THE IRAN DEAL ISN’T ABOUT A BOMB

Iran can still get the bomb if it wants to, but the deal incentivises Tehran to restrain itself from doing so, by giving the West Asian power a stake in the global economy. However, it doesn’t tackle the issue of Iran’s subversive terror activities across the world

Last week, world powers signed a landmark deal with Iran that aims to rein in the controversial Iranian nuclear programme in return for relief from debilitating economic sanctions.  Much of the commentary about the deal has focused on the technical aspects: How many centrifuges are being removed? How much of the uranium stockpile is being destroyed? To what percentage can Iran enrich the remaining uranium? What kind of verification processes have been built into the deal? Are these good enough to ensure that Iran won’t cheat on the deal?

While this focus on the technical minutiae is understandable, and one can expect continued hairsplitting on the issue, it must not take away from the larger picture of what the deal means for Iran as a regional power and how it will affect the chronically unstable geo-politics of West Asia. In this context, let’s get one thing straight:  The Iran deal is not really about the bomb.

The Obama Administration wants us to believe that the deal closes all of Iran’s pathways to the bomb but in reality, it only contains the Iranian nuclear programme for a period of 15 years. For these years, Iran’s breakout period — the time needed to produce a bomb — has been increased from three months to a year. Some of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will still be in place, and 15 years later, if Iran chooses to produce a nuclear bomb, it will be able to do so. Ultimately, Iran is an intellectually sophisticated and scientifically advanced country, and its ability to produce a bomb has rarely been under any serious doubt — deal or no deal.

So, if the bomb is not the issue, then what is the deal about all about? The deal is about two issues. On one hand, the sanctions were hurting the Iranians and the regime in Tehran understood that its interests were better served if it put aside its bomb-making ambitions and negotiated for sanctions relief. On the other hand, world powers, having acknowledged that Iran could get a bomb either way, realised that their best chance of preventing such a development was to incentivise Tehran to restrain itself — by lifting the sanctions and gradually giving it a stake in the global economy, in the hope that once within the international system, Iran will behave in a more responsible manner.

Now, this doesn’t seem like a fool-proof mechanism. What if Iran cheats? In all probability, Iran will try to push the boundaries of the deal and test the limits of the verification process. It isn’t clear at this point how world powers will react to this. Yes, they say that the sanctions will snap back at the slightest hint of bad behaviour but that’s far easier said than done. There will be punitive action, of course, for large-scale violation but there is lot of gray area in the case of low-level mischief. Expect Iran to play around here a bit but it is unlikely that it will go completely overboard because that makes no sense at all.

To better predict if Iran will be faithful to the deal, it may help to compare, as another columnist Abhijit Iyer-Mitra suggested in his column in The Pioneer earlier this week, the Iran deal with the Indian nuclear deal. Signed exactly a decade ago in July 2005, the Indian nuclear deal brought India, a non-signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that had tested nuclear weapons, under the global nuclear tent. This cleared the pathway for not just better relations with the US but also India’s deeper integration into the global system. The Iran deal works on a similar idea: Resolve one nuclear issue to better engage on all other issues.

However, the Iranian case and the Indian case differ in two key aspects: First, unlike India, Iran was a signatory to the NPT and broke the rules of the nuclear club when it announced its nuclear weapons programme. Second, India’s entry into the nuclear regime was based on its spotless non-proliferation record and the acknowledgment that it is a responsible and rational power. Iran, however, has a long record of using regional proxies to secure its interests in an already unstable neighbourhood. Also, its repeated calls for the annihilation of Israel make it extremely difficult to accept Tehran as a responsible power.

Indeed, it is this kind of bad behaviour that actually makes the rest of the world jittery about Iran. Except for perhaps a handful of nuclear non-proliferation purists who are automatically opposed to any new power acquiring nuclear weapons, the thought of Iran getting the bomb would possible not have got the rest of the world so riled up had only ayatollahs in Tehran come across as more trustworthy folks.

Instead, the world sees the kind of de-stabilising influence that the Iran-supported Hezbollah has had in Lebanon; it sees the cravenness of Hamas, also supported by Iran, which uses Gazans as cannon fodder against Israel; it sees how the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are propping up the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria while supporting the Houthis in Yemen, not to mention stoking some ‘revolutionary fire’ in Bahrain. 

Over the years, Iran and Iranian proxies have been implicated in a series of terror attacks across the world. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hezbollah, for example, was involved in a series of bombings and assassination of American and Israeli targets; it also had an understanding with Al Qaeda and the Taliban for training jihadis; the elite Quds force was involved in the war in Iraq. The hey-days of Iran-sponsored Shia terror (as opposed to Saudi-sponsored Sunni terror) may be behind us but it will be foolish to assume that hey won’t make a comeback.

Since the late 2000s, Iranian proxy groups have become more active with terror attacks planned across the world, from Azerbaijan and Cyprus to Jordan and Turkey to Thailand and even India. Most, including the 2011 bungled assassination attempt on the Saudi Ambassador to the US in Washington, DC, were foiled. But the extent of the criminal conspiracy was underlined with the serial attacks of February 2012 — a foiled attack on the American Ambassador to Baku; followed by the bombing of an Israeli diplomat’s car in New Delhi; followed by another bombing in Tbilisi in Georgia; followed by an explosion in Bangkok in a home rented by Iranians. The attacks were part of one big conspiracy and even though they were all operational failures, they did not dissuade the terrorists who tasted success with the July 18 bombing of Burgas airport in Bulgaria in 2012.

With the lifting of all (not just nuclear) sanctions, it is expected that about $100 billion will pour into Iran, at least some of which will most definitely be used to support these proxy groups, UN resolutions notwithstanding. Iran’s rival powers in the region know this, and they have already been the turning up the heat in response (think of the utterly pointless Saudi operation in Yemen). At least in the short term then, one can expect more instability in West Asia — as an ascendant Iran consolidates its position in the region.

Does this mean that the Iran deal was a bad idea? Not necessarily. The deal doesn’t guarantee peace but its still the best chance that the world has, to forge a change for the better. The alternative would have been maintaining the status quo which would have only alienated Iran further. This would have strengthened the hardliners in Tehran and made the bomb even more easily accessible to the ayatollahs. The deal is an opportunity to bring Iran into the global mainstream and give it one less reason to go rogue.

Also, in the immediate future, a rapprochement with Iran opens the door for more seamless Western cooperation with Tehran is some key strategic areas like the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and in efforts to improve Afghanistan’s economic prospects. In fact, it will be interesting to see if Iran can eventually emerge as a counter-balance to Saudi Arabia, the fountainhead of Sunni terrorism wreaks havoc across the world today.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on July 23, 2015)

Don’t spare terror-sponsoring states

Israel’s Minister for Energy and Water Resources Uzi Landau says democracies should jointly fight terror

As the Arab Spring turns cold and bitter, threatening to break the fragile peace that has somehow held together the vast and disparate region of West Asia, Israel has watched its position turn precarious in this past year. With its peace treaty with Egypt under threat, the crucial Sinai pipeline repeatedly bombed and sworn enemy Iran on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb, these are uncertain times for the Jewish nation.

But, for a country that has fought at least six major wars for its survival and is surrounded by adversaries, Israel remains more than prepared and vigilant to handle any future crisis. In an exclusive interview to The Pioneer, Israel’s Minister for Energy and Water Resources Uzi Landau explains how his country is preparing to face the challenges that lie ahead.

With elections bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power, in post-Mubarak Egypt, the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which Mr Landau rightly describes as the “cornerstone for stability and future peace in West Asia”, now hangs in balance. Only late last week, at least two senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose political wing now heads the Egyptian Parliament, threatened to “review” the treaty with Israel if the US cuts aid to Egypt. On his part, Mr Landau insists that Israel “will do whatever is possible to continue with the peace agreement and use it as a base to develop other peace agreements in the area,” but expresses deep concerns at the manner which events are unfolding across Arabia.

Mr Landau remarks, “However, and I hate to say ‘however’, when I look around West Asia, I see this huge span of territory from the Atlantic in the west to the Persian Gulf and beyond in the east convulsing in an earthquake which is bringing down regimes that until now had been stable, such as the ones in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and even Yemen.” He points to the “terrible undercurrents” in Syria and elsewhere and notes that “under the guise of democracy and free elections, the Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Islamist elements are making their way to the helm of affairs.”

This is a matter of great concern especially since “the more civil parts of society that came to the streets in order to have a free and more democratic country find themselves pushed to the back.” Mr Landau’s comparison of the anti-Government protests in West Asia with the Iranian revolution of 1978 that brought the radical regime of Ayatollah Khomeini to power is interesting.

Those still in doubt must take note of the fact that the Sinai pipeline which runs through Egypt and delivers gas to Israel as well as Jordan was bombed for the 12th time in this past year — on February 5. Since the protests in West Asia began, gas supplies to Israel had come to a halt. They were renewed only in January. “We are doing whatever we possibly can to renew the flow,” Mr Landau says, emphasising that the natural gas agreement with Egypt is perhaps the most important economic agreement between the two countries. But at the same time, he adds, Israel is also looking to “offset this lack of natural gas by other sources of energy.” Unfortunately, his options — coal and heavy oil — are limited, more expensive and bad for the environment.

Luckily for Israel, new offshore gas fields have been found and Mr Landau believes that there is enough to meet the country’s needs for the next 50 to 60 years, if not more. Additionally, Israel is also developing and diversifying its own sources of energy. “In a worst case scenario, if something happens to hamper natural gas supply for certain period of time, we have others ways to sustain ourselves,” says Mr Landau. Then, as an after thought, he adds, “Please note, I am coming from, as it is described in the Bible, the land of milk and honey. But, it doesn’t say anything about natural gas, or energy.”

Yet, in this context, energy security is perhaps everybody’s greatest concern. Especially with the ongoing global standoff with Iran, West Asia’s energy equations with the rest of the world will possibly have to be re-formulated. This, however, Mr Landau does not see as a problem. He reasons that “Iran’s many enemies including Saudi Arabia might actually be more than eager to offset the losses incurred by those previously buying Iranian oil with their own oil. It simply needs time to adjust to a system.”

The oil sanctions against Iran that have been recently imposed by the US and the European Union have had a crippling effect on that country’s economy although is still unclear if they will actually prevent Tehran from pursuing its controversial enrichment programme. Mr Landau agrees, “I am not sure if the sanctions will work,” he says, but adds, “They should be stepped to make clear to the Iranian Government that no one is prepared to see a nuclear Iran.”

If Mr Landau strikes a pragmatic posture here, he is equally clear in his mind that his country will not hesitate to take affirmative action if such a need arises. He insists that Iran is a “major exporter of terrorism” and that it is linked to various terror organisations such as Hizbullah, Hamas and Al Qaeda.

After all, if Iran goes nuclear, it will only set in motion another nuclear arms race, with Saudi Arabia immediately looking to acquire nuclear weapons. Given the latter’s vast financial resources and close ties with Pakistan, the development will have worrying consequences for India. Moreover, as Mr Landau asks, “What kind of world is this going to be? Remember, you are not speaking of responsible regimes. You are speaking of those who couldn’t care any less.”

So how does the world deal with such rogue regimes that terrorise the world? To that, Mr Landau counters, “Why does terror exist? Because it works; because terrorists see that they can go ahead and have some benefits.”

He adds, “Only if terrorists and terror-sponsoring states are met head on, and shown that terror will never pay, will this mindless violence stop. I think this really should be the policy of every free country.”

It is but natural for the conversation, while on terror, should veer towards the recent attacks on Israeli embassy cars in New Delhi and Tbilisi — and towards the alleged role of Iran in the attacks. When asked how Israel responds to such attacks, Mr Landau points out that his country has been under attack ever since it came into existence. There have been wars, terror attacks, bombings and more at regular intervals. “But we continue our day to day routine, giving up nothing.” This, he says, is as much a challenge as successfully combating terrorists in the battlefield and elsewhere is.

With India facing much of the same challenges as Israel, Mr Landau hopes that this country too will be able to fight terror without compromising on its core principles of equality, liberty, freedom and democracy. “We both live in difficult neighbourhoods and yet we maintain our democracies. Our Parliaments are still functioning,” he remarks. This in itself should form the basis of a strong relationship between India and Israel.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on February 23, 2012.)