Impact of Trump’s Withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal

The Iran Nuclear Deal also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was ratified in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 countries. This agreement has put significant curbs on Iran’s nuclear program and has ensured that Iran will not be able to develop nuclear weapons in the near future. However from the beginning there were many critics of the deal who said that this only provided a temporary halt to Iran’s nuclear program and did not permanently disable it. Critics also pointed out that the deal did not support non-nuclear issues such as Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and its support for the regime of President Bashar al Assad of Syria.

Republicans in the US Congress opposed this deal from the very beginning along with some Democrats. Thus the deal was approved by the United States without the approval of the US Congress. President Obama used his privilege of executive action to make the United States a part of the deal. From the beginning it was clear that if President Obama is replaced by a hard line Republican administration then the future of US participation in the deal will be in jeopardy. But at that time no one thought this was a serious issue. Expected opposition did come from Israel and the United States’ Gulf allies especially Saudi Arabia were uncomfortable with the deal. The concern was in the provisions of the deal which critics said within 10 to 20 years would allow Iran to be free of all the restrictions on its nuclear program and in the intermediate period also get the benefit of sanctions relief.

If Iran re enters the international community through the nuclear deal then it will bolster the legitimacy of the clerical regime which hardliners in Washington don’t like. They see the nuclear issue as part of a larger problem of Iran’s behaviour in the region. Thus only focussing on the nuclear issue and that also not comprehensively won’t satisfy them. They want to see Iran removed completely as a threat to their regional allies. They also believe that Iran has not been completely honest about its nuclear program with the international community during the negotiations.  According to them there are still large parts of Iran’s nuclear program which are completely hidden from the rest of the world. The Saudi and Israeli lobby in the United States has also played their role in drumming up support against the deal. Donald Trump opposed the deal during the campaign and called it one of the worst agreement ever signed by the United States. According to him Iran has fooled the whole world through this deal.

Supporters of the agreement state that the removal of the short threat of a nuclear armed Iran will remove the incentives for other states in the region to start their own nuclear weapons program. Opponents of the deal say that by legitimizing Iran’s enrichment program, permitting Iran to ramp up its nuclear infrastructure after 10-15 years, and facilitating an economic recovery that will enable Iran to greatly boost the resources devoted to its nuclear program, the agreement will actually promote nuclear proliferation in the region.

Some of the important factors which will determine future proliferation in the region will be –

• Whether regional actors will see the Iranian acquisition of nuclear capability as a counter to Israel’s undeclared nuclear strength or as a threat in its own right.
• Whether they see the nuclear deal as curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions or giving it a further boost after temporarily pushing it back for a few years.
• If Iran continues to pursue an aggressive regional policy then the nuclear threat might seem magnified to Iran’s neighbours even though it is actually diminished.
• The role of the United States as a continued security guarantor to the Gulf Arab states and Israel.

Regional proliferation will further destabilize an already volatile part of the world. Solutions to both the nuclear and the non-nuclear issues will be put on the backburner. The regional players will look for some tough response from the United States to challenge Iran. Thus the US will become more enmeshed in the region than it was before. The Sunni-Shia conflict will further exacerbate with the nuclear sword now hanging over it. The Saudis and the other Gulf Arabs will be less willing to compromise with Iran.

On the other hand the presence of the nuclear threat might finally force both sides to come to the negotiating table. The nuclear threat could itself act as a catalyst to resolve the non-nuclear issues affecting the region. This will be a variant of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) which prevailed during the Cold War. It is also possible that Israel might take some major military action against Iran unilaterally in which case things could escalate rapidly.

People will lose faith in the concept of non-proliferation itself if such a situation comes to pass in the West Asian region. One of the pillars of the international order would be removed.

The withdrawal of the United States from the nuclear deal will embolden Iran to act in a more aggressive manner in its pursuit of regional hegemony. The conservatives in the country like the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the hard line clerics will have their position strengthened and their point of view justified. Security in the Persian Gulf will be especially affected as Iran has the power to close off the critical Strait of Hormuz through which much of the world’s oil supply passes, in case of any crisis. The United States’ regional allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia will also have their security reduced as the regime in Tehran will increase its bellicose rhetoric towards both these countries.

The recent overtures that President Trump has made to Iran has so far been rebuffed by Tehran. It remains to be seen how things will work out. However leaders of other major powers like the EU, Russia, China and India must step into the picture and take control of the situation before it is too late.

Anirban Sen

Adjunct Researcher