The Real Reason Obama Did The Iran Deal

Pool photo by Andrew Harnik
Pool pho­to by Andrew Harnik
Leslie H. Gelb
Leslie H. Gelb

The U.S. allows Tehran to keep its nuclear pro­gram with the secret hope that America’s foe will become a friend.
Both Iran and the United States essen­tial­ly got what they want­ed from the 159-page nuclear deal agreed upon Tuesday in Vienna.

The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s gains were more tan­gi­ble than President Barack Obama’s. The Supreme Leader got sig­nif­i­cant sanc­tions relief for his ail­ing econ­o­my, the launch pad for Iran to become a more for­mi­da­ble Mideast pow­er. Mr. Obama stretched Iran’s nuclear break­out time from a few months to over a year with strength­ened inspec­tion rights. But accord­ing to top admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials, Mr. Obama has always been after some­thing much big­ger than cap­ping Iran’s nuclear pro­gram, and he got it — the strate­gic oppor­tu­ni­ty to begin con­vert­ing Iran from foe to “friend.” Iranian nego­tia­tors under­stood well what’s been dri­ving the U.S. pres­i­dent, and they have used the prospect of becom­ing “a friend” as their best bar­gain­ing card. For over a year now in small pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions and strolls, they have been paint­ing rosy pic­tures of Iranian-American coöperation.

The Iranian list of pos­si­bil­i­ties goes to most of Washington’s prin­ci­pal wor­ries about the broad Middle East. They would step up their fight­ing along­side Iraqi troops to com­bat the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) in cen­tral Iraq. And they would do much more in Syria to go after the head­quar­ters and main forces that ISIS has there. They spoke of find­ing “solu­tions” to the civ­il war in Yemen between Sunnis and Iran-backed Shiites. They raised hopes of forg­ing bet­ter rela­tions with America’s “part­ners” in the Gulf. They pressed the idea of renew­ing the coöper­a­tion they once had with the U.S. fight­ing the Taliban at the begin­ning of the Afghan war. However, they said lit­tle or noth­ing about Lebanon, so as not to jeop­ar­dize the strong posi­tion there of their Hezbollah allies, or about their back­ing of Hamas in Gaza. And U.S. diplo­mats couldn’t get any­thing pos­i­tive from them about Israel, the coun­try that feels great­ly threat­ened by Iran and fer­vent­ly oppos­es any nuclear agree­ment with Tehran. But nei­ther did Iranian diplo­mats close these doors. To a large seg­ment of for­eign pol­i­cy spe­cial­ists and diplo­mats, such strate­gic open­ings are the very stuff of diplo­ma­cy, the real basis for reduc­ing con­flict and dan­ger between nations, for putting the use of nuclear weapons into the back­ground. But it seems for most politi­cians and leg­is­la­tors in Congress, these per­spec­tives are too iffy and in the case of Iran, naïve.

Congressional oppo­nents will be look­ing for any rea­sons, any excus­es, to oppose the Vienna deal.
So, as Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday, the deal will be a “hard sell” in Congress. And these oppo­nents won’t be moved by the fact that the vast major­i­ty of Iranians seek close rela­tions with the U.S. — just as they closed their eyes to pop­u­lar wish­es in Mr. Obama’s open­ing to Cuba. Besides, crit­ics just don’t buy the idea that Iran’s rul­ing cler­gy and the Revolutionary Guard will sur­ren­der inter­nal pow­er to any­one, let alone the pro-Western major­i­ty, or mod­i­fy anti-American and anti-Israeli policies.

With Iran’s more than 30 years of back­ing its own ter­ror­ists and threat­en­ing American friends in the Mideast, con­gres­sion­al oppo­nents will be look­ing for any rea­sons, any excus­es, to oppose the Vienna deal. If the past is pro­logue, few leg­is­la­tors will actu­al­ly read the long and com­plex doc­u­ment. Instead they will rely on like-mind­ed staffers and experts to rein­force their own prej­u­dices. (And for­tu­nate­ly for them, the press won’t ask them hard ques­tions to reveal their ignorance.)
Here will be the main lines of oppo­si­tion: First, the White House orig­i­nal­ly promised it would total­ly elim­i­nate Iran’s nuclear pro­gram. Essentially true. But it was a dumb promise. There was no chance Iran would agree to this — none — then or now. And notice that vir­tu­al­ly all those who want­ed Iran to give up all nukes nev­er made remote­ly sim­i­lar demands when it came to North Korea’s nuclear pro­gram and most­ly just bit their tongues as Pakistan crossed the nuclear thresh­old on its way to build­ing almost 150 nuclear weapons today. It has to be asked, who is more like­ly to use nukes — North Korea, Pakistan, or Iran? Most experts pick Pakistan first, then North Korea. Second, crit­ics will argue that Iran con­tin­ues its sup­port of ter­ror­ists and efforts to over­throw Israel and the Gulf states. Also true. Of course, Iran con­tin­ues to dam­age American inter­ests, but these talks are about slow­ing its climb toward nuclear weapons, not instant­ly set­tling steamy Mideast problems.

Third, the crit­ics say the U.S. could have had its way with the mul­lahs had Mr. Obama only stran­gled the Iranian econ­o­my with more sanc­tions. There are only a cou­ple of prob­lems with this argu­ment. One is that no nation, includ­ing those far weak­er eco­nom­i­cal­ly than Iran, has ever capit­u­lat­ed after eco­nom­ic sanc­tions. Notice Russia, Cuba, and North Korea. And two, while Iran’s econ­o­my is hurt­ing, almost all experts agree that it is nowhere near crum­bling. Recent stud­ies by con­ser­v­a­tive out­lets such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and The Economist demon­strate just that. Iran has the 17th-largest econ­o­my in the world. Its growth has slowed in the face of sanc­tions, but it still man­ages, and it has also held up well enough in the face of declin­ing oil and gas prices, the pro­ceeds of which account for 60 per­cent or so of Iran’s econ­o­my. As for the heart of the nuclear agree­ment— for cer­tain it is not per­fect, but it does rep­re­sent clear steps for­ward in hold­ing Tehran to account on its nuclear efforts. All pro­vi­sions regard­ing devel­op­ing ura­ni­um or plu­to­ni­um hold Iran way below where it is at present and where it’s been head­ed. These restric­tions aren’t every­thing, but they are far bet­ter than what exists with­out an agree­ment today — or what Iran could do tomorrow.

Inspection rights aren’t per­fect either, but they go far beyond present com­mit­ments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. No inspec­tion rights in any arms con­trol treaty have ever been air tight. No coun­try, nei­ther Iran nor the U.S., would per­mit open-end­ed inspec­tions. The wor­ri­some pro­vi­sions per­tain to the lift­ing of sanc­tions. Counter to Tehran’s wish­es, they won’t be lift­ed all at once or all soon. A big chunk will be removed soon after the agree­ment is for­mal­ly approved, but then, the bulk of the sanc­tions by the U.S. and oth­ers will come off over the course of years. Some might not be lift­ed by the U.S. Congress for many, many years. A legit­i­mate wor­ry is that Iran will cheat or oth­er­wise not live up to the agreement’s oblig­a­tions, and that the sanc­tion­ing par­ties will let them get away with it. Indeed, China and Russia could look the oth­er way and prob­a­bly will. It’s also prob­a­ble that the oth­er sig­na­to­ries — Britain, France, Germany, and the European Union — won’t be tough in their respons­es to violations.

These con­cerns give real weight to the argu­ment that this agree­ment in its exe­cu­tion could allow Tehran to have its nuclear capac­i­ty and a much stronger econ­o­my as well. The only pro­tec­tion here would be for Washington to go to its nego­ti­at­ing part­ners now and try to tie down how they will deal with pos­si­ble vio­la­tions col­lec­tive­ly. If Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, and Berlin can’t agree with Washington on com­mon strong actions at this point, they should real­ize they are jeop­ar­diz­ing con­gres­sion­al pas­sage of the deal that has tak­en all of them three years to nego­ti­ate. This col­lec­tive com­mit­ment by the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the UN Security Council plus Germany is the best counter argu­ment to the crit­i­cism that Obama’s hope for a strate­gic open­ing to Tehran is a pipe dream.

This is the only way to show they won’t allow the great oppor­tu­ni­ty they have cre­at­ed to be sub­vert­ed in a way that makes Iran stronger while it cre­ates ever-greater prob­lems. Original sto­ry pub­lished here: http://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​5​/​0​7​/​1​4​/​t​h​e​-​i​r​a​n​-​d​e​a​l​-​s​-​m​i​s​s​i​n​g​-​i​n​g​r​e​d​i​e​n​t​.​h​tml