Last week, President Barack Obama led high-stakes diplomacy at Camp David to reassure Arab allies of “ironclad” US support for their security in the face of Iranian nuclear deal. But as Obama met with the Gulf Cooperation Council leaders, Riyadh, which believes Tehran will acquire nuclear arsenal anyway, upped the ante with its unmistakable intent: Saudi Arabia will do anything to match Tehran’s nuclear capability to fix what it sees as a looming power imbalance.
At one level, the Saudi words confirmed what already sounds like a cliché – the Iranian nuclear question would define the Middle Eastern geostrategic scenario for the foreseeable future. At another level, the stark Saudi stance raised the spectre of unbridled nuclear proliferation.
On the other hand, Iran has stuck to its guns with regard to Middle Eastern policy, as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed next day that Tehran would continue to protect the oppressed people of Yemen, Bahrain and Palestine. Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, believes a “comprehensive” nuclear agreement between major powers and Iran is now closer to conclusion “than ever before.” How King Salman bin Abdul Aziz’s Riyadh would compete with its regional political rival Iran, remains a mystery.
But security perils posed by Arab-Iran fault lines – including those linked to trade and oil supply lines — are one dimension of a wide array of possibilities and puzzles that may arise from the Iran nuclear development. Already, the region has become a lucrative market for major arms exporters.
Since the Iran deal is tangled up with chaos arising from multiple hotspots — Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen — it is being interpreted as a symbol of Iran’s return as a major Middle Eastern player.
So, will Iran’s advantages earn it a triumph? Tehran’s overreach is also fraught with real dangers. For instance, it risks burning out resources in the Syrian imbroglio, where international apathy is equally to blame for unspeakable human suffering. Linked to all this is the question of expanding activities of the ISIS, Hezbollah, and the possibility of emergence more militant groups. How long will militancy plague the region? How long will states and non-state actors continue to exploit reasons for their destabilising actions? Who will be winners, who will be losers?
But deal or no deal, Tehran would have gained civilian nuclear capability any way. Indeed, some of the implications of the deal appear to be as mystifying as twists and turns in centuries-old fictional Arab and Persian tales of Alif Laila wa Laila (one thousand nights and a night). While the framework of the deal is anchored in pragmatism for Iran and major powers, it has had the effect of some magic move from the pages of Alif Laila in terms of unblocking limits on American diplomacy.
P5+1 and Iranian diplomats at Lausanne, 2 April 2015 after framework agrement
Photo-Wikipedia
The options opened up by the prospective re-integration of oil-rich Iran into the international system may not signify a wholesale realignment for the United States but regionally it has already invoked a range of ramifications including the formation of a new Arab military alliance against Iranian-backed militias in Yemen.
For Obama, the situation brings unparalleled leeway in the conduct of US policy towards regional countries including allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, major opponents of the agreement, who also share their opposition to Iranian influence. Clearly, it will take more than traditional diplomacy for Washington to have a calming effect on the region – hence prospects for a greater US role in the region.
The increasing American influence has already been apparent in the US support for the Saudi action against the Houthi insurgents in Yemen, and simultaneously Washington’s allowing the Iranians to combat the ISIS militancy in Iraq. Baghdad is already heavily reliant on the US support in fighting ISIS or Dai’sh. And as sanctions against Iran are gradually lifted, Tehran is also likely to see its stakes rise in each of the bilateral engagements with major powers.
So from now on, is the US likely to do what entirely accords with its national interest, and not what regional friends may wish or want from it? That would be an intriguing proposition in a region where Russia is also a player. And after the deal is done what will be in store for the strained US-Israeli relations? What will be the fate of the suffering Palestinians, who recently got a moral boost from the Vatican recognition?
For the Obama Administration, negotiations leading to an initial agreement also showed limits of American power, partly due to Tehran’s dogged commitment to pursue the nuclear program. According to former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, by “mixing shrewd diplomacy with open defiance of UN resolutions, Iran has gradually turned the negotiation on its head.”
“While Iran treated the mere fact of its willingness to negotiate as a concession, the West has felt compelled to break every deadlock with a new proposal,” they wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
Unlike characters experiencing fantastical turns in Alif Laila stories (also known as The Arabian Night), the Middle Eastern protagonists live in a real politicking world with little regard for larger peace and stability. Their hardcore geo-strategic positions are dictated by the ruthless sway of self-defined national interest and preservation of entrenched regimes. Some analysts view Saudi military attack against Tehran-backed Houthis in Yemen as an advance ripple effect of the upending Middle Eastern balance of power. On the other hand, Tehran’s armed proxies in neighboring countries are seen as moves by an isolated state, emboldened by Western engagement. Then there are questions surrounding technical details of the internationally verifiable check on the Iranian program through International Atomic Energy Commission.
No less significant are to be other dimensions like revival of the US-Iranian relations, impact on world oil prices with easing sanctions, implications for the American political contests between Democrats and Republicans with the scene charging up by a series of 2016 presidential election bids including Hillary Clinton’s announcement, and Tehran’s growing politico-economic clout with its economy expected to expand to over $300 billion. The recent rare compromise between the Obama Administration and Republicans means Congress will have a say in the US endorsement of the deal – the issue that until last month drove the US executive and legislative branch poles apart has surprisingly thrown up a rare convergence.
While reactions to the deal have laid bare divisions within political Islam, at its core, the Iranian nuclear question has also been an issue of war and peace for the post-9/11 world. After the catastrophic Afghan and Iraq wars, would Washington have gone for an Iran war — another cauldron of conflict? Or, amid the deteriorating world scenario, the US would have taken the road of statesmanship? Obama’s preference for the diplomatic road may shape his legacy more than any other foreign policy factor.
In South Asia, a successful conclusion of the deal would diminish the possibility of yet another war on Pakistan’s border – in this case close to the southwestern Balochistan province whose Gwadar seaport is to be the key to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. But simultaneously the Yemeni crisis is testing Islamabad sternly. It may be too early to speculate the future of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline but once Iran-specific sanctions are lifted, the two neighbors could expand their trade, energy and economic cooperation much faster and in many areas. India, on the other hand, has refused to wait for lifting of Iran sanctions, and is proceeding ahead with collaboration on Chabahar port infrastructure, probably to compete with Chinese investment in Pakistan to materialize Gwadar port connectivity.
As the debate continues on the Iran nuclear accord, the world has a thousand logical and unintended repercussions to hazard in the midst of unprecedented geopolitical crises and riddles jolting the Middle East.
A version of the piece was originally published in Pakistan Today newspaper on May 23, 2015
