The Iranian Nuclear deal – take 2

The administration is still trying to sell the nuclear “framework” that has supposedly been agreed upon with Iran.  I say “supposedly” because as time has passed it has become increasingly clear that Iran has no intention of agreeing in any final deal to some of the key terms proposed. The supreme leader has made it clear he will not agree to any deal which doesn’t remove all sanctions on the day the deal is signed.  The Republican Guard has made it abundantly clear that they will allow no inspectors on any military sites – which happens to include many nuclear facilities. In fact, it is pretty clear from recent Iranian speeches and statements that Iran really cares much less about getting a deal that the President, which is always a bad negotiating position to be in.  I see that David Brooks has much the same view in his New York Times Op-Ed piece The Revolution Lives! , and that two eminent forign policy expers, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz express similar misgivings in their Wall Street Journal piece The Iranian Deal and its Consequences.

Meanwhile Iran continues to stir up trouble and arm and fund jihadists throughout the Middle East. Iranian generals and "experts" are popping up all over the place in all the current Middle East trouble spots. From a strategic point of view we may be better off trying to keep sanctions in place to at least slow Iranian intrusions than agree to a weak nuclear deal that freed Iran from the sanctions, even though it will be a tough job to keep effective sanctions in place.

I rather suspect the President’s sudden about-face this week on the issue of allowing Congress to vote on any deal is a back-door way of trying to cover his rear when it becomes clear that there is no good deal to be had.  If the negotiations fail, he can always blame Congress, and especially the Republicans. On the other hand, Congress is (rightly, I think) suspicious that the President is too focused on getting something to bolster his rather anemic "legacy" rather than looking out for the nation's welfare.  So forcing a deal to go through Congressional scrutiny is probably not a bad thing in this case.  And my current bet is that Congress, including a significant number of Democrats, will not feel the proposed deal is strong enough.

So we will have to see if Secretary Kerry can manage to cobble together an acceptable deal by the June deadline. I would bet he won't. In fact, in the end he may not be able to craft any deal at all, and that may not be a bad thing in the current circumstances.

The Iranian Nuclear Framework

The administration is trying hard to sell the recently-announced "nuclear framework" with Iran, though it is hard to tell yet if their arguments are having any affect on the many skeptics. It is a better proposed deal than many of us expected, but it is far, far from the president's promise of a couple of years ago to assure that Iran would not get nuclear weapons. At best, if no one cheats, it lets Iran get within a few months of weapon production.  It does include an inspection regime, but it leaves almost all of Iran's extensive nuclear weapons infrastructure pretty much in place.

But if course this is just a "framework" so far, not a signed deal.  And the devil is in the details. Within hours of the announcement, Washington and Iran were describing the deal in different, and even opposing, ways. The Republicans and even some Democrats are still skeptical. And within days Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei had publicly announced that he would accept no deal which didn't drop all sanctions the day the deal was signed, which is pretty much a non-starter for the US. So we are still a long, long way from a deal.

Fareed Zakaria makes a compelling case that one can only evaluate this deal in the light of the possible alternatives - continuing the sanctions or military intervention. Military intervention would be a major activity - Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan and it's nuclear program won't be destroyed with just a few "surgical" air strikes. It would probably take a full-scale US invasion of Iran to really destroy the nuclear infrastructure, and most of the world would probably condemn the US for such an action. Sanctions haven't slowed Iran's nuclear program to date much, and wouldn't likely to do so in the future. Moreover, it is very hard to keep the sanctions in place - lots of nations would like to cheat and buy Iranian oil.  So by Fareed's argument any deal is perhaps better than no deal.

But there is another side to this issue. Iran is in the process of sponsoring a massive Shia takeover of large parts of the Middle East through the surrogate jihadists it is arming and funding in places like Lebanon and Syria and Iraq and Yemen. Removing the sanctions on Iran frees massive financial resources which Iran can use to accelerate and increase its efforts to subvert the governments of its neighbors. In that respect a deal, while (perhaps) slowing Iran's nuclear weapons programs, would have undesirable effects elsewhere.

Then of course one must consider whether it really matters whether Iran gets a nuclear weapon. It may threaten Israel, but Iranian leaders know perfectly well that hitting Israel with nuclear weapons would result in their own major cities being reduced to radioactive dust within hours. And in fact an Iranian nuclear attack on just about any of their neighbors might well bring a nuclear response from the US and/or European nations. Like most authoritarian regimes, the survival of the regime itself is uppermost in their minds, and they are likely to be fairly pragmatic about that, whatever fanatical slogans they may chant in public.

Moreover, I am sure the Iranian leadership is perfectly well aware that if they are perceived, or even suspected, of having deliverable nuclear weapons, many of their neighbors in the Middle East will feel the need to acquire nuclear arms as well, which would in the end make Iran less secure. Saudi Arabia, for one, could afford to acquire nuclear weapons fairly quickly, and would probably do so.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It the deal is scuppered, it is still not clear which side's hard-liners will  be the ones to kill the deal. Nor is it clear yet if Congress can successfully impose on the administration a requirement to get Congressional approval of any proposed deal. And it is still not clear if the president is willing to walk away from a defective agreement, or if his commitment to his "legacy" is so strong he will take any deal he can get.

More Hans Rosling

One more good Hans Rosling video to recommend, this one with Fareed Zakaria on world population growth and changes:

Are you ignorant about the world?

Recommended: Hans Rosling presentations

Hans Rosling is a Swedish academic who is well known for presenting enlightening colorful demographics statistics in surprisingly meaningful ways. I recommend several of his recent presentations, which are available on YouTube:

US in a converging world, Hans Rosling on CNN (on Fareed Zakaria's GPS)

Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling: How not to be ignorant about the world (TED talk)

 

Hans Rosling Discusses Pre-Conceived Notions and a Fact-Based World View (CGI U 2015)

There are others available on YouTube as well.  

Recommended: The Middle Eastern Balance of Power Matures

George Friedman of STATFOR has written an enlightening piece entitled The Middle Eastern Balance of Power Matures.The Shia-Sunni conflict is certainly a central part of what is going on the in the Middle East, but only a part. Friedman details some of the other drivers as well. Worth reading.