President Trump’s preliminary agreement with Iran appears at its core to be a simple trade — Iran will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the United States will end its blockade of Iranian ports, waive oil-related sanctions and unfreeze certain Iranian assets — dressed up with promises to negotiate a grander bargain down the road. It is already under fire. Critics on the left charge that it compares unfavorably to the 2015 nuclear agreement that Mr. Trump tore up; hawks on the right, many of whom supported the war, argue that Mr. Trump should have held out for more nuclear concessions from Iran.
Concerns about what may come next, be it renewed fighting or a flawed final bargain, are well founded. But notions that the United States should have held out for more upfront nuclear concessions gets things backward. The United States and the world need shipping to resume through the Strait of Hormuz. They do not need a nuclear agreement with Iran, and Mr. Trump should not make negotiating one a priority in his postwar Iran policy, this initial deal notwithstanding.
For all the operational capability demonstrated by the U.S. military over the course of this conflict, there is no painting the preliminary outcome as a resounding American victory. Food and energy costs have spiked; U.S. military resources have been depleted; America’s alliances in the Middle East, Europe and beyond have suffered. Nor was the war a win for the Iranian regime, whose conventional military capability is diminished, economy crippled and leadership demolished.
These results obscure an important detail: the United States under Mr. Trump has significantly reduced the nuclear threat posed by Iran. At the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, Iran’s nuclear program was advanced enough that it was capable of producing sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon within a matter of days, and a small arsenal’s worth within just weeks, according to U.S. intelligence agencies. Critics charge that this is partly the result of Mr. Trump’s own decision to withdraw from the U.S.-Iran nuclear accord in 2018.
Today, Iran’s nuclear program is arguably the weakest it’s been since the early 2000s, when its military nuclear activities were publicly exposed. For the first time in decades, it may not be able to enrich uranium, largely owing to last year’s U.S. and Israeli strikes on its key nuclear sites. To produce a nuclear weapon, Iran would need to reconstitute that infrastructure, which is believed to have been largely destroyed, while to facing the prospect of additional strikes as it tried to rebuild. What’s more, as of last September, the United Nations reimposed an array of international sanctions on Iran after several members accused Tehran of “continued nuclear escalation.”
It is possible that Iran’s leaders will redouble their pursuit of nuclear weapons. But it is just as likely that after all it has suffered, Tehran will conclude that its decades-long military nuclear enterprise was a costly mistake that provoked the very attacks it was meant to deter.
This context is why comparisons between current U.S. diplomatic efforts and the negotiation of the 2015 nuclear agreement are not apt. In 2015, Iran possessed a large-scale nuclear complex and could have, some experts estimated, built a bomb within months. President Barack Obama saw the agreement, which temporarily restricted Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, as an alternative to war. Today, the United States has fought that war, and Iran’s nuclear program is in ruins.
That’s not to say it’s gone. Elements of Iran’s nuclear program remain, the most worrisome of which is its stockpile of enriched uranium. But much of this material is reportedly buried deep underground, and the risk it poses is manageable if the United States exercises vigilance — which would be required even with a nuclear deal in place, given the risk Iran would cheat — and is ready to act if Iran moves to recover it. The danger Iran’s residual nuclear capabilities present must be weighed against other threats posed by Tehran, such as Iran’s missile and drone development and its support for regional proxy forces like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militants in Iraq.
If and when it does negotiate with Iran, Washington will be in a stronger place to do so with shipping traffic in the Gulf restored. Much of the global economic pressure that has been building as a result of this war will dissipate once the Strait of Hormuz reopens, but Iran’s economy will remain in tatters. The regime struggled to meet Iranians’ basic needs before the war; even after, as per the preliminary agreement, the United States lifts its naval blockade and waives certain restrictions , broader sanctions will still constrain Tehran’s capacity to rebuild. But those sanctions, which will be subject to further negotiations, can be traded only once. They should not be lifted cheaply, and almost certainly not in exchange for the modest nuclear concessions Iran has left to offer.
Whatever longer-term agreement Washington and Tehran reach, an Iranian regime determined to dominate its region and control its people through force will be unfriendly to American interests and its regional partners. For all the administration’s talk of transforming relations with Iran, the real challenge will be containing it while rebuilding trust and cooperation with regional partners, like the Arab Gulf states, which bore the brunt of this conflict.
This initial, bare-bones agreement may satisfy no one. But if it has a silver lining, it is that reopening the Strait of Hormuz will shift pressure away from the United States and onto Iran — putting Washington in a better position to demand the very concessions that critics suggest Mr. Trump should have obtained from this war in the first place.
Michael Singh, the managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was a director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration.
Source images by Olga Yastremska and e-crow/Getty Images
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