The Iran dilemma: Interests versus ideals

AFTER close to two years of diplomatic squabbling, there are some indications that negotiators are close to resuscitating the nuclear deal with Iran, although officials in Washington are cautioning that the talks being held in Vienna may eventually fail to conclude with an agreement.

The 2015 agreement, aka the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), placed strict restrictions on Iran’s ability to enrich fissile material to weapons-grade levels in return for sanctions relief. But the deal was scrapped by former President Donald Trump, a move that was applauded by Iran’s adversaries, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Even supporters of the agreement admit that it would have left the Islamic republic in a position to continue striving for hegemony in the Middle East by exporting its radical Shiite agenda, promoting terrorism and destabilising the entire region through the use of proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. The Trump administration hoped that punishing economic sanctions would force Iran to agree to change the terms of the deal. Instead, Iran commenced enrichment that violated the deal’s strictures and is now in a position to create enough fuel for a potential nuclear bomb.

President Joe Biden has vowed to return to the agreement as the best path forward at preventing Iran from potentially developing nuclear weapons and insisted that such a move would not preclude continuing American support for its regional allies in containing Iran’s aggression. Moreover, against the backdrop of the war between Russia and Ukraine that has helped ignite a major rise in global energy prices, US officials hope that a revival of the nuclear deal, that would allow Iran to export its oil, would raise its supply by hundreds of thousands of barrels a day and relieve the tight global market, enhancing the strategic position of the US and its allies as they continue to pressure Moscow to end its aggression in Ukraine.

In a way, similar realpolitik geo-economic considerations convinced President Biden earlier this year to travel to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, and to bump fists with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, whom he had earlier accused of committing human rights violations and threatened to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” nation. In fact, contrary to Biden’s expressed hope, there is very little chance that the ensuing American-Saudi détente would inspire MBS to improve his regime’s human rights conduct, but it would help strengthen ties between the two allies as they try to contain Iran just when, ironically, Washington is considering returning to the nuclear deal with Tehran.

Similarly, no one expects that the restoration of that nuclear deal would provide the Islamic republic with incentives to liberalise its political and economic systems. And let us not forget that that is the same Islamic republic whose founder, Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced the 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie that led to the recent attack against the writer, which the Iranian state media described as “divine retribution”.

That the US is revitalising its diplomatic ties with an authoritarian government doesn’t mean that it is disregarding its democratic values. But protecting national interests requires moving beyond a simplistic democracies-vs-autocracies narrative. The question facing US policymakers now isn’t whether the Islamic republic shares its ideals, but whether making a deal with it would help protect and advance US interests.