Sunday, July 12, 2015

Still too eager for a deal - Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi



by Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi

The last pitfall on the way to a deal is basically about Obama's relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which center on the Kremlin's ongoing military activity in the eastern Ukraine and the economic sanctions the West applied to Russia in response. Given this highly charged relationship, the White House has no interest in any step that could even slightly improve Russia's grim economic situation. This is the connecting thread between the Russian-American axis and the current field of negotiations with Iran.

The fact that the latest deadline for a final nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers is behind us, without smoke billowing over the negotiating room in Vienna, is astonishing. After all, there are no signs indicating that Washington's eagerness for a successful end to the talks has weakened. In fact, it is the opposite. In recent months, it has become clearer that U.S. President Barack Obama has made a deal with Iran a main goal of his legacy. In his view, a deal with Iran will obfuscate all his failures in the Middle East and herald a new regional agenda, with the new partner from Tehran at its center. 

Obama seems steadfast in his belief that a conciliatory, compensatory policy based on a range of trust-building economic steps, will quickly set the regime of ayatollahs on a moderate, pragmatic path. The carrot of economic investment and the cancellation of the rule of sanctions will lay the cornerstone for a strong diplomatic and strategic partnership between Washington and Tehran, central to which will be the Iranian regime's willingness to take on a key role in containing the Islamic State group. To bring that vision to fruition, the Obama administration is charging ahead toward a final nuclear deal at almost any price, while shutting its eyes and continuing to put the agreement together, the ongoing terrorist activity and widespread subversion emanating from the Iranian capital and spreading out over the entire area. 

It's not only that no link whatsoever between nuclear weapons and conventional and semi-conventional weapons exists in the almost final version of the "Vienna Treaty," but also that the nuclear core of the nascent deal is spotty and full of holes that will give the Iranian regime a golden opportunity to surge ahead toward a nuclear bomb a decade from now, when all oversight of the regime comes to an end. 

In light of that, the fact that the official signing ceremony did not take place on July 9 as expected makes one wonder. The explanation, which is only tangentially related to the nuclear issue, does not at all indicate that the American superpower is coming to its senses at last, but is anchored in the web of U.S.-Russian relations. The last pitfall on the way to a deal is basically about Obama's relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which center on the Kremlin's ongoing military activity in the eastern Ukraine and the economic sanctions the West applied to Russia in response. Given this highly charged relationship, the White House has no interest in any step that could even slightly improve Russia's grim economic situation. This is the connecting thread between the Russian-American axis and the current field of negotiations with Iran. 

Russia, which because of the sanctions in place against it desperately needs foreign currency, wants a fast entry into the Iranian weapons market. So, together with China, it is lending its fervent support to Iran's demands that the deal also lift the embargo against supplying it with conventional weapons, which the U.N. Security Council decreed in 2006. Especially since a deal for Russia to sell Iran S-300 surface-to-air missiles by 2007 has been frozen since 2010. Thus, Russia's growing economic distress joins the rest of Putin's geostrategic considerations and is creating an aggressive Russian position in favor of a quick removal of military sanctions from Iran, which in turn encourages Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to dig in their heels. 

Russia strengthening its position as an ally and a main weapons supplier to Iran worries the U.S. The 44th president is steadfast on reaching a deal, and even the current dispute won't prevent him from achieving his dream, even at the price of laying the groundwork for an extremist regional power that would attempt to threaten its strategic environs. There is nothing left to do but hope that the U.S. Senate, which will have 60 days to scrutinize the agreement after it is signed, will meet the challenge it is faced with.


Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=13143

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

No comments:

Post a Comment