As American and European diplomats have rushed back into negotiations with Tehran about its nuclear programme, why has there been so little effort to involve regional states directly affected by Iran’s aggressive behaviour?
The answer of course is that citizens of states near Iran are more concerned, than people living in Paris, Washington or Barcelona, of the direct threat that Tehran poses to us all. People living thousands of miles away can (maybe) afford to ignore Iran’s ballistic nuclear programme; its sponsorship of hundreds of thousands of regional proxies; and the risks of a nuclear accident. We cannot.
Hence, while Western officials only see a quick and easy way of ticking off the Iran issue, GCC states can never be satisfied with a flawed deal which will leave Tehran more dangerous than it is already.
With the Bushehr nuclear power plant just on the other side of the Gulf from Bahrain and other GCC states, we risk environmental devastation if there is a leak or an Israeli airstrike – not an impossible prospect given the succession of sabotage attacks against Iranian nuclear and military sites in recent months. Given the catastrophic state of Iran’s infrastructure, we are perhaps just a couple of mishaps away from a Chernobyl-style disaster. GCC states thus need to be part of the process to ensure that our concerns and strategic security are taken into account.
The fact that key provisions of the 2015 JCPOA deal are due to expire in four years hardly seems to matter to US officials who scarcely appear capable of looking beyond each round of presidential elections. Yet if Iran is able to return to enriching uranium, while remaining just a few months away from having breakout nuclear capacity, how is this supposed to reassure us?
Crucially, the 2015 deal poured tens of billions of dollars of unfrozen assets into the hands of Iran-backed paramilitaries which then reinforced their hold over a succession of Arab states – Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Not only do Western negotiators appear determined to ignore this reality and leave Iran as the de facto hegemonic power; but they appear willing to implement a scenario which will unfreeze tens of billions of dollars of new funding, thus allowing these militias to expand even further.
In all these ways, a bad deal is far more dangerous than no deal, as it removes any mechanisms for addressing Iran’s terrorism and aggression while also allowing it to expand its conventional missiles programme and deploy these missiles across the region. Hundreds of these missiles have already been fired against Gulf states.
There has never been a better time for forcing Iran to halt its terrorism and war-making. After four years of intensified sanctions its economy is in a disastrous condition. Cancelling these sanctions now and giving Iran everything it wants is like a boxer, on the brink of giving his opponent a knockout blow, stopping the fight and declaring a draw. Iran every day boasts of its desire to attack America, Europe, Arab states and Israel, why are Western diplomats so keen to give Tehran the freedom it desires to go back on the offensive?
Nobody claims it would be easy, but we are on the edge of a big opportunity of real measures for properly containing Iran. This failure to recognise the Iranian threat and take the necessary action will be harshly judged when the history books of this sorry era are written.