By Tony Badran, Now.
America’s allies are troubled. At the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme that took place in Geneva last week, the US administration came close to giving the Iranians significant sanctions relief while allowing them to continue uranium enrichment and construction on the plutonium reactor – thereby preserving Iran’s short-cut to a nuclear weapon.
What is more, details have emerged that show a worrisome pattern in how the US has dealt with its allies when it comes to Iran. And even though the administration continues to publicly minimise its differences with its friends, there’s a clear schism that goes to the heart of the White House’s vision for the region, of which a deal with Iran is but one part: Washington is eyeing the creation a new regional security structure whether its allies approve or not.
This rift was evident during Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Israel. While there, Kerry updated the Israelis on the outline for an agreement with the Iranians and what economic incentives Washington was prepared to give Tehran as part of the interim deal. A senior Israeli official told Ha’aretz that while the Israelis didn’t love the outline they heard as late as last Wednesday, they nevertheless felt they could live with it. By Wednesday evening, however, the Israelis heard that a senior US official told reporters in a briefing that Iran would be offered more substantial sanctions relief. The following day, the French and British informed the Israelis that the terms had changed “to something much worse,” as the senior Israeli official put it. “The feeling was that the Americans are much more eager to reach an agreement than the Iranians,” he added.
The extent of the American side’s eagerness became evident in Kerry’s decision to go to Geneva. According to a report in The Guardian, Kerry asked to join the talks after he was prompted by an Iranian leak on Thursday night that he was on the way. Through this manipulation, the Iranians used Kerry to raise expectations that a deal was imminent. Perhaps sensing his eagerness, or maybe out of lack of confidence in the US administration, the French worried that Kerry would cut them out, strike a bilateral agreement with the Iranians, and present it as a fait accompli.
The French had every reason to worry. After all, the administration had dealt with them in the same fashion in Syria. From the Geneva framework to the chemical weapons deal, the Americans have bypassed the French, negotiating over their heads with the Russians. The result has been a US position far more closely aligned with the Kremlin than with any of its partners.
It isn’t just France whom the White House failed to consult when deciding on an important course of action in Syria. Take for instance how President Obama decided last minute not to go ahead with a strike against the Assad regime. The French were reportedly hours from proceeding with the attack when they were finally informed that Obama had changed his mind. The Saudis didn’t even get the benefit of a call. They learned of Obama’s about-face from the media. The Israelis apparently received a similar treatment last week, as they learned of the change in the US position from a press briefing and then from the French and British, not the Americans. To top it all, the Israelis got the same line the US gave the Saudis: we have tactical differences.
The schism between the US and its allies, however, is not over tactics. Some critics of the administration have contended that, based on what his team was ready to accept in Geneva last week, the goal of the US president is not really prevention of a nuclear Iran but rather containment of it.
However, the US posture in the region vis-à-vis Iran is not one of containment. Rather, as I argued last week, the White House is looking to establish a new security architecture in the region that includes Iran. Containment is still predicated on a posture of confrontation, something that the administration has backed away from. For evidence it’s necessary to turn to Syria, where the US has doggedly pushed back allied pressure to confront Iranian interests, instead opting to accommodate them.
Integrating Iran in a new regional structure, it seems, is what the White House thinks is the best way to temper regional tensions. US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia may dislike this arrangement but ultimately, the administration believes, this is in the US interest. After all, the US is achieving energy independence and no longer wants any entanglement in the Middle East beyond the “core interests” that Obama articulated at the UN General Assembly. There needs to be a structure that balances the region, allowing the US to extricate itself. Besides, the White House thinking seems to be that after complaining for a while, regional allies will have no choice but to live with the new order, and ultimately recognise it’s better for them.
The White House sees itself operating on a higher plane. As Kerry put it, the administration believes it has “a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe.” As such, if reaching a deal with Iran and changing the regional security architecture demand overriding what the US president sees as his allies’ narrow considerations, then so be it. As the White House sees it, they’ll eventually come to agree that it’s in their best interest.
Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay
This article was originally published on Now.
