The Dangerous Regional Implications of the Iran Nuclear Agreement
The Heritage Foundation - By James Phillips - May 9, 2016
The Obama White House has treated Iran’s hostile regime with kid gloves. There is a growing danger that this complacent passivity will project weakness that could further encourage Iranian hardliners, undermine long-standing U.S. national interests, and demoralize U.S. allies in the region that are threatened by what they see as an increasingly aggressive regime in Iran.
In the process of courting Iran, the White House has been perceived to be abandoning traditional Arab allies, without establishing a credible security architecture in the region to contain and roll back Iran. It will be up to the next Administration to mitigate the dangerous Middle East legacy bequeathed by this Administration. But Congress can play a helpful role in the meantime in convincing Tehran and U.S. allies that Iran does not have a free pass to establish regional hegemony. Washington must impose clear and mounting costs on Iran for its hostile policies.
Iran is consolidating its gains on multiple fronts under the July 2015 nuclear agreement reached with the P5+1 (the five permanent members of U.N. Security Council plus Germany). The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that addressed the nuclear issue has also bolstered Iran’s theocratic dictatorship in the economic, trade, political, diplomatic, military, and geopolitical spheres.
It has facilitated Iran’s efforts to tilt the regional balance of power in its own favor. Rather than moderating Iranian behavior, as the Obama Administration claimed it would, the JCPOA has energized and emboldened regime hardliners, who have mounted a series of provocative acts that threaten the United States and its allies.
The Obama White House, fearful of jeopardizing what it considers to be a legacy achievement, has treated Iran’s hostile regime with kid gloves. It has reacted hesitantly and reluctantly to numerous Iranian provocations, threats, and challenges.
There is a growing danger that this complacent passivity will project weakness that could further encourage Iranian hardliners, undermine long-standing U.S. national interests, and demoralize U.S. allies in the region that are threatened by what they see as an increasingly aggressive regime in Iran...
Nonproliferation Risks. For more than five decades, the United States has opposed the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies, such as uranium enrichment, even for allies. But Iran got a better deal on uranium enrichment under the JCPOA than U.S. allies, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), South Korea, and Taiwan, have gotten from Washington in the past. In fact, the Administration gave Iran better terms on uranium enrichment than the Ford Administration gave to the Shah of Iran, a close U.S. ally before the 1979 revolution.
By making an exception for Iran, Washington is weakening long-standing nonproliferation barriers and encouraging other states to seek the same enrichment concessions that Tehran pocketed. The government of the UAE, which was denied uranium enrichment capabilities under a 2009 nuclear agreement with Washington, reportedly no longer feels bound by the agreement.
The UAE’s ambassador to Washington reportedly told Representative Ed Royce (R–CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that: “Your worst enemy has achieved this right to enrich. It’s a right to enrich now that your friends are going to want, too, and we won’t be the only country.”
Worried governments in the region are bound to take out insurance policies against a nuclear Iran in the form of their own nuclear programs. This could spur a cascade of nuclear proliferation from threatened states, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and the UAE. Saudi officials already have announced plans for building up to 16 nuclear power plants by 2040.
The Saudi government has signed agreements with Rosatom, Russia’s state-run nuclear company, in June 2015, and with China in January 2016, that will significantly advance the Saudi nuclear program. Egypt signed a November 2015 agreement with Russia to build four nuclear reactors.
Although these are civilian nuclear programs, they could be used as a fig leaf to mask a push for nuclear weapons, as Iran did. One Saudi retired military officer who works as a security analyst in Riyadh articulated what many Saudis are thinking: “If Iran declares a nuclear weapon, we can’t afford to wait 30 years more for our own—we should be able to declare ours within a week.”
The emergence of a multipolar nuclear competition would inject a new element of instability because the lack of a survivable second-strike capability would encourage new nuclear powers to put their nuclear forces on hair-trigger alerts. As a result, the already volatile Middle East is likely to become even more unstable and threatening to U.S. national interests...
A Dangerous Legacy
The Obama Administration’s Iran nuclear deal was made possible by the triumph of unrealistic hope over hard-earned experience. The Administration hopes to salvage a positive legacy from the ashes of its disastrous Middle East policies. It has a slippery agreement in principle with a regime that has no principles except for exporting its revolution and maintaining itself in power. Like the Clinton Administration’s ill-fated nuclear deal with North Korea, or the Obama Administration’s 2013 agreement to remove Syrian chemical weapons, it is unlikely to end well.
In the process of courting Iran, the White House has been perceived to be abandoning traditional Arab allies, without establishing a credible security architecture in the region to contain and roll back Iran. It will be up to the next Administration to mitigate the dangerous Middle East legacy bequeathed by this Administration. But Congress can play a helpful role in the meantime in convincing Tehran and U.S. allies that Iran does not have a free pass to establish regional hegemony. Washington must impose clear and mounting costs on Iran for its hostile policies, or the regime will not change course.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/05/the-dangerous-regional-implications-of-the-iran-nuclear-agreement
