Daily Times

The recent interim nuclear accord between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, has been commented upon from being an important breakthrough to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions to virtually legitimising its existing programme as a foundation for eventually graduating into a full-fledged nuclear power. The reality probably is somewhere in between. However, it is still not certain whether the concerned parties will be able to make it to the stage of a comprehensive deal within the stipulated six-month period or not. In the meantime, though, there are already some angry losers. And the angriest is the Israeli government and its Prime Minister Netanyahu who mounted a crusade to sabotage it by personally warning leaders of the participating countries against entering into a bad deal by calling it a “historic mistake”. He was against any deal short of requiring Iran to dismantle its nuclear programme, whether or not it was peaceful. Netanyahu likened it to giving Iran an “unbelievable Christmas present — the capacity to maintain this [nuclear] breakout capability for practically no concessions at all.”

Another loser is Saudi Arabia, a close US friend and ally like Israel, which has made its mission to thwart a presumed Iranian threat to Sunni Arab countries, more so if it were to go nuclear. Riyadh is leaving it no secret ‘unofficially’ that such validation of Iran’s nuclear programme might push Saudi Arabia onto the nuclear path, thus creating a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Such criticism was expected, and it will become even shriller to mobilise opposition in the US to wreck any agreement, interim or otherwise.

At this point, one might ask: what is all the fuss about? Under the interim deal, Iran has agreed to virtually freeze its nuclear programme, limit uranium enrichment to five percent for peaceful medical and sundry uses, dilute its 20 percent enriched uranium to dispel any fear about bomb making, which in any case requires enrichment to 90 percent plus, and subject its nuclear facilities to frequent monitoring and inspections. In other words, Iran will have virtually no way of advancing its nuclear programme by stealth. The fuss, therefore, is that Iran simply cannot be trusted. Netanyahu has even said that Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The irony is that, while Iran is ‘duplicitous’, Israel of course is trusted with its substantial nuclear arsenal, which was conceived in stealth and, to date, is neither confirmed nor denied, though it is universally known to exist. Despite this, Netanyahu still calls the interim deal with Iran a “historic mistake”. His intelligence minister, Yuval Steinitz, said that the deal was based on “Iranian deception and self-delusion”.

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry will come under even greater criticism and attack in the US with Netanyahu and his supporters mobilising all the forces they can to scuttle the deal. President Obama has taken a calculated political risk to explore the diplomatic path lest, at Israeli insistence, the US plunges itself into another Middle East military adventure to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations. As he said, “I have a profound responsibility to try to resolve our differences peacefully, rather than rush towards conflict.” He also said, “For the first time in nearly a decade we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear programme,” adding, “Simply put, they [US and its partners] cut off [with the deal] Iran’s most likely paths to a bomb. Meanwhile, this first step will create time and space over the next six months to fully address our comprehensive concerns about the Iranian nuclear programme.”

Now Obama has the difficult task of persuading Congress not to jeopardise the interim accord by going ahead with new and even more severe sanctions against Iran. Should that happen, Iran might simply walk away and that will be a major setback in bringing it back into multilateral diplomacy on the nuclear question. For the time being, at least, there is reason for some cautious optimism not only on the nuclear issue but also that this might tap into Iran’s great potential to play a constructive and positive role in the distraught and destructive politics of the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Lebanon where sectarian conflict is destabilising much of the region. The diplomatic breakthrough with Iran breaks more than a 30-year long subterranean, and sometimes not so subterranean warfare, like the US-backed Iraqi invasion of Iran under Saddam Hussein lasting eight years. A normal diplomatic discourse, if it starts, has great potential for the region.

Iran has suffered greatly under probably the severest sanctions regime ever but has largely managed to maintain its dignity and national cohesion. This easing of sanctions and resumption of some semblance of normalcy should help the country. Economically, militarily and geopolitically, Iran has been in a virtual state of siege with threats hurled at it from the US, Israel and others in the region. Israel, for instance, has been and is threatening a pre-emptive strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Obama has continued to keep all options open against it, including military strikes, Saudi Arabia is marshalling the Sunni Arab world against Iran and so on. In the midst of all this, Iran has managed not to buckle under such pressure. However, it has affected the country badly by way of rising inflation, increased unemployment, falling oil exports and revenues with people expecting their government to relieve the situation. This is where Hassan Rouhani’s message of breaking the logjam with the US and other countries on the nuclear question made him popular with his people. Iranian Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Javed Sharif called it an “unnecessary crisis” and has sought to remove doubts about the “exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme”, insisting that his country retained the right to enrich uranium. The two sides to the interim accord seem to have a slightly different take on this but the deal does allow Iran to enrich uranium to five percent, which is nowhere near bomb making.

The agreement has largely been received well in Iran. Even though the financial relief from it is a very small part of the Iranian economy but if (and it is a big if) it leads to a comprehensive settlement it is likely, in due course of time, to create conditions for lifting of the US-led and Israeli-inspired state of siege against Iran. Iran can play a useful and constructive role in the Middle East. Making Iran into a pariah state is only adding to the region’s problems.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au