By Nile Bowie
The deal reached in Lausanne between Iran and major world powers represents a high point in negotiations aimed at outlining the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. Considerable concessions have been made by both sides, while Hassan Rouhani’s government in Tehran has moved closer to freeing Iran from almost all economic and financial sanctions, a key goal of his administration.
Though the full details of a comprehensive deal will not be finalized until late June and differences remain on various technical and legal dimensions of the programme, a successful settlement of the nuclear issue could open the door to a new stage in the US-Iran relationship, the effects of which have already begun to slowly reshape the region’s existing strategic order.
Iran must now fulfill a number of stringent conditions over the next six to eight months before Western states lift the sanctions regime placed on the country, which have weakened the Iranian economy and wrought widespread human suffering. The tasks are designed to reduce Iran’s breakout capacity, by extending the period of time Tehran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead, if it decided to do build one.
Due to the politicized nature of the issue, it is necessary to address several preliminary facts about Iran’s nuclear program. Though Iran has accelerated its capacity to enrich uranium in recent years, assessments that represent the consensus view of America’s intelligence agencies have continued to maintain since 2007 that there is no hard evidence of Iran’s intentions to develop a nuclear weapon.
Al Jazeera has recently published a secret cable that demonstrates how Israeli intelligence assessments of Iran’s nuclear program are consistent with those of American intelligence agencies. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has conducted extensive inspections of the Iranian program for years, also concluded that Tehran was not seeking to weaponize its nuclear program.
The Iranian government has consistently renounced the use of nuclear weapons, but has steadfastly upheld its right to maintain a peaceful nuclear program and a capacity to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, which it is entitled to as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Tehran views the politicization of the nuclear issue as an affront to its sovereignty and a pretext for Western powers to enforce sanctions to undermine and contain the Islamic Republic.
Some of the tasks Iran must now adhere to involve intrusive daily IAEA inspections, a significant reduction of low-enriched uranium stockpiles, disabling two-thirds of installed centrifuges for a period of 10 years, a pledge not to construct any new uranium enrichment facilities or enrich above an agreed percentage, among other stipulations. Tehran must also cooperate and provide access to the IAEA as it investigates evidence of past work on nuclear weaponization.
Upon fulfilling these conditions, the European Union has agreed to lift its embargo on Iranian oil in addition to all other economic and financial sanctions. The Obama administration would then issue waivers corresponding to US extra-territorial sanctions that would deter banks and European companies from financing trade and investments within Iran. The removal of economic sanctions will be a huge boost to the Iranian economy and mutually advantageous for western business interests.
Global corporations view Iran as a largely untapped market with a vast potential for development. Swiss banks have begun positioning themselves to prospective investors as an alternative to European banks that cannot conduct business with Tehran until sanctions are formally withdrawn. Oil and gas companies, automakers, industrial manufacturers, and global aviation giants such as Airbus and Boeing have the potential to profit enormously.
Iran possesses large oilfields along its border with Iraq, as well as the South Pars offshore gasfield in the Gulf along the maritime border with Qatar, one of the largest gasfields in the world. The Rouhani administration’s business-friendly approach, along with Iran’s potential for large oil and gas discoveries and low cost of production, are indications that Iran will resume its position as one of the world’s biggest crude exporters once sanctions are dismantled, placing greater downward pressure on energy prices.
Sanctions have reduced Iranian oil exports by half, from 2.5m barrels a day in 2012 to 1.1m a day, while sources indicate that Iran has a large backlog of at least 30m barrels of unsold crude being stored. Ordinary Iranians will not immediately feel the benefits of sharp inflows of western money and investment, though a strengthened Iranian economy will lift the national mood and solidify the victory of Iran’s pragmatists, who have secured support from political forces that cautiously endorsed the negotiations, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In Washington, the Republican-controlled Congress has shown vociferous opposition to the Iranian deal, echoing the hardline stance of Israel and Saudi Arabia. While American companies stand in gain from access to Iranian markets, there are clearly more strategic considerations that have motivated the Obama administration’s policy shift toward Tehran to favor diplomacy on the nuclear issue, when previously the position was narrowly reliant on sanctions, non-engagement and the threat of use of force.
US Needs Iran to Offset Strategic Decline (PT2)
Washington’s web of contradictory alliances, overt and covert interventions, and attempts to consolidate a pro-American regional order throughout the Middle East have resulted in that region becoming more sectarian and violently unstable than at any point in modern history, while the strategic position of the United States more generally is in decline. It is in this context that strategic rapprochement between Washington and Tehran has become more advantageous to American interests than a policy of non-engagement and open support for regime change.
Though engagement and communication between the governments in Washington and Tehran are at their highest point since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there is no understating the mutual antipathy and distrust that both governments hold toward one another. While there are several areas where the interests of Washington and Tehran align, this strategic confluence does not imply that any US-Iran cooperation on issues outside the nuclear deal would be direct or even coordinated.
The Obama administration sees Iran as a potential tool that it can leverage to protect American interests and investments in Iraq, force Israel into greater restraint and compliance, and reduce dependence on its traditional Gulf ally, Saudi Arabia. However, this would not imply that Washington would scale back its attempts to curtail Iranian influence in areas where it suits US strategic interests, such as through support for anti-Assad militias in Syria and Saudi intervention in Yemen to reinstall a pro-American regime.
The Saudi monarchy feels deeply insecure about US-Iran rapprochement after being kept in the dark about the establishment of diplomatic backchannels between Washington and Tehran, while being subsequently excluded from the nuclear negotiations. Riyadh’s opposition to a Western détente with Tehran is grounded in the fear of competing with an economically dynamic, energy-rich rival, which would reduce its own strategic importance and increase the vulnerability of the regime.
Increased US shale production and Iran’s reentry into global energy markets weakens Riyadh’s leverage with Washington, which may be beginning to harbor doubts about the long-term durability of the Saudi gerontocracy’s continued control over the reigns of state power. The Obama administration undertook its policy reversal on Iran because it almost certainly sees the potential for the Saudi monarchy to become a growing liability, an impression that has been spurred on by policy differences with regard to intervention in Syria.
While the United States aided and abetted Saudi Arabia’s export of weapons and radical Salafism to fuel the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the autonomy of the Islamic State (ISIS) group and its expansion into Iraq threatens US interests and energy investments in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, as well as Saudi national security. Moreover, Iran believes that the US is insincere about fighting terrorist groups like ISIS because it has enabled the rise and condoned the conduct of similar groups in Syria – with the goal of containing Iranian influence – before they turned their guns against Western interests.
Iran is widely seen as the only force capable of defending Iraq from ISIS through its ability to bring together Kurdish troops, the Iraqi Army and the Shiite militias into a coherent force. Iran’s military involvement in Iraq has indirectly protected American interests in Baghdad and Erbil without the US having to deploy troops to engage ISIS in direct combat. In other words, Washington stands to gain by letting Iran clean up the mess created by US-Saudi policies that intended to constrain Iranian influence.
Israel, like Saudi Arabia, is principally opposed to Iran normalizing diplomatic and business relations with the Western world – not over any fantastic existential threat posed by Iran against the Jewish people – because doing so would shift the regional balance of power and constrain Israeli impunity. Tel Aviv is well aware that a nuclear deal that verifies Tehran’s peaceful compliance serves to erode any justification it could have to launch a military operation against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The Obama administration is clearly aware that Iran poses no substantial threat to Israel, which maintains an undeclared nuclear arsenal that is entirely unmonitored by the international community. Therefore, the strategic basis of the nuclear deal has more to do with constraining the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Tel Aviv, which has notoriously strained relations with the White House, thus allowing Washington to reap the aforementioned benefits of a strategic rapprochement with Iran.
Furthermore, the Obama administration was inclined to reverse its policy on Iran to avoid Russia and China displacing American business interests as they increasingly deepen strategic relations with Tehran. Washington sees the pragmatism of the Rouhani government and its desire to open to the global economy as the best bet of ensuring the unimpeded flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, at a time when the US is drawing down its military presence in the region. As long as the strategic utility of cooperation with Iran remains greater than the strategic utility of hostility, the United States can be expected to cautiously continue on its current trajectory vis-à-vis Tehran.
Nile Bowie is a Singapore-based political commentator and columnist for the Malaysian Reserve newspaper. His articles have appeared in numerous international media outlets, including Russia Today (RT) and Al Jazeera, and newspapers such as the International New York Times, the Global Times and the New Straits Times. He is a research assistant with the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), a NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
11 April 2015