President Barack Obama’s farewell speech on 10 January 2017, after eight year in the White House, spelt out his major diplomacy successes. Amongst the foremost achievements was to ‘shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot’. The Iran Nuclear Deal was not based on trust, but on hard verification and ratification by the global watchdog agency i.e., International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as also the other signatories of the P5+1 comity the United States of America, United Kingdom, Russia, China, France plus Germany.
There were some critics of the deal for example, then incoming President Donald Trump and his brother-in-arms in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. However, there was near unanimous consensus that the deal was certainly preferable to the only other alternative i.e., no deal, and its obvious consequences of further irritating Iran, fueling an arms race, extremism and pushing Iran into the willing arms of China.
Soon Trump took over and brazenly reneged on the deal unilaterally. Despite pusillani- mous protests from IAEA and other P5+1 signatories, the worst fears likening the situation to the continuation of a ‘no deal’ scenario, came true. Unfair theatrics by Trump was not only an affront to Iran- ian sovereign pride but a back slide to crippling sanctions in Iran.
Consequently, what was feared happened, as rule by moderates and reformists like Hasan Rouhani was rejected in favour of hardliners like Ebrahim Raisi (who had lost earlier elections to the moderate faction (he got only 38.3 per cent votes in 2017 but won 62.9 per cent votes in 2021). The derailed Iran Nuclear Deal was behind the ‘loss-loss’ situation.
Trump had wrongly predicted that the ‘pariahised’ Iranians would come begging for a new deal under pressure, but he was wrong. They didn’t. On the contrary, the Iranians have frantically ratcheted up production of bomb-grade nuclear fuel and have essentially blinded the international inspectors from reviews With the scientific know- how acquired, the ‘nuclear breakout’ stage (time required to put together a bomb), which was once estimated at about a year in 2015, is expected to be a few weeks, given the deal stalemate and progress made by the Iranians. To compound matters with the failed ‘maximum pressure’ strategy of Trump, today Iran is morally and materially on stronger ground to extract a
better deal with reparations and guarantees, if they come to the bargaining table.
Joe Biden, who campaigned for the US Presidency in 2019 on the promise of rejoining the Iran Nuclear Deal, has failed to do so with most of his term over.
To be fair, the ground realities and sentiments in Tehran have hardened, as Biden too hasn’t seemingly made any significant outreaches beyond the perfunctory negotiations.
As campaigning for the next US Presidential term nears, the political climate and competitive rhetoric will make the possibilities of concessions and overtures to the isolated Iranians even more difficult.
The last leg of Presidential terms is usually given to optics of nationalistic decisiveness. Thus for Mr. Biden to show any enthusiasm towards accepting the Iranian point of view would be electorally suicidal.
The political reemergence of the hawkish Netanyahu in Israel will make the task of Iranian outreach even more unlikely. Basically, Biden has wasted the opportunity to resuscitate the Iran Nuclear Deal earlier in his term, and is now saddled with a situation where his personal preference notwithstanding, there cannot be forward movement without consequences to him electorally. One example of the future transactional costs entailing any agreement between the US and Iran was seen in the recent cash for prisoners deal (estimated at $6 billion) for the return of six US nationals held in Iran. However, it would be disingenuous to say that the Iranians had unfairly ‘blackmailed’ the US in these negotiations because Tehran continues to reel under backbreaking sanctions imposed by Trump’s ill- advised pull out, and secondly, even this released money is not US money, but is from the frozen accounts of Iran’s own money.
Nonetheless, the spin-doctors in Washington DC will leave no stone unturned to present the same as a continuing example of Iran’s ‘unfair’ tactics. Already some like the Republi- can Senator Tom Cotton have accused Biden of a “craven act of appeasement” that would “embolden” Iranian leaders.
The guardrails deterring the restoration of the Iran Nuclear Deal are only getting higher Tehran has also never been closer to either Beijing or Moscow than it is now.
The race to elect the 47th President of the USA is evenly poised as far as poll ratings are concerned, and the final out-come will be critical in deciding the possibility of rapproche ment with Tehran, if ever. Should Trump overcome all legal issues to be the Republican candidate (as is inevitable given his lead over nearest rival Ron DeSantis) and then emerge as the winner the chances of reviving the Iran Nuclear Deal would be effectively over till 2028, at the least.
However, only if a Democrat wins the Presidential race (best chance with ageing Joe Biden given his known position and emotionality of having worked on the original Iran Nuclear Deal as the then Vice President), does any possibility of a revised deal loom.
But there are many ifs and buts in the journey and despite the significant ‘costs’ that will invariably hit the US, it must make the move fast in the first half of the next Presidential term. The reneging of the Iran Nuclear Deal is a grim reminder of how populist leaders like Trump can squander hard- earned peace by pandering to ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic optics to rouse the electorate.
However, the long-term consequences of such political ‘muscularity’ are always prohibitive and counterproductive. It also shows the vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of democra- cy that are predicated on manufactured emotions and not on facts or real history.
Grandstanding and bravado may have earned Trump a solid fan base amongst his ‘red-neck’ constituency (as validated by Republican primaries) but it is a ‘price’ that will invariably be picked up by the taxpaying US citizenry one day (financially, diplomatically, and morally).
The parallel sufferings, loss of livelihood and lives in Iran, owing to theatrics of an unhinged and desperate politician like Trump, are not even calculated. Biden too has displayed his own ineptitude and inefficacy on the Iran Nuclear Deal, after having promised to deliver.
(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)