Iran
May Bank on EU Support After U.S. Leaves Nuclear Deal
by Noah Beck
Special to IPT News
May 10, 2018
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 As the threat of
open warfare between Iran and Israel escalates, experts and world leaders
are divided on what President Trump's decision to exit from the nuclear
deal means in practical terms.
Trump has long criticized the 2015 deal limiting Iranian nuclear
activity in exchange for sanctions relief, calling it "insane,"
"ridiculous" and something that "should have never, ever
been made."
The agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), was negotiated by the Obama administration, and accepted by Iran
and the five permanent UN Security Council members – China, Russia, France,
United Kingdom, United States – plus Germany and the European Union.
While Trump's decision to leave the JCPOA has renewed debate about the
deal's shortcomings and broader concerns about Iran, Israeli defense
officials warned on Sunday that Iran may have its proxies fire missiles at military
targets in northern Israel. A top Iranian official blamed Israel for last
month's missile barrage on the T-4 Air Base near Palmyra in central Syria
and threatened to respond. Iran's threats appear to go
beyond words: in the last week Syrian rebels in southern Syria arrested a
suspected Hizballah member who said he was awaiting orders to fire rockets at Israel.
Israel has threatened to attack all Iranian bases in Syria in retaliation for an
Iranian strike and even to kill Syrian President Basher Assad for allowing Iran to
target Israel from his territory. Hours after Trump announced his decision
to exit the Iran nuclear deal, the IDF reported "abnormal"
activities by Iranian forces in Syria and conducted an airstrike on a suspected Iranian military
base south of Damascus, which reportedly killed 15 pro-Syrian-regime forces,
including eight Iranians.
But an open Iran-Israel war is unlikely, said Tel-Aviv University
Professor Uzi Rabi, who thinks that "both sides will opt for a partial
conflict and strive to reach a middle way, not a full-blown war ... At this
point it is a psychological war – we hope it stays in this format, as a
bunch of twisted perceptions will lead to a real war. The Iranians have a
lot to lose, financially (they are stretched to the limit) as well as
politically at home. Israel needs to keep this detained as well, and to
keep the US on its side to go against Iran."
Russia's presence in Syria also complicates Israel's options.
"Every action with a strategic implication must be coordinated with
Russia," Rabi noted.
There is an increased "likelihood of an Israeli attack on the
Iranian nuclear infrastructure," Middle East Forum President Daniel
Pipes told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. That is because of
Trump's decision to leave the JCPOA, "plus the direct confrontation of
Israel and Iran in Syria."
The consequences of the U.S. decision depend on which side is perceived
as having breached the agreement, said Meir Litvak, a Tel Aviv University
professor of Middle Eastern and African History. "My fear is that the
US will be isolated, not Iran, unless Trump is able to build an
international coalition. So far, he hasn't moved in this direction,"
Litvak said in an email.
Iran may already have breached the JCPOA, Times of Israel
journalist Raphael Ahren wrote last week, pointing to the dramatic intelligence
trove containing Iran's internal documents revealed by Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, showing a massive nuclear archive that Iran went to great
lengths to conceal.
The JCPOA required Iran to "address past and present issues of
concern relating to its nuclear program," for the International Atomic
Energy Agency to certify Iran's compliance. "Had the IAEA known then
what it will see for itself when its experts study the material Israel
obtained and is making available to the agency, the deal might have never
gone into effect," Ahren wrote.
Netanyahu's televised presentation of Iran's secret nuclear file may
have highlighted a second Iranian breach of the JCPOA by keeping computer models which could be helpful in
developing future nuclear weapons.
Rabi thinks that Netanyahu's revelations about Iran's nuclear file
provided legitimacy to Trump's decision to leave the agreement. "It
shows the world that the agreement was not signed in good faith by the
Iranians," he said. He notes that there was also a powerful psychological
impact: "Israel showed the Iranian people as well as the regime that
it has a hidden hand within Iran."
But only the United States saw the revelations as violations worthy of
ending the JCPOA instead of pursuing tougher supervision, Litvak said.
"Trump's chances to convince Europe to follow him are nil. Europeans
believe that any deal is better than no deal. At best, we can hope that
Europe will agree to increase pressure on Iran to improve the deal."
Pipes is not optimistic: "Fans of the JCPOA will ignore almost any
evidence of Iranian misbehavior, so this will not reach them."
"Iran will suffer," by the U.S. withdrawal, "but it may
be able to contain the damage if Russian, Chinese, East-Asian countries and
companies will continue to trade with it," Litvak said.... With oil
prices going up, it will be difficult for the US to impose [an] oil embargo
on Iran."
On the other hand, Iran's
economy is already on the ropes, as Fortune magazine noted
during December's opposition protests. Thus, sanctions by the U.S. alone
might be enough to threaten the Iranian regime. The unrest has continued
even before Trump's announcement. Iran was hit recently with labor strikes and worker protests over inflation and
unpaid wages. Such problems have frustrated ordinary Iranians even more,
given their expectation that the lifting of sanctions, thanks to the Iran
deal, would improve economic conditions.
Pipes doesn't expect Europe, which stands to lose about $20 billion if it resumes pre-deal
sanctions, to help bring Iran to heel: "They will stay in no matter
what: trade is trade."
Indeed, the EU partners in the JCPOA announced Wednesday that they intend to uphold the deal
despite the U.S. withdrawal.
Thus, Iran is more likely to gauge European reaction before an immediate
dive back into enrichment activities, said Tel Aviv University Contemporary
Middle Eastern History Chair Eyal Zisser. "Only if everything falls
apart, then they will consider becoming nuclear."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appears to be pursuing this precise
strategy of dividing the deal's other signatories. He offered Monday to keep Iran in the deal even if the
United States pulls out, provided the EU guarantees that Iran would
continue benefiting from the accord in terms of Iran's trade with Europe.
If Iran does resume uranium enrichment needed to make nuclear weapons,
the U.S. options boil down to "ineffectual economic sanctions (see
North Korea) or effective military attacks (see Iraq and Syria),"
Pipes said.
Noah Beck is the author of The
Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and
other geostrategic issues in the Middle East.
Related Topics: Noah Beck,
Iran
nuclear agreement, threats
to Israel, Donald
Trump, JCPOA,
Iran
proxies, Uzi
Rabi, Daniel
Pipes, Meir
Litvak, Benjamin
Netanyahu, Raphael
Ahren, IAEA,
Iran
protests, sanctions,
Hassan
Rouhani
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