Sometime next week US President Donald Trump is expected to unveil his decision regarding the “nuclear deal” with Iran that he has inherited from his predecessor Barack Obama.
The predominant view is that he will not renew the suspension of sanctions against Iran, a move that would amount to a denunciation of the “deal.” However, he may also try to fudge the issue, as he has done over imposing tariffs on a range of imports from Europe, by giving European allies more time to “improve” a deal which he has labeled “the worst ever.”
In either case, the controversial “deal” would be in agony, if not actually dead. No one would consider business with Iran as normal until the US is on board, even if reluctantly.
But what would Iran do in response?
“We believe that America will withdraw from the nuclear deal,” Muhammad Baqer Nobakht, an Assistant to President Hassan Rouhani has said. “So, we have taken the necessary decisions to cope with a new atmosphere. And that includes allocating the necessary budgets and preparing the needed action.”
Nobkhat’s ambiguous remarks echo a statement by Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the High Council of National Security, which included a threat that Iran would leave the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and presumably put the military aspect of its nuclear program in high gear.
The threat of leaving the NPT, as North Korea did several years ago, was also repeated by Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.
However, some analysts believe the threat to be hollow. Tehran has always claimed that it never had any intention of building nuclear weapons. Thus, starting to drive in that direction would confirm two decades-long suspicions that Iran always sought nuclear weapons. That would force the Europeans, who are still trying to stick to the Obama “deal”, to walk out and even impose new sanctions on it.
“The best option for Tehran would be to stick to the ‘deal’,” says Ahmad Marandi, an Iranian analyst. “In any case, neither Iran nor the powers involved in the ‘deal’ have really fulfilled their commitments. Both sides have learned to live with a bit of cheating.”
Tehran could also decide to wait Trump out. The mid-term Congressional elections in the US in November could deprive Trump of a majority in one or both houses of the American legislature, making it harder for the President to tighten the screws further against Iran. By denouncing the NPT, the mullahs would make it difficult for their sympathizers within the US Democratic Party to oppose Trump’s hostile posture on Iran.
However, leaving the NPT and denouncing the “deal”, or waiting-out Trump, are not Iran’s only options.
Zarif and other Iranian officials keep saying that “all options are on the table.”
These options include the immense capacity for mischief-making in the Middle East and beyond. Since the 1990s, Tehran has not carried out any terrorist operations in Western Europe. And since 2006, when a tacit accord was reached with Israel, it has not organized any attacks on Israel or Israeli presence abroad. Instead, Tehran has been focused on mischief-making in Arab countries, notably Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and, as revealed this week, Morocco.
Hussein Mussavian, an Islamic Republic lobbyist in the US, echoes the threat.
“The nuclear ‘deal’ was made possible when the US surrendered to Iran’s red line,” he claims. “In the clash with the US, Iran will do absolutely anything to gain the upper-hand.”
This “absolutely anything”, of course, includes terrorism, the seizure of hostages and attacks on US and allied installations in the region. Iran already holds at least 30 European and American hostages, many of them dual nationals, but could instruct its “Hezbollah” agents to seizure hostages in other parts of the Middle East as they did in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, re-starting terror attacks in Europe or against Israel, not to mention the United States, would simply provide justification for Trump’s tougher line on Iran.
The Europeans still hope to find ways of preventing tension from rising beyond a certain level. Two years after the “deal” was made public, they have not met all their obligations. Britain, Germany and France still treat Iran as a tar baby, never to be fully embraced.
Iran’s assets remain frozen and normal business guarantees are denied to firms dealing with the Islamic Republic. Tehran’s demands to be allowed to open bank branches in Europe, remain “under study”, getting nowhere.
Obama pushed the “deal” through in the hope of empowering the supposedly pro-American group, gathered around Rouhani and his then mentor Hashemi Rafsanjani, to win the power struggle against the more radical Khomeinists led by “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei. That has not happened and if he “deal” falls apart, Rouhani would lose the only “achievement” of his five-year tenure as president.
A possible compromise could be shaped by restoring the authority of the United Nations Security Council with regard to the Iran nuclear issue. Obama destroyed that authority by creating an unofficial parallel Security Council and ignoring seven resolutions passed by the real council.
That would require Iran accepting the seven resolutions, which has rejected all along, allowing the issue to be dealt with through the terms of the NPT and the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under the supervision of the Security Council. Because the existing resolutions do provide a clear, rational and practical way to settle the Iran nuclear issue, there would be no space for Russia or China to do mischief by using their veto power.
“The Obama ‘deal’ hasn’t worked for anyone,” says military analyst Hamid Zomorrodi.
“Trump has rightly identified the problem. But can he offer a solution?”
On the Iranian side, the buzz is that pro-Tehran personalities in the US, notably former Secretary of State John Kerry have advised Tehran not to “legitimize” Trump’s move by also denouncing the “deal.”
