A
Tiny Silver Lining in the Otherwise Bad Iran Deal
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I despise the July 14 Vienna deal because it could do incalculable
damage to the United States and its allies. That said, I find a tiny
silver lining in the possibility that it could, if everything goes just
right, end up hurting the Iranian regime more than its enemies.
The drawbacks of the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action"
are so numerous that listing them requires more space than the 159-page
treaty itself. In very brief, the JCPOA offers the tyrants in Tehran over
the next 10-15 years more money, more legitimacy, more arms, and an
approved path to nuclear weaponry. As an
Israeli analysis sums up the problem, "the agreement
unilaterally and unconditionally grants Iran everything it has been
seeking without any viable quid pro quo."
To make matters worse, the deal includes no provisions that Tehran
stop supporting violent groups, end its aggressive plans to conquer
neighbors, eliminate the Jewish state, or deploy an electromagnetic
pulse weapon against the United States. Indeed, so confident are the
mullahs of their position, they never paused from expressing these
bellicose intentions and insist that Americans
remain their enemies. The country's tyrant, "Supreme
Leader" Ali Khamene'i, even published a book
during the negotiations about destroying Israel. In short, the deal makes
war
with Iran more likely.
For its part, the Obama administration shamefully dissembled about the
terms of the treaty, used underhanded methods to pass it through
congress, and became lawyer and spin doctor for Khamene'i.
For these reasons, I am appalled by the congressional Democrats who
sheep-like went with Obama's folly, I join the 2/3s
of the American public that rejects the Iran deal, and I tremble at
what catastrophes the deal might bring.
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More than 12,000
attended the "Stop Iran Rally" in New York City on July 22,
2015.
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As for that tiny silver lining: Assuming that the Iranian leadership
does not deploy its shiny new nuclear weaponry, the deal could end up
undermining it, and for two reasons.
First, greater contact with the outside world and a higher standard of
living might erode the regime's stability. The Soviet and other examples
suggest that the more the subjects of a totalitarian system know and
compare themselves to the outside world, the more dissatisfied they
become with the existing ideological and tyrannical order. (There's a
reason North Korea's population is kept so isolated.)
Changes have already started in Iran: Expectations are
"ballooning" for more prosperity and more freedom, reports Saeid
Jafari, an Iranian journalist. "With Iran's recent nuclear deal
with six world powers, many young Iranians are hoping for better
days." And it's not just the youth; "Depending on the strata,
there is different emphasis on contentious matters such as foreign
investment, Iran's relations with the world and the cultural, social and
political atmosphere at home." Also, just about everyone demands a
stronger currency.
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This Iranian 100,000
rial note is worth about US$3.34.
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The regime resists making changes, however. It rejects new
political parties and arrests merchants who sell clothing
with the American flag; so much for freedom. It maintains a "resistance
economy" (meaning a domestic capacity so as to reduce
vulnerability to sanctions and not depend on the outside world); so much
for consumerism.
President Hassan Rouhani, who is closely associated with the nuclear
deal, has tried to head off expectations by warning that the road ahead
will be long and painful: "We can import pain killers immediately
after the sanctions are removed by spending the unfrozen funds on cheap
imports. We can also use our resources for investment in the
manufacturing, agriculture, and services sectors. We opt for the
latter."
Second, as Stephen Sestanovich of Columbia University argued in a
brilliant 1993
article explaining the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West's
giveaways in the détente process destabilized the Soviet regime, even
though these concessions allowed "the realization of all major
Soviet military and diplomatic desiderata" – rather like the
Iran deal today. "The infuriatingly inconsistent West turned out to
be an opponent that Soviet communism simply could not understand, much
less subdue. In the end, the democratic weakness that so many bemoaned
may actually have helped to bring victory in reach."
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Ronald Reagan
ridiculed the Jimmy Carter-Leonid Brezhnev kiss; the West's
back-and-forth vis-à-vis the Soviet Union wore the communists down.
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Like the Soviet dictators, their Iranian counterparts may also be
undermined by Western inconsistencies and changes. This possibility does
not reduce my vehement opposition to the Iran deal but it does add meager
hope of long-term benefit, a goal that American, Israeli, Gulf Arab, and
other strategists should now exploit to the maximum.
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