US-Iran breakthrough

S P SETH

The US-Iran nuclear deal is the most important breakthrough in their relationship, indeed the only breakthrough since the 1979 Iranian revolution that ruptured their bilateral relationship. It is indeed a multilateral accord including also Britain, France, Russia, China (as permanent members of the UN Security Council) and Germany. During the last over three decades, the US-Iranian relationship only went from bad to worse. Indeed, President Bush branded Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’ and it is still regarded as a terrorist state, most notably by Israel. And when Iran was found to nurse nuclear ambitions, its ‘evil’ character was so magnified that it became a threat to the world. Indeed, when the US wanted to station missiles in eastern European states, apparently against Russia, it was justified as defence against an Iranian nuclear threat. As the threat was amplified and Iran refused to surrender its sovereign right, as Tehran put it, to pursue nuclear research for peaceful purposes, the US led the charge for international sanctions against it that seriously affected, probably crippled, its economy, making Iran virtually into a pariah state. But that was not the end of the story.

Israel wanted the US to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations or else allow it to do the job with US help and under its protection. There were times it seemed that Israel might persuade the US to do its bidding, though with what follow up results was not quite clear. As is said at times, Israel is not only an occupying power in Palestine; it also seems to occupy the US Congress. But when the pressure for military action against Iran increased towards the end of George Bush’s presidency, he had already seriously messed up things in Iraq and Afghanistan that even he wasn’t prepared to dig an even bigger hole for his country. When Obama became President, he was keen to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear question, as he did with the Palestinian issue. Which put him at odds with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who did everything possible to undercut Obama on both the issues by working the powerful Israeli lobby in the US.

It must go to Obama’s credit that despite all the pressure from Israel, as well as from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, he quietly and persistently pursued the diplomatic path to untangle and resolve the nuclear issue with Iran. And under the nuclear deal now signed, Iran has agreed, for all intents and purposes, to forgo for the next 10 to 15 years any advanced work that might be interpreted as pursuing a nuclear weapons goal. And this will be achieved through a highly intrusive UN inspection and surveillance regime under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Which will lengthen the “breakout time” for Iran to make an atomic bomb to one year. The scope for any cheating will be minimal, if any, because of an extensive inspection regime. In specific terms, Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium would be reduced by 98 per cent for 15 years, probably by transferring it to Russia. Its centrifuges, the spinning machines used to enrich uranium will be cut from 19,000 to 5060. And if Iran follows up on its commitments, its crippling sanctions will be phased out.

Of course, all this is not going to be smooth sailing. Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu is still doing his utmost to wreck the deal. Some months ago, when Netanyahu was invited to address the US Congress on the subject, he duly railed against it. And he is continuing to do that and in this he has the support of Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf kingdoms, opposed to the deal for their own reasons. But having worked on the deal for the last 20 months, Obama administration is determined to get it through the Congress. President Obama has said that he would veto any rejection by the US Congress that has to review the accord within 60 days. The Congress though can out veto the president by a two-third majority. But it appears that Obama’s opponents might not be able to marshal that kind of majority. In that case, the nuclear accord with Iran is a done deal, especially after its adoption by the UN Security Council.

Israel, of course, will be terribly disappointed. Netanyahu has called it a “ historic mistake”, which will turn Iran into a “terrorist nuclear superpower.” Netanyahu, of course, sees phantoms when it comes to Iran; notwithstanding the fact that Israel is already a nuclear state with an estimated arsenal of 200 bombs. In his hard sell for the deal, Obama told a press conference: “The bottom line is this: This nuclear deal meets the national security interests of the United States and our allies. It prevents the most serious threat---Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, which would make the other problems that Iran may cause even worse.” And he went on, “ Without a deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East, and other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world.”

But Netanyahu is not interested in any explanation or cogent reason for the deal because he wants Iran to be perpetually in the doghouse. As Philip Hammond, British foreign secretary, said, “The question you have to ask yourself is what kind of deal would have been welcome in Tel Aviv. The answer, of course, is that Israel doesn’t want any deal with Iran--- Israel wants a permanent state of standoff and I don’t believe that’s in the interests of the region. I don’t believe it’s in our interests.”

And, of course, if the deal is implemented, it has the potential of changing the Middle Eastern region in some fundamental ways. With sanctions lifted, Iran’s economic potential will open up all sorts of opportunities not only for Iran but also for the region and beyond. Iran will get access to its frozen funds estimated at $100 billion. It will be able to openly sell oil and gas in the international market. There will be potential for international investment in varied projects in Iran, with its people free at last from a perpetual sense of siege since the revolution in 1979. Iran will take its place in the community of nations, and might even play a constructive role in a region torn apart for all sorts of reasons.

However, all this will take time, if it works its way. On surface, both the US and Iran have sought to confine this breakthrough to the nuclear deal between them. They are in fact underplaying, even ignoring, its significance in their overall bilateral relationship, largely for domestic reasons. But there is already a shared sense of danger from the so-called Islamic state. The US is already understanding, if not approving, of the frontline role that Iran-sponsored militias are playing against the self-styled caliphate. And as the nuclear deal proceeds, this is likely to be the most productive area of cooperation between Iran and the US. And once that trust is established, there will be scope for multifaceted cooperation.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au 

Saudi Arabia and delusions of power

S P SETH

When one looks at the conflict-ridden Middle East, what strikes one is that there are two broad currents that underlie regional instability, aided and abetted by powerful external forces. The first is the proponents of the status quo led by the oil rich Saudi monarchy and its fellow monarchs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). And the second is the inexorable pressure for change. And the two have been in a process of collision. The Saudi-led GCC have been doing their best to push back change. They have sought do this by using Islam, its Wahhabi version in the case of Saudi Arabia, as one of their principal tools. In the absence of any kind of demonstrable popular support for the Saudi monarchy, the sanctity of religion, with a pact of sorts with the country’s clerical establishment, has been a useful tool of longevity at home. And since Saudi Arabia houses and cares for the Islamic world’s most revered sites, it sees itself invested with a special kind of religious dispensation for the rest of the Islamic world.  

Which makes Saudi Arabia regard itself not only as an important regional player but also as an authentic voice internationally of the Muslims. And with its vast financial patronage dispensed to promote all sorts of Islamic causes, it has acquired tremendous political clout for a country with such a small population. Besides, it has used its vast oil resource as a strategic tool to weigh into regional affairs. In other words, Saudi Arabia and the GCC have tended to use their assets to insure the stability of their dynasties at home and promote their causes abroad. And in this, they had the support of the United States and its western allies as their strategic interests converged. Which is to say that they too largely supported status quo of dictators and monarchs ruling their subjects.  To placate their subjects, the Saudi rulers have generously provided economic benefits to their subjects. But this generosity doesn’t extend to foreign workers. So far, such virtual bribery to keep most of their subjects on the royal side seems to have worked, at least on surface, combined with the repressive enforcement of the state sanctioned/sponsored Islamic code.

However, this will, most likely, not work if the region around the Saudi kingdom were racked by political turbulence, as happened during the Arab Spring. Saudi Arabia’s oil producing and Shia-majority eastern province was greatly affected, as well as its near neighbour, Bahrain. But in both cases the kingdom’s army crushed this. Which would explain why Saudi Arabia has worked hard to maintain and perpetuate the status quo in the Middle East, apart from Syria under Bashar al-Assad and in Lebanon where Hezbollah must be contained and eliminated. And lately, this also applies to Yemen where Houthis, a Shiite group, have managed to substantially capture power. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has been bombing the country since March demanding the restoration of the exiled (in Saudi Arabia) former President Abed-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

In all these cases (Syria under Bashar al-Assad regime, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Yemen increasingly under Houthi control) the common denominator is that they are believed to be Iranian proxies as part of Tehran’s game plan to expand its power into the predominantly Sunni and Arab Middle Eastern region. Saudi Arabia considers it necessary to contain and push back this threat. And as part of this policy, Riyadh has been providing arms and money to Syrian rebels of all descriptions trying to bring down the Assad regime. But this hasn’t worked so far. Instead, a good portion of Saudi-supplied weaponry has ended with the IS now controlling a big chunk of Iraq and Syria, with its ambition to extend the reach of its self-proclaimed caliphate to all Muslim countries. In other words, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf kingdoms are also IS targets as and when they can get around to it. But, for the present, Saudi Arabia is obsessed with Iran and its supposed threat to the Sunni Arab world. And hence, it will continue to bomb Yemen to crush the Houthis, continue supporting and arming rebels of all descriptions in Syria and work to erode Hezbollah influence in Lebanon.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia wants its Sunni Arab neighbours to maintain and perpetuate their status quo. Indeed, when the people’s power exemplified by Arab Spring was in ascendance, the Saudi ruling dynasty was mortified sensing an existential danger from them. And they did their utmost, prevailing on their most trusted and powerful ally, the US, to save the Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak. Coincidentally, Israel was doing the same—both favouring regional status quo. However, Mubarak couldn’t be saved at the time, even if the US had wanted it because the revolutionary fervour in Egypt seemed unstoppable. Indeed, this was the beginning of a growing strain in Saudi-US relations, which has since widened as Washington didn’t follow up its threat to bring down Syria’s Assad regime after it used chemical weapons on rebels; reinforced further with a prospective nuclear deal with Iran, and US inability to effectively intervene against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. In other words, Saudi Arabia’s superpower ally, the US, is not proving as reliable as it once was.

But at one level, Saudi Arabia was relieved when Egypt’s strong army man, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, overthrew the first ever popularly elected President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, now sentenced to death along with other Brotherhood leaders, on a slew of charges. If this is one way of turning the clock back to recreate status quo, it will only explode at some point with even greater intensity. Perhaps it is already starting to happen, if the violent eruptions in Sinai and elsewhere in Egypt are anything to go by. Riyadh might think that their multi-billion dollar investment in the Sisi regime has put the lid back on the revolutionary upsurge of the Arab Spring, but signs do not seem propitious. The most astute thing for Riyadh would be to start/encourage a process of graduated change in the kingdom as well as in the region, with its large financial resources. But that seems unlikely.

On the other hand, it has tended to overreach by seeking to turn back the tide of change. It is a small country but with delusions of power. It did work up to a point. But now, with the US connection/power weakening and oil ceasing to be an over-riding strategic asset, Riyadh is encountering serious difficulties. In the circumstances, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies might find that they can’t turn the tide of history in favour of change. Instead they might need to change to survive. 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au