The Iran Nuclear Deal Isnt the Problem. Iran Is. – The Atlantic
Ebrahim Raisis election as president of Iran came as no surprise. All those who might have been a threat to him were disqualified. He was the choice of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and small wonder: Few people better embody the ideology of the Islamic Republic. He will not open Iran up to the outside world, and will certainly not look to accommodate the United States in any way. As for Irans behavior in the Middle East, he has made clear that it is not negotiable.
The Israel-Hamas conflict last month was a reminder that nearly everything in the Middle East is connectedand whether were talking about Hamas rockets, the ongoing calamity in Yemen, or the Iran nuclear deal, Tehrans destabilizing role in the region is the common factor.
We understand why President Joe Biden seeks a return to the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The United States must roll back Irans nuclear program and then use the time left before the agreements sunset provisions lapse to either produce the longer and stronger deal the Biden administration seeks, or enhance our deterrence so Tehran understands that the U.S. will prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-threshold state.
However, although we are convinced of the value of containing Irans nuclear program, that is not enough. The administration will also need to counter what will almost certainly be Irans escalating efforts in the region: With the sanctions relief that will result from returning to compliance with the JCPOA, Tehrans troublemaking resources will increase. Donald Trumps maximum pressure campaign limited the resources Iran could make available for militant groups such as Lebanons Hezbollah, Shiite militias in Iraq, and the Palestinian outfits Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but it never stopped Irans ongoing provision of training, weaponry, and other material and technical assistance.
Karim Sadjadpour: Iran stops pretending
After the recent conflict with Israel, Hamas leaders effusively praised Tehran for what it had provided them. And we know from leaked audio that Irans own Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was frustrated by the Iranian regimes elite Quds Force consistently undercutting what he hoped to achieve with diplomacy. Moreover, Khamenei will want to show that the return to the JCPOA does not mean he is giving up his resistance ideology, so we can expect more Iranian expansion in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as threats to neighboring states.
This fear of Irans regional agenda explains much of the opposition to the JCPOA, both when it was agreed and through to the present day. Many in the U.S. Congress as well as leaders of Middle East states worried thenas they do nowthat the administration and its European partners will wrongly see the Iran file as closed because they see the threat Iran poses too narrowly, and in only nuclear terms. Critics in the region, however, see the past as prologue: Just as Iran became much more active and aggressive in the Middle East after the JCPOA was agreed upon, so now do they expect threatening acts if and when the U.S. and Iran come back into compliance. Fairly or not, much of the region remains convinced that the Obama administration ignored Irans aggression out of a concern for jeopardizing the deals implementation.
The regional perspective on Iran is driven by these leaders experience with the Islamic Republic. For them, the core question with Iran, as Henry Kissinger once put it, is whether it is a country or a cause. The case for the latter is strong and deeply rooted: Revolutionary Iran uses Islamic, Shiite, and anti-colonialist rhetoric to justify an expansionist nationalistic agenda. Soon after the Iranian revolution, the execution of thousands of real or imagined regime opponents, support for terrorist groups throughout the region, unrelenting threats to Israels existence, the dangerous counteroffensive into Iraq in the 1980s, the assault on the U.S. in Lebanon in 1983, and the tanker war with America all made clear Irans nature and threat.
When, by 2005, Irans development of a nuclear-weapons program became apparent, it was first seen as yet another, if particularly dangerous, tool in Irans box of power politics. Thus, the Bush and Obama administrations declared that the U.S. would use force to stop Iran from developing a weapona threat not levied against South Africa, Libya, India, or Pakistan, each of which at various points had developed some nuclear capacity. Seen by the West as a dangerous cause, Iran was treated as an inherent aggressor.
The Obama administration understandably worried that if the Iranian nuclear program could not be stopped diplomatically, it would trigger a wider conflict, either because Israel, feeling existentially threatened, or the U.S., knowing the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, would act. Pursuing diplomacy as the means to alter Irans behavior was for many reasons not just the logical but also the politically necessary path to follow. Inevitably, it implied that Iran was now not a cause but a country, whose nuclear ambitions, and perhaps, by extension, regional threat, could be tamed by traditional carrot-and-stick diplomacy.
Tom Nichols: Irans smart strategy
Some in the Obama administration came to believe that the JCPOA could signal a diplomatic regime change: By witnessing Western respect and trust, Iran would embrace the globalized made-in-America world.
If that was the bet, it didnt pay off. From 2013, when serious negotiations with the Iranian government began, until 2018, when Trump pulled out of the deal, Iran did not moderate its behavior. Instead, it accelerated its regional aggression, exploiting the instability caused by the Arab Spring as well as the rise of the Islamic State to expand its power. For many in the region, the lesson was obvious: There is no way to build trust with Iran, because Iran has an agenda to dominate the Middle East.
Regardless of how Israelis, Saudis, Emiratis, and others saw the Obama administration, Bidens approach toward Iran is clearly different from what they perceived Obamas to be. Note, for example, the following signs that the Biden team wont be passive in the face of direct or indirect threats from Iran: air strikes on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border in response to Iranian-backed Shiite militia rocket and drone attacks against Iraqi bases where U.S. forces are deployed; naval interdiction of dhows carrying Iranian weapons to Yemen; despite pressure, the stalwart support for Israels right to self-defense against Hamas rockets. At the same time, American officials are making commitments in private conversations with our allies in the region to not allow the nuclear file to change what the U.S. tolerates when it comes to Iran in the Middle East.
The challenge will be to follow up on these early moves and show, once the JCPOA is restoredwhich we both believe will happen sometime this yearthat the administration will work with our partners and contest the Iranians as they directly and via proxies expand and threaten others. The irony is that for diplomacy to work, whether on the nuclear question or on other regional issues, Tehran must know that there is muscle behind it. Absent pressure, there would have been no JCPOA, and if we want to deter Irans egregious actions, we must be able to show its leaders that they will pay a price.
As Israel is now in the U.S. Central Commands area of responsibility, along with the rest of the Middle East, the Biden administration should bring it together with our Arab partners to develop options and conduct contingency planning for dealing with Shiite-militia threats. The administration must also encourage the Gulf states to better support the Iraqi government; to use our collective assets to do more to suppress Irans ability to export weapons to its clients; and to support continuing Israeli strikes against Iranian efforts to build its military infrastructure and develop precision-guidance capabilities for Syrian and Hezbollah missiles.
During the Trump administration, Washington used differing means across the Middle Easts various countries but on the whole applied military, economic, and diplomatic pressure to impede Irans advance. Its actions were supported by a regional coalition that eventually coalesced into the Abraham Accords. Building on those agreements makes sense not only in terms of using Arab outreach to Israel in order to elicit Israeli moves toward peace with the Palestinians, but also in terms of strengthening the coalition that is arrayed against Iran.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Iran and the Palestinians lose out in the Abraham Accords
To succeed, the Biden administration will need to work with Arab, Israeli, and Turkish partners on Iranian regional issues, and maintain pressure on both Tehran and those governments tempted to yield to Iran. Such an approach does not preclude diplomacy; quite the contrary, it could promote it. Indeed, managed the right way, we may build Irans interest in a dialogue.
Ultimately, if regional discussions with Tehran are to have any chance of reducing tensions and minimizing the potential for conflict and escalation, they must generate the kind of pushback from the region that gives Iran a reason to temper its behavior.
Read this article:
The Iran Nuclear Deal Isnt the Problem. Iran Is. - The Atlantic
- Iran considering relocating its capital over severe water shortage - report - The Jerusalem Post - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran shuts down in the face of blistering heat - NBC News - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran Says It Could Exit Nuclear Treaty if Europe Reimposes Sanctions - The New York Times - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran to Resume Talks on Nuclear Program With United Nations Agency - The Wall Street Journal - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Officials in Iran Suspect Sabotage in Wave of Fires and Explosions - The New York Times - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran state TV says an Iranian navy helicopter confronted a US destroyer in the Gulf of Oman - AP News - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- The road to the Israel-Iran war - Brookings - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran lays down conditions for resumption of nuclear talks with US - Reuters - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran agrees to visit by team from UN nuclear watchdog in coming weeks - Reuters - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Amnesty International accuses Iran of firing cluster munitions at Israel - The Times of Israel - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran says its ready for nuclear talks with the US but only if Washington rebuilds trust - AP News - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran outlines conditions for renewed nuclear talks with U.S. - Washington Times - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran says it's ready for nuclear talks with the US but only if Washington rebuilds trust - Yahoo Home - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran says it's ready for nuclear talks with US but only if Washington rebuilds trust - The Norfolk Daily News - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Guard at U.S. Embassy in Norway Charged With Spying for Russia and Iran - The New York Times - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran's Secret Empire: How Its Nuclear Program Is Funded by Drugs, iPhones, and Shell Companies - National Security Journal - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran says it warned US destroyer to move away from waters monitored by Tehran - USA Today - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran claims to have confronted US destroyer in the Gulf of Oman - The Times of Israel - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran says it's ready for nuclear talks if US works to rebuild trust - Euronews - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- After Going to War with Iran, the US Must Keep Up the Pressure to Achieve Its Goals - Algemeiner.com - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Years of misguided Middle East diplomacy seen again in Iran bombing - Cleveland.com - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- US used 14% of its THAAD stockpile against Iran, a report says. It could take years to replenish. - Stars and Stripes - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Mandarin Under The Chador: Iran's China Connection In Its War Against Israel And The West - MEMRI - July 24th, 2025 [July 24th, 2025]
- Iran will not give up nuclear enrichment, top official confirms in exclusive Fox News interview - Fox News - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Post-12-Day War, Iran Continues To Invest in the Houthis - Foundation for Defense of Democracies - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran Builds Alliance with China and Russia in Face of US Threat - Newsweek - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran to Hold Nuclear Talks With France, Germany and U.K. After Sanctions Threat - The New York Times - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran Says To Meet With European Nations On July 25 Over Nuclear Issues - Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran-Linked DCHSpy Android Malware Masquerades as VPN Apps to Spy on Dissidents - The Hacker News - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- US levies sanctions over Iran-backed oil smuggling to Yemen's Houthis - - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- We Will Do It Again: America Threatens New Strikes on Iran - National Security Journal - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran reaffirms that it will never give up nuclear enrichment - JNS.org - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Lebanese man sentenced to prison for role in Iran export conspiracy - Mainstreet Daily News Gainesville - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Beijings plausible deniability on arms supply is quickly becoming implausible and could soon extend to Iran - The Conversation - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran and three European powers set to resume nuclear talks, says foreign minister - Euronews.com - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran tests satellite launch rocket it says give it new space capabilities - The Times of Israel - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran turns to Russia and China to discuss European threat of sanctions snapback - France 24 - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- 5 Boeing 777s Transferred To Iran Despite Ongoing Sanctions - Simple Flying - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Beware Iran-linked fake VPN apps found to spy on Android users - TechRadar - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran will hold nuclear talks with European nations in Turkey, the first since ceasefire with Israel - ABC News - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- What Will Bring Iran Back to the Negotiating Table: European Sanctions or the Drought? - Haaretz - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- The Israel-Iran war and ultra-Orthodox conscription - The Jerusalem Post - July 22nd, 2025 [July 22nd, 2025]
- Iran could hold nuclear talks with European powers next week, Tasnim reports - Reuters - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Iran Is Moving to Rearm Its Militia Allies - The Wall Street Journal - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Opinion | Iran Is Out to Assassinate Trump - The Wall Street Journal - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Donald Trump Sends Message To Iran Over Nuclear Ambitions - Newsweek - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Iran and its militias brace for another conflict with Israel - Long War Journal - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Iran sweep Bulgaria and continue to dream of the Finals - Volleyball World - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Former Israeli ambassador cautions that Iran is still a danger - Fox News - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Pezeshkian: Iran will never bow to pressure, stands firm on legal nuclear rights - Tehran Times - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Iran News: Deadly Bus Crash Highlights Systemic Corruption and Road Infrastructure Failures - National Council of Resistance of Iran - NCRI - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Iran Agrees to Talks With UK, France and Germany, Tasnim Reports - Bloomberg.com - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- 'Enemy of Allah': Iran-linked group crowdfunds $40 million for assassination of Trump - report - The Jerusalem Post - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Unlikely Alliances and Confrontations: Trkiye, Israel, and Iran in post-Assad Syria - New Lines Institute - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Military at peak operational readiness after the 12-day war: Iran top commander - Tehran Times - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Liberman warns Iran is obsessed with revenge, calls for Israel to strike first - The Times of Israel - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Irans president forced to take taxi after motorcade disabled by tainted gasoline | Iran International - - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Europeans warn Iran of UN sanctions if no progress on nuclear deal - France 24 - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Nation honors martyrs of culture, art, media in Forever Iran - Tehran Times - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- If Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, these are the ballistic missiles it will use - Breaking Defense - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Fire at Iran's largest oil refinery kills 1 in the country's southwest - Yahoo Home - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- A Region Holding Its Breath: After the Israel-Iran War - dawnmena.org - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Iran may still have 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. How worried should we be? - The Times of Israel - July 20th, 2025 [July 20th, 2025]
- Iran's leader threatens 'even bigger blow' against US, Trump says he's in no rush to talk - Fox News - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- China was on the sidelines of the Iran-Israel war. Thats just where it wanted to be - CNN - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Luring in Israelis of all types, Iran casts about in hopes of snagging quality spies - The Times of Israel - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Iran faces August deadline to accept comprehensive nuclear deal or face renewed UN sanctions - Fox News - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Bedouin village teacher arrested for spying, passing intel to Iran - The Jerusalem Post - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Bedouin teacher, IDF soldier latest to be charged with spying for Iran - The Times of Israel - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- France, UK and Germany would restore UN sanctions on Iran next month without progress on a deal - AP News - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Iran, Israel, and Trump converge. Why Trump is not a peacemaker - The Times of Israel - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Our silence didnt protect him: daughter pleads for father on death row in Iran - The Guardian - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran could fuel a new wave of nuclear proliferation - The Conversation - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Trump rejected more Iran strikes after minimal damage to nuclear sites in first wave, new report says - The Independent - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- US strikes severely damaged one Iran nuclear site, two others could restart in months: Report - Middle East Eye - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Russia, Iran and China intensifying life-threatening operations in UK, police say - Yahoo - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- The Israeli Air Forces defining moment that brought Iran to Its knees - www.israelhayom.com - July 18th, 2025 [July 18th, 2025]
- Iran faces stiff sanctions if no deal by end of August, U.S. and allies agree - Axios - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- As Iran Deports a Million Afghans, Where Do We Even Go? - The New York Times - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]
- Lessons Observed from the War Between Israel and Iran - War on the Rocks - July 16th, 2025 [July 16th, 2025]