Does The Iran Nuclear Deal Actually Mean Much?

The answer is no. It will hardly stop Iran, which still calls itself a “revolutionary cause”, and now richer by billions of dollars, from making dangerous mischief in the Middle East.

Even before the ink used to sign the Iran nuclear deal has dried, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warning President Hassan Rouhani against an anti-Iran superpower has proved those sceptical about Iran’s ability to transform, right.

Khamenei has been quoted as warning Rouhani, “Some world powers are not to be trusted in implementing a nuclear deal. So the agreement requires scrutiny before it is approved. You are well aware that some of the six states participating in the negotiation are not trustworthy at all.” Although he didn’t name the country, his anti-US stance and distrust of the US for long leaves little room for speculating. Old hatreds die hard.

The deal, called every adjective in multiple languages, is only two days old. Iran is suffering from schizophrenic split personality. One says yes, another says no. Actually, it means neither.

The world heaved a sigh of relief when Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—US, UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany) finally agreed on the details of the deal after 19 days of hectic negotiations. But the devil lay not so much in details of the deal as with Iran itself. Iran bound itself with curbing its nuclear programme in much the same way as it kept denying any nuclear activity until caught with evidence in Natanz.

Iran’s behaviour has not changed a bit from defiant belligerence towards Israel, even as it signs an accord pledging to be peaceful. The agreement welcomes Iran to the community of nations with the UN, at US bidding, binding itself with lifting the economic sanctions imposed in 2006, even though its leader proclaims that Iran is still a revolutionary cause.

President Barack Obama won’t mind, though. Speaking to Thomas Friedman, The New York Times columnist, he said,

“Don’t judge me on whether this deal transforms Iran, ends Iran’s aggressive behaviour toward some of its Arab neighbours or leads to détente between Shiites and Sunnis. Judge me on one thing: Does this deal prevent Iran from breaking out with a nuclear weapon for the next 10 years and is that a better outcome for America, Israel and our Arab allies than any other alternative on the table?”

What more can Iran ask for? It can get away with every kind of mischief in the Middle East or even elsewhere in the name of suspending its nuclear weapon development project.

How will Obama sell this argument to a sceptical US Congress and howling Republicans? However, the President has already said that he would use his Presidential veto against any attempt by the Republicans to block the agreement.
Whatever yardstick Obama may choose for himself to judge the deal, the world in general and the US in particular will ultimately determine his legacy by whether the deal helps Iran transform from a cause to a nation, and eliminate any possibility of nuclear arms proliferation in the Middle East.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius quotes a senior Gulf Arab official as confiding to him,

“The technical side [of the nuclear agreement] is solid, but that was always our secondary concern. Our primary concern is aggressive behaviour in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, financed by an Iran that will be freed from sanctions.”

So the Iran situation is back to square one, except for the threat of its developing a nuclear bomb. But even that limitation is for 10 to 15 years only, not permanent. This period is not long in the political history of any country, much less Iran.

By then, the Middle East will possibly have been changed by Iran, bolstered and aided by billions and trillions of dollars. So, if Iran has to be checked, it must be checked here and now. How? Diplomacy and pressure have indeed yielded results, but not without a price.

Iran’s foreign minister Md Javad Zarif is reported to have assured US Secretary of state John Kerry of being less menacing in the region. But the problem is, as Ignatius writes, Zarif doesn’t control Iran’s covert action campaigns. They’re run by Gen Qasem Soleimani, head of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force.

So the foolproof solution lies with the Gulf countries themselves. They had better not give Iran any opportunity for any mischief. Obama himself elaborates to Friedman,

“In some cases, for example, the Houthis in Yemen, I think Iranian involvement has been initially overstated…Often, they’re (Iran) opportunistic…Let’s stop giving Iran opportunities for mischief. Strengthen your own societies. Be inclusive.Make sure that your Shia populations don’t feel as if they’re being left out…That’s the level of deterrence that’s necessary because it is highly unlikely that you are going to see Iran launch a direct attack, state to state, against any of our allies in the region…They know that that would give us the rationale to go in full bore, and as I said, we could knock out most of their military capacity pretty quickly.”

But that is not the deal agreed to by Iran and the P5+1. So this solution is as good as nothing. The Middle East countries are not known for embracing even a whiff of egalitarianism. The aftermath of Arab Spring is a living testimony to it.