The president’s team has made clear that rejoining the Iran nuclear deal isn’t imminent.
US President Joe Biden waits to sign his first executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. AP
For Iran, the inauguration of Joe Biden presents an opportunity to end what officials have denounced as a scorched-earth policy of the previous administration.
But whether Mr. Biden’s administration revives a landmark nuclear deal or re-negotiates it, close US regional security partners need to be part of the discussion, and steady efforts made to improve the regional security landscape.
That was the view of American national security and foreign policy analysts, speaking with The National.
Without those two ingredients, diplomatic rapprochement will likely be short-lived and won’t produce sustained results, in a region where minor confrontation risks snowballing into a wider conflict.
“The Arab states were sidelined in the talks that preceded the [2015] nuclear deal with Iran, despite the fact that they should have been part and parcel of it,” said Dr. Ebtesam Al Ketbi, president of the independent think tank Emirates Policy Center (EPC).
US negotiators, including Robert Malley, then a member of the US National Security Council, speak with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Head of Iran Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in 2015. –Reuters
“It’s high time Iran became disillusioned with the idea that it was superior to US partners in the region when it comes to international affairs.”
Former US President Donald abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018 and Iran has since gradually breached the deal’s key limits, building up a stockpile of low enriched uranium, and later enriching uranium to higher levels of purity – approaching the threshold for a bomb.
The US then re-imposed sanctions on Tehran that significantly battered its economy.
Mr. Biden, who took office on January 20, has said the US will re-join the pact, which includes restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work if Tehran resumes strict compliance.
An overview of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, south of the capital Tehran. Maxar Technologies / AFP
An overview of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, south of the capital Tehran. Maxar Technologies / AFP
An overview of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, south of the capital Tehran. Maxar Technologies / AFP
An overview of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, south of the capital Tehran. Maxar Technologies / AFP
Iran, however, insists the US must drop sanctions before it returns to compliance – something complicated by American legal systems that Trump-era officials are confident will prevent the new administration from abandoning the network of measures.
In her first press briefing last week, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Mr. Biden would also discuss a conditional US re-entry to the deal as part of his first round of phone calls with foreign leaders, including close American allies.
Mr. Biden has also appointed Rob Malley, a key negotiator of the original nuclear deal in 2015, as an envoy for talks on Iran.
US allies under threat
Regional heavyweights, such as Saudi Arabia and Israel, are on the frontline of the threats that Iran has posed to the region for years.
Iran possesses a domestically produced military arsenal with long- and medium-range range missiles such as the Khorramshahr ballistic missile (named after a city in the southwest), which can fly as far as 2,000 kilometres with a warhead weighing 1,800 kg. More advanced weapons such as the Soumar cruise missile require particular vigilance to defend against.
The ranges are far enough to reach Israel and US military bases in the region.
Iran has also displayed an interest in modernizing its drone programme and purchasing the advanced Russian S-400 air defense system. The UN arms embargo from 2007 expired in October and the UN Security Council rejected former US President Donald Trump’s attempt to expand the ban.
The UNSC restrictions expired in line with conditions agreed to under the 2015 nuclear deal. The objective was to keep Iran from developing nuclear capabilities in exchange for economic sanctions relief.
“Today, the missile file and the ideological regional expansion of Tehran are no less important to the world than the nuclear programme. Rather, they should be considered as the most important files from the perspective of the interests of the Gulf states,” said Mrs. Al Ketbi, who leads a team of senior researchers and analysts exploring current and future issues affecting the UAE and the region.
Iranian soldiers sit next to the tomb of Iran’s late founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during a ceremony on the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of Khomeini’s return from exile from Paris, at his mausoleum in southern Tehran. EPA Photo
She suggests a proposal to establish a “missile demilitarised zone” on the banks of the Gulf.
“It is natural for regional and international calls to continue to place restrictions on the Iranian missile programme, including the number of missiles, the map of their deployment, their range, and their destructive capacity, in a way that ensures that they do not threaten the fundamental interests of the countries of the region,” Mrs. Al Ketbi said.
An Iranian technician at the International Atomic Energy Agency inspecting the site of the uranium conversion plan of Isfahan, central Iran, 03 February 2007. EPA
Russian contractors are seen working at the Bushehr nuclear reactor site in south of Iran, Tuesday, April 3, 2007. Bloomberg
Workers on a construction site in Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant during an official ceremony to kick-start works for a second reactor at the facility, November 10, 2019. AFP
A metal-encased rod with 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel as it is inserted into Tehran’s reactor on February 15, 2012 . Ahmadinejad unveiled what was described by local media as Iran’s first domestically produced, 20-percent enriched nuclear fuel for the capital’s research reactor. AFP
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation chief Ali Akbar Salehi addressing journalists at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the Gulf port city of Bushehr on January 13, 2015. AFP
Peace and Security Committee Chairman of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Mehdi Abrichamtchi, shows to journalists a secret nuclear site in Iran during a press conference on November 18, 2013, in Paris. Iran and six world powers meet in Geneva from November 20 for the third time since the election of President Hassan Rouhani to try to end the decade-old standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme. AFP
A general view of the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr, southern Iran, 21 August 2010. EPA
Workers on a construction site in Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant during an official ceremony to kick-start works for a second reactor at the facility, November 10, 2019. AFP
Tehran has stayed on good terms with some neighbors, like Oman, and prefers to engage with its neighbors on a bilateral basis.
Oman, which is strategically located on the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow seaway through which around 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes – maintains good relations with Tehran and fellow member states at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in what has become known in foreign policy circles as ‘Iran’s bilateralism’ to de-escalate crises.
The sultanate’s diplomats are regularly involved in shuttle diplomacy with Iran and mediated between Tehran and Washington for prisoner releases, including the freeing of three US hikers jailed in Iran on suspicion of being spies after they strayed across the border in 2009.
Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Centre for American Progress, said the Biden administration should learn from the mistakes of the last two US administrations.
“The Obama administration held a meeting in early 2015 with Gulf countries at Camp David and started a discussion about joint measures to deal with regional security issues, but that discussion did not result in a comprehensive strategy, but rather a piecemeal approach,” he said.
“The Trump administration talked a lot about a regional security initiative, sometimes under the banner of an ‘Arab Nato,’ but this did not result in serious multilateral initiatives,” Mr. Katulis told The National.
Mr. Katulis, who for more than a decade has advised senior US policymakers on foreign affairs and provided expert testimony to key congressional committees, added the US should consider encouraging co-ordination between regional allies alongside taking its own role.
“Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress – the mainstream in both parties – share a deep concern that Iran is no longer in compliance with the 2015 deal and that Iran continues to threaten to close US security partners in the region,” said Mr. Katulis.
“The Biden administration will likely seek to engage Congress more closely than the Obama administration did in 2014 and 2015 – it should do so in order to build confidence and support in Congress,” he added.
The nomination hearings of Mr. Biden’s top national security nominees last week offered a preview of what could be to come – an ongoing discussion that will widen the range of issues that may be included in possible discussions with Iran.
His ultimate aim, according to his policy advisors, would be a deal that also limits Iran’s missile programme and support for regional proxies. But the team has made clear that a swift return to the deal is unlikely.
Tehran, in return, has warned the Biden team that the new administration will not have an indefinite time period to rejoin the nuclear accord. The window of opportunity will not be open forever, it said.
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