Iran, World Pow­ers Reach His­toric Nuclear Deal. – Wash­ing­ton Post 

“What was agreed last night in Gene­va is not a his­toric agree­ment, it is a his­toric mis­take.” — Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu

The irre­sistible ten­den­cy of gov­ern­ment to over­sell its achieve­ments was on dis­play in this past weekend’s announce­ments of an agree­ment between Iran and the so-called G5+1 – the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and Germany.

News out­lets the world over her­ald­ed the Iran nuclear deal as “his­toric.”  Its crit­ics called it his­toric fol­ly.  Review­ing the agree­ment, it appears that both sides are exag­ger­at­ing. It nei­ther sets back Iran’s capac­i­ty to devel­op nuclear weapons nor facil­i­tates their development.

What makes this oth­er­wise insignif­i­cant announce­ment sig­nif­i­cant is not what the par­ties agreed to, but that they agreed to any­thing at all.  They have, in essence, estab­lished what they term a “plan of action” — that is, they now have a plan to talk about reach­ing an agree­ment.  That plan calls for pur­su­ing a “mutu­al­ly-agreed long-term com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion that would ensure Iranˈs nuclear pro­gram will be exclu­sive­ly peace­ful.”  Iran has long insist­ed that its pro­gram is peace­ful.  It has always denied that it is try­ing to build nuclear weapons; it per­sists in those denials.

In the mean­time, the hypo­thet­i­cal “com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion” remains a dis­tant goal.  “This com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion,” the doc­u­ment states, “would con­sti­tute an inte­grat­ed whole where noth­ing is agreed until every­thing is agreed.”

At this point, almost noth­ing is agreed.  The accord con­sists of what it terms the “ele­ments of a first step” – a six-month peri­od “dur­ing which all par­ties will work to main­tain a con­struc­tive atmos­phere for nego­ti­a­tions in good faith.”  Dur­ing that time, Iran will sus­pend or cur­tail cer­tain of its ura­ni­um enrich­ment activ­i­ties and allow the Inter­na­tion­al Atom­ic Ener­gy Agency to inspect cer­tain of its facil­i­ties.  Its nego­ti­at­ing part­ners, mean­while, will ease some sanc­tions, pledge not to instate new ones, and per­mit “human­i­tar­i­an trade.” In all, the White House esti­mates that this “lim­it­ed, tem­po­rary and reversible relief” will make an addi­tion­al $7 bil­lion avail­able to the Iran­ian regime out of rough­ly “$100 bil­lion in for­eign exchange hold­ings are inac­ces­si­ble or restrict­ed by sanctions.”

The Admin­is­tra­tion’s fact sheet gets a lit­tle defen­sive about let­ting up on the sanc­tions that have caused Iran’s rulers such dis­tress.  Had it not agreed to ease the sanc­tions, it argues, “the inter­na­tion­al sanc­tions coali­tion would begin to fray because Iran would make the case to the world that it was seri­ous about a diplo­mat­ic solu­tion and we were not.” Now that we have proven we’re “seri­ous,” the White House argues, we have “give[n] Iran a sharp choice: ful­fill its com­mit­ments and nego­ti­ate in good faith to a final deal, or the entire inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty will respond with even more iso­la­tion and pressure.”

Not every­one is buy­ing the line that we strength­ened the sanc­tions by weak­en­ing them. The harsh­est crit­i­cisms have come from Iran’s neigh­bors, includ­ing Israel, Sau­di Ara­bia, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Bahrain.  Those who have the mis­for­tune of liv­ing in close prox­im­i­ty to Iran’s theo­crat­ic repub­lic object that the announce­ment makes the Iran­ian mad­men out to be respon­si­ble mem­bers of the world com­mu­ni­ty.  That the agree­ment was con­clud­ed just days after Iran’s Supreme Leader, Aya­tol­lah Ali Khamenei, called Israel “a dirty, rabid dog” lends cre­dence to this view.

The agree­ment per­pet­u­ates our recent habit of advanc­ing the inter­ests of the most mani­a­cal and desta­bi­liz­ing ele­ments in the Mid­dle East at the expense of long-time allies. We turned on Mubarak, then raised inef­fec­tu­al objec­tions to the depo­si­tion of the man who was elect­ed to suc­ceed him and the ensu­ing polit­i­cal repres­sion; threat­ened Assad, then lent him legit­i­ma­cy for agree­ing to weapons inspec­tions; and now we back off on Iran­ian sanc­tions, on the the­o­ry that this will help con­vince the aya­tol­lahs to drop their sil­ly idea about build­ing nuclear weapons.  Our allies have ample rea­son to ques­tion the val­ue of our friend­ship and our ene­mies to ques­tion whether we pose any real obsta­cle to their hos­tile designs.

The Admin­is­tra­tion seems large­ly uncon­cerned about our allies.  Its more imme­di­ate fear is that Con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats might embar­rass the Pres­i­dent in front of his Iran­ian nego­ti­at­ing part­ners by call­ing for stronger sanctions.

“The dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of this agree­ment makes it more like­ly that Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans will join togeth­er and pass addi­tion­al sanc­tions when we return in Decem­ber,” Sen­a­tor Chuck Schumer (D‑NY) said in a state­ment. “It was strong sanc­tions, not the good­ness of the hearts of the Iran­ian lead­ers, that brought Iran to the table.”

The state­ment puts Schumer in direct con­flict with the Pres­i­dent, who warned last Sun­day that “now is not the time to move for­ward on new sanc­tions because doing so would derail this promis­ing first step, alien­ate us from allies [sic] and risk unrav­el­ing the coali­tion that enabled our sanc­tions to be enforced in the first place.”

Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man Bob Menen­dez (D‑NJ), who has sup­port­ed tight­en­ing sanc­tions in the past, now seems will­ing to back a mea­sure that would defer stiffer mea­sures for six months.  “I expect that the forth­com­ing sanc­tions leg­is­la­tion to be con­sid­ered by the Sen­ate will pro­vide for a six month win­dow to reach a final agree­ment before impos­ing new sanc­tions on Iran,” he said in a state­ment, “but will at the same time be imme­di­ate­ly avail­able should the talks fal­ter or Iran fail to imple­ment or breach the inter­im agreement.”

The White House is no more eager to have a vote on a pro­pos­al along the lines that Menen­dez has offered than it is of Schumer’s pro­pos­al, fear­ing that any bill to ratch­et up sanc­tions, even after the six-month peri­od, would upset the Ira­ni­ans. A Sen­ate vote on Iran sanc­tions would prove dif­fi­cult and poten­tial­ly embar­rass­ing for the Admin­is­tra­tion. The House last sum­mer passed a mea­sure to tight­en those sanc­tions by a vote of 400–20, a lev­el of sup­port ordi­nar­i­ly reserved for nam­ing post offices.  Such a vote in the cur­rent con­text would like­ly under­mine the “ele­ments of a first step” tak­en last week­end and the White House can be expect­ed to mount strong resistance.

All of which could cre­ate prob­lems for Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid (D‑NV).  Reid last week com­mit­ted to a Sen­ate vote on sanc­tions after it returns from its pro­tract­ed Thanks­giv­ing break.  He already has sig­naled that he will renege on that com­mit­ment.  He now says that the Sen­ate will vote only “if we need to do stronger sanc­tions,” adding cryp­ti­cal­ly, “What I said last week, I still feel the same way today.”

The Iran­ian gov­ern­ment, too, may face polit­i­cal chal­lenges, hav­ing spun the announce­ment as an elixir for its belea­guered econ­o­my. The Lon­don Tele­graph reports “wide­spread pub­lic enthu­si­asm” for the agreement.

Enthu­si­as­tic crowds have greet­ed Iran­ian nego­tia­tors return­ing from Gene­va after clinch­ing a nuclear deal with the six world pow­ers.  A num­ber of Per­sian news­pa­pers, like the lib­er­al dai­ly Etemaad, are run­ning front page head­lines wel­com­ing the deal.  (The Etemaad head­line reads “Here in Iran, Every­body is Happy.”)

That hap­pi­ness could quick­ly turn to resent­ment if their eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances don’t quick­ly improve.  The sanc­tions have exact­ed a deep toll on the nation’s econ­o­my. Infla­tion stands at 40 per­cent, the val­ue of its cur­ren­cy has plunged, sanc­tions have cut oil exports to a trick­le, and freezes on their over­seas accounts have choked off their access to capital.

Those eco­nom­ic woes led to the elec­tion last June of a more “mod­er­ate” gov­ern­ment, one more gen­teel in its anti-semi­tism, head­ed by Has­san Rouhani. The new gov­ern­ment aims to con­tin­ue its dri­ve to pro­duce nuclear weapons, even as it breaks the suf­fo­cat­ing grasp of sanc­tions and revives the econ­o­my.  Now that the Iran­ian peo­ple believe that the world is back­ing down on sanc­tions, “every­body is hap­py.”  But if this weekend’s announce­ment pro­vides as lit­tle relief to Iran as the White House claims, the Rouhani gov­ern­ment may suf­fer a fresh round of unrest as pop­u­lar expec­ta­tions are again disappointed.

Such is the price of mak­ing too much of too lit­tle.  Both sides have hyped the agree­ment, tout­ing the con­ces­sions they’ve exact­ed and down­play­ing those they’ve made. The real­i­ty is less impres­sive.  Iran retains its nuclear ambi­tions but gets a small (if the White House is to be believed) reprieve from sanc­tions; the US gets what it calls a brief “pause” in Iran’s weapons pro­gram and the deploy­ment of inspec­tors on Iran­ian soil.  Iran can con­tin­ue to deny that it aims to build nuclear weapons and to main­tain that the US has con­firmed its right to enrich ura­ni­um.  The US gets to say that it has in no way con­ced­ed Iran’s right to enrich ura­ni­um.  Such are the vagaries of this “first step.”

Both sides run the risk of fail­ing to ful­fill the hopes they’ve raised.  That risk is greater for the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment, since its peo­ple expect to see an improve­ment in their liv­ing stan­dard.  Few Amer­i­cans know or care much about the Iran­ian sanc­tions.  The Pres­i­dent suf­fered vir­tu­al­ly no polit­i­cal con­se­quences a few weeks ago when his Admin­is­tra­tion began leak­ing to reporters that they were on the verge of an his­toric agree­ment with Iran, only to have it unrav­el after the French for­eign min­is­ter char­ac­ter­ized it as “a fool’s game.” Most Amer­i­cans paid lit­tle atten­tion to that diplo­mat­ic prat­fall and their minds are today more focused on turkey than on this pre­sumed diplo­mat­ic triumph.

What has dam­aged the President’s cred­i­bil­i­ty are his extrav­a­gant promis­es about health care.  Instead of say­ing that sign­ing up for cov­er­age would be as easy as buy­ing a plane tick­et, the Pres­i­dent might have said that com­plex changes in health care require com­plex infor­ma­tion sys­tems and that imple­ment­ing those sys­tems won’t go smooth­ly.  He might even have con­sid­ered delay­ing the enroll­ment peri­od by a month or two to assure that the sys­tems were work­ing prop­er­ly.  On that he has learned his les­son, putting off next year’s open sea­son until after the midterm elec­tions.

His advis­ers must also have known that peo­ple and small firms would start receiv­ing can­cel­la­tion notices dur­ing the fall.  That is the law’s design.  It requires un-insur­ing the insured as a step toward insur­ing the unin­sured.  His Admin­is­tra­tion might have sig­naled this a few months back and gauged pub­lic reac­tion.  If the blow-back was strong enough, he could have lent sup­port to leg­is­la­tion that would give peo­ple the option to renew their cur­rent poli­cies, there­by avoid­ing a cycle of denial and apology.

His advis­ers today know that many poli­cies sold through the exchanges will have very nar­row provider net­works – many who sign up for those plans won’t be able to keep their doc­tors and may not be able to get care at their local hos­pi­tals.   It might be a good idea to begin now to mod­er­ate expec­ta­tions before the new plans take effect on Jan­u­ary 1.

By unrea­son­ably rais­ing expec­ta­tions, the Pres­i­dent under­mined his own cred­i­bil­i­ty and made the law’s crit­ics sound believ­able.  When, con­trary to the Pres­i­den­t’s repeat­ed assur­ances, the web­site isn’t work­ing and peo­ple are los­ing their health insur­ance, Repub­li­can crit­i­cism of the law sud­den­ly seems more credible.

Hyper­bole is both tan­ta­liz­ing and dan­ger­ous in the world of pol­i­tics and diplo­ma­cy.  Over-promis­ing has con­se­quences, whether it is a promise that peo­ple can keep their health insur­ance or that a relax­ation of sanc­tions will put more food on their tables.  It is always bet­ter to tem­per expec­ta­tions than to inflate them.  The price of rais­ing false hopes can be steep.