheating, then Washington will honestly be able to say it tried the diplomatic route first.
What’s more, bombing Iran would merely entrench regime hardliners and allow it to crack down even more on those calling for a reduction of tensions with the West and liberalizing reforms at home. An open hand, on the other hand, weakens the very hardliners Washington fears while also strengthening the arguments and influence of Iranian moderates and liberals. Much as how Gorbachev was only able to produce democratizing reforms once he had ensured peace with the West, Iranian reforms toward greater levels of democracy, which could in the long run turn Iran into a sort of constitutional theocracy not unlike the constitutional monarchies of nineteenth-century Europe, only with a Grand Ayatollah instead of a King or Queen, can only proceed in an international environment that does not constantly threaten the existence of the Islamic Republic.
Finally, in addition to war weariness, frustration with the region, and the possibility of creating an opening for liberalizing reforms inside Iran itself, is the reality that the U.S. simply no longer has the resources it needs to simultaneously control the Middle East, contain a rising China, or deal with crushing problems at home. The U.S. has to choose what it wants to do, and China looks like the bigger long-term threat than an Iranian regime weighed down by sanctions and increasingly unpopular with its own people. Better to secure a deal with Iran now, Washington may conclude, than allow for the problem to fester indefinitely even as the Pacific and East Asia both turn into a powder keg.
So assuming this deal holds – admittedly a big if – and turns into a broader Iranian rapprochement with the U.S., what does that entail for the many actors in the Middle East itself? First, as noted above, Israel and Saudi Arabia become the region’s big losers. Neither is strong enough to derail Iran’s nuclear program either separately or working with one another, while Iran’s still considerable military assets pose enough of a threat to both that Washington’s security umbrella remains needed. That makes an attack by them on Iran very unlikely to occur.
Unless, that is, both Israel and Saudi Arabia turn out to be extraordinarily foolhardy, something that, in the case of Benjamin Netanyahu at least, cannot be ruled out. While Israeli fear of Iran may remain unabated for the foreseeable future, the risk of alienating Washington, with which Israel has uniquely intimate ties, is probably not worth it. Saudi Arabia, too, is not likely to flout Uncle Sam’s will by going rogue as the monarchy has deep ties to the Anglo-American power establishment, but it could. China, after all, does not care about Saudi human-rights abuses and, unlike America, has a growing thirst for Mideast oil. Though why China would be mad enough to become embroiled in the Mideast’s byzantine politics by picking up Saudi Arabia’s hefty security check, no matter how much oil Riyadh exports, remains to be seen.
In the rest of the Middle East, an unraveling of the U.S.-Iranian Cold War in turn could mean a reduction in the amount of combustible political fuel that can be added to other conflicts in the region, most notably in Syria and Lebanon. An Iran reassured that it does not need to constantly balance against the U.S. or its regional allies could see a benefit in cutting loose the Assad regime in Syria and the more radical elements of Hezbollah in Lebanon, allowing those countries to settle into new, potentially more stable political arrangements, while simultaneously eliminating yet another set of flashpoints for a wider regional war.
It also, conveniently, gives Iran little reason to undermine a U.S.-backed Afghanistan and could conceivably turn Tehran into an ally of Kabul. The hardline Sunni Salafists that make up the Taliban, after all, have little love of Shiites and there is little reason to think Tehran would relish having a Saudi-backed government in control of Afghanistan. For an Afghan government hard pressed to fend off encroachments from Pakistan, a friendly Iran could be a lifesaver.
So a nuclear deal with Iran and a successful, long-term campaign aimed at de-escalating tension with Tehran could lead to a variety of good things including, but not limited to, eliminating a new source of nuclear weapons in the world, isolating Israel and Saudi Arabia, and putting pressure on both to ameliorate their demands and ambitions, an eventual cessation of conflict in Lebanon and Syria, the creation of a new ally for a U.S.-backed Afghanistan and, importantly, the international breathing room Iranian moderates need to carry out democratic reforms. Oh, and it economizes on American blood and treasure, too. If, that is, it can be made to work. So let’s hope for the best and keep all our fingers and toes crossed. In a region like the Middle East, we need all the luck we can get.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Mint Press News’ editorial policy.