Trump could Provide a Better Chance for Peace
Richard Nephew has published an article in Foreign Affairs titled the “last chance for diplomacy” on January 2, 2025. For more than four decades the US foreign policy understanding of Iran and the ME has been based on false assumptions, and Nephew’s article is not an exception.
Why do Iran and the US need to Reset their Relations?
Richard Nephew has published an article in Foreign Affairs titled the “last chance for diplomacy” on January 2, 2025. For more than four decades the US foreign policy understanding of Iran and the ME has been based on false assumptions, and Nephew’s article is not an exception. The spoilers successfully constructed an Iran in the US that did not exist in reality, a similar phenomenon happened in Iran, too. In a separate paper, I worked on how cognitive biases and distortions have shaped Iran-US relations. Spoilers who did not benefit from Iran-US rapprochement, developed an image of Iran that threatens the US interests anywhere in the world, while the Iranian military budget was not even enough to keep its borders safe and secure. Increasing pressures and threats against Iran by the US and its partners, pushed Tehran more toward US rivals, nuclearization and less development. Security concerns became the most important concern for the country and confrontation with the US became the main foreign policy objective, while anti-Americanism was not the main pillar of the Revolution. The main pillars were independence and freedom, however, securitization of Iran undermined both. Hijab that has become a hot topic in recent years was not an issue till three years after the revolution. Self-interests and aggressive language by some, pushed EU and Japan toward supporting the US sanctions and pressures against Iran. Misleading the US establishment led to two costly wars for the US in West Asia and, after spending more than five trillion dollars, the US achieved nothing; the only winners were MICs and spoilers.
The US wars and interventions destabilized the region from Hindukush Mountains to Mediterranean Sea. It Imposed huge costs on US and EU foreign policy in the region from Afghanistan to Libya. Finally, Biden left Afghanistan in the most humiliating way possible. Engagement in many wars and conflicts imposed huge costs on both the US and Iran, just because they could not control the spoilers. The US lost Iraq, Afghanistan and the economic competition with emerging powers in global markets and became a developing country. Iran has also lost its influence in Afghanistan and Syria and has lost in economic competition with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and UAE. All costs resulting from confrontations were paid because of making decisions based on false assumptions.
Iran Peaceful Nuclear Program
Iran's nuclear program does not pose any threat against any country. At present level, it is a peaceful program under IAEA severe investigations. Still the watchdog’s control over Iran's nuclear program is much more than any other country. The nuclear program will not change anything in the real world under any circumstances. The worst case scenario is that Iran decides to make a few nuclear bombs and their means of delivery, what will change in the region and the world in that case? Nothing. It still will be far from Israel's nuclear capabilities with more than 200 nuclear warheads, and Tehran never will be able to compete with the US in this field. Turkey as a NATO member state benefits from the organization’s nuclear security umbrella and can be regarded as a nuclear state. The US nuclear weapons are there. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have had close nuclear cooperation for decades, far before Iran even was able to enrich uranium. Furthermore, what was the impact of Pakistan and India nuclear weapons on the region and the world? It did not change anything. The same is true about North Korean nuclear weapons. How much did it change East Asia's strategic posture? An Iran with or without a bomb will not make any difference for Iran and the region. The region has been unstable because of accumulation of economic problems and securitization of everything, resulting from interventions and ignorance. From a realistic point of view, a nuclear Iran may even contribute more to regional peace and prevent others from seeking regional hegemony.
As the Syrian conflict demonstrated, regional hegemony is not possible by any regional power. Hegemony is based on some kind of consent. Arabs will never accept Iran, Turkey or Israeli hegemony and vice versa. They have different identities and identity is very important in the West Asian context. They will not even accept other Arabs' hegemony. Actually, Arabs are no longer Arab; they have become Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Qatari etc. That’s why Tehran finally decided to leave Syria. Neither side were ready to fight for the other anymore.
As far as Iran has been attacked by a nuclear state, going nuclear is already legitimate. If Iran has not yet decided to do so, it is just because Tehran has not reached to the conclusion that such a decision serves its interests. The Soviet Union collapsed with thousands of nuclear warheads. It failed in Afghanistan even with nuclear weapons. The US failed in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, while it not only had nuclear weapons but also the most advanced conventional weapons and global support. Russia has not been able to succeed in Ukraine yet and looks for a diplomatic solution, while the other side has also failed. Nuclear weapons did not make Israel more secure in the Middle East. It committed genocide with conventional weapons and it will pay the price for decades to come. With all these experiences, what will Iran achieve with nuclear weapons? Making more military threats against Iran, as Nephew does in his article, just pushes Tehran toward reaching a consensus to make such a decision. The intelligence services knew very well during the past decades that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful. Spoilers manufactured Iran nuclear program into a global threat to put more pressures on Iran and prevent the country from benefiting from regional and global economic opportunities and technological cooperation. They did the same with Iran’s conventional weapons, too. This is a trap that Tehran has not been able to escape from, yet.
It is an established argument around the world that as a consequence of engagement in many conflicts around the world, the US power is declining and rising regional powers are filling the vacuum in different regions. Iran relations with rising powers are also much better than declining ones. It seems that Mr. Nephew is more concerned about the collapse of the sanctions system developed by himself under the Obama Administration. The sanctions succeeded in two ways: first imposing costs on Iranian people and the second on convincing Iran that there is no good intention in Washington. In practice it was the US sanctions and threats that made Iran more interested in the nuclear option. Now the nuclear option is there and no number of military attacks or economic pressures can destroy it.
I agree with Mr. Nephew about the necessity of “good-faith attempt to negotiate” but not merely on the nuclear issue. Iran and the US need to put their own interests first. If America First enters into negotiation with Iran First, we can solve the problems much faster. There are two sets of issues between Iran and the US: bilateral, and regional. In that framework (America First and Iran First) we do not have many bilateral problems to solve. Both sides can prepare necessary conditions to reset their relations like what Iran and Saudi Arabia did. Most of the problems are regional ones turned into the US problem by spoilers. Many people put nuclear issues in a different category, I do not agree with that. Nuclear issue is also a regional issue.
Nuclear issue has two aspects; one is using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. From this point of view, the Iranian nuclear program is an opportunity for more cooperation between Tehran and Washington. Following JCPOA implementation, when the US decided to purchase heavy water produced by Iran, they found that its quality was better than the one that they were buying from other producers. From a security perspective, it is part of a regional challenge. The best mechanism for dealing with security concerns related to regional nuclear programs is the initiative for the Middle East Nuclear Free Zone. Iran has initiated and supported the initiative and still supports that. Within that framework all security concerns related to regional nuclear issues can be discussed. A West Asia Nuclear Free Zone is in everyone's benefit including Iran, the US, EU, China and Russia. From this perspective also it is an opportunity for both countries to push for a West Asia Nuclear Free Zone, including Turkey. Iran has legitimate concerns regarding other countries' nuclear activities that need to be considered.
Iran’s nuclear program has never been a threat to any country, especially the United States and will never be in future. It is not clear why the US has paid so much costs for that. It is years that we hear the wrong argument that “If Iran develops nuclear weapons, it would encourage others in the Middle East to do so…” Which country's nuclear program did not begin before Iran? Israel? Saudi Arabia? Iraq? Egypt? or Turkey? All of them started their nuclear programs before Iran. Most of them tried to develop or have access to bomb or enriched Uranium when Iran had completely stopped all its nuclear activities during the 1980s. Another false argument has been developed about the possibility of using nuclear bombs against Israel by Iran or its proxies. How is it possible to use nuclear weapons against Israel without endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Jordanians, even if we disregard the Israeli second-strike capability and nuclear submarines provided by Germany? Even falser is the argument that Iran may target its neighbors by nuclear weapons. For what reason Iran may decide to target its neighbors that share common civilization, cultures, economic interests and a geography that will never be able to leave? A world that more countries possesses nuclear weapons will be far less dangerous than the current world that some countries are committing genocide with conventional weapons, because now all countries and many non-state actors have enough access to conventional weapons.
Democrats preach diplomacy but they do not practice it. Biden had four years to revive JCPOA, why didn’t he do anything? They are more afraid of their domestic opponents and more dependent on foreign financial support, and do not dare to make important decisions. It is very easy to reach a new deal with the US on nuclear weapons because Tehran has already said and proved that it does not look for them. The deal should be very simple: No nuclear weapons for Iran and no economic sanctions on Iran. IAEA is responsible for observing the first part. We need a separate mechanism to observe the second. Iran will accept that Tehran will not look for nuclear weapons if the US guarantees that it will remove all sanctions.
Non-Nuclear Issues
The second issue is disarmament. Iranian missiles are part of Iranian defensive capabilities. The regional players that push the US to put the Iranian missile program on the negotiation table, they need to be ready for negotiations on all conventional arms in the region. Iranian missile ranges are far less than some other countries in the region. It means that if the US wants to represent regional countries at the negotiation table, it must be able to commit them to limit their conventional military purchases and manufactures. Both Iran and the US can contribute to solving regional issues, however, they cannot solve them without others' support and participation. Tehran represents Iran and no one else. It will be able to commit what is under its control. Iran does not control any player in the region, state or none-state. We have no proxies and do not want to be each other's proxy. The US also should not play the role of proxy for other countries.
It was the regional spoilers that imposed five trillion-dollars costs on the US in Iraq. They still try to drown the US in another regional conflict. The more the US engaged in West Asian conflicts, the less it will be able to solve its domestic challenges and problems. The same also is true about Iran. For decades’ globalists engaged the US in long term wars and conflicts to fill their own pockets. Now that they have lost their power in Washington still they push the new administration to concentrate on threats that do not exist. If IAEA did not have enough access to the Iraqi nuclear program before the US invasion of Iraq and spoilers succeeded in misleading Washington into a costly conflict, the agency has enough access to the Iranian nuclear program and certified fourteen times that Iran nuclear program is peaceful. The failure of EU initiatives and the US withdrawal from JCPOA was because of spoiling activities of the US and European “strategic” allies and partners. If the US and EU still benefit from following them, it’s better that Iran does not waste its time and energy by negotiating with any of them.
On regional issues, Iran and the US both can agree to do their best to support regional peace and prosperity. However, anyone knows very well that neither Tehran nor Washington are not responsible and cannot control others’ behavior. There are many other regional and international players that decide based on their self-interests and understandings. We need an inclusive mechanism to promote regional peace and security. All security issues could be discussed in such a mechanism. The role of domestic forces is also very important. That’s why Tehran has always supported inclusive systems and national reconciliation and inclusivity in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Iranians and Americans should not pay the costs of conflicts that have nothing to do with them. Yemenis, Lebanese, Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis all are responsible for their own destinies and they have to decide by themselves for themselves. We should not waste our time on multilateral talks to solve bilateral issues that could easily be solved bilaterally. Tehran and Washington need to solve their bilateral problems and reset their relations first. Multilateral talks bring more problems and interests to the table and just make the situation more complicated. The more we make the negotiations complex, the more we increase the chance for failures. Further failures prevent future negotiations and no one knows what will be the next priority in an uncertain world that everyday a black swan may fly from somewhere around the world.
Attacking a non nuclear state, will encourage many other countries to think about developing their own deterrence capabilities. Once I was present in a track two talk among scholars from two nuclear countries, old and new. Onside asked: “What are the benefits of the nuclear weapons that you have made for your country?” The other side replied: “If we had not developed nuclear weapons, you were playing with us like what you are doing now in Libya now.” The meeting was held after the attacks against Qadhafi and killing him. Supporting military attacks against non-nuclear states and nations, encourage more countries to think about nuclear deterrence and consequently more nuclear weapons all around the world.
Obama refrained from attacking Syria because he reached the conclusion that “foes and friends were trying to drag the US into conflict there.” Globalists by committing the US to defend the mistakes of “others” have exposed the US forces to many global security risks. It was military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and failure of economic sanctions developed by Mr. Nephew and Obama administration that forced the US to enter into negotiations. If the US goes to war with Iran, it may take more than 20 years to be able to exit, like Afghanistan! It means wasting at least 10 trillion dollars and imposing much more costs on the Middle East and Persian Gulf countries to achieve nothing and finally leaving the region with more nuclear states and extremist forces. If military threats and economic sanctions could succeed, the US had solved its problem with Cuba and North Korea decades back.
Instead of breakout time, Iran and the US need confidence building time, and confidence building is not possible without resetting their relations. If Iran's nuclear program has no threat to the US, it’s not necessary for the US to pay any price for that. Washington should reset its relations with Tehran and let those who are concerned about Iran’s decisions, negotiate with Tehran by themselves and control their own behaviors. If they do not want to face more challenges, they have to pay more attention to their own behaviors and policies. If the US wants to represent its partners at the negotiation table, it must also accept the responsibility of its partner’s actions. Now that JCPOA is already dead because of Biden inaction, Iran and the US can think differently and make a better deal. A non-ideological person like President Trump, could provide a better chance for peace.
Nabi Sonboli, Senior Researcher, IPIS
(The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the IPIS)