Iran Nuclear Deal Opens The GatesOf Evil In The Middle East
21 July 2015By Salman Aldosary
As one Saudi official recently told Reuters, it would be "a happy day" for
the Middle East if the nuclear deal stopped Iran gaining a nuclear arsenal.
After all, no one in the region and the world will reject the deal if it
succeeds in "freezing" Iran's military nuclear program. This indeed seemed to
be the case based on the details of the deal announced on Tuesday after
Tehran agreed to the majority of the conditions it had previously opposed,
intransigence which lead to the years-long imposition of sanctions on its
economy and a freeze on its assets. The deal has increased the so-called
"breakout time"—time it would take Iran to enrich enough uranium to build a
nuclear weapon—to at least one year from two to three months. Although it has
not thwarted Iran's nuclear ambitions, the deal would keep Tehran under
international supervision to make sure it is incapable of manufacturing
nuclear weapons.
The question remains, however, whether it is a good or a bad deal. In my
opinion, it is a wonderful deal for the administration of US President Barack
Obama, who has long fought to conclude his second term in office with a final
deal with Iran. Obama even threatened the US Congress on Tuesday to veto its
rejection if it decided to disapprove the deal. It is also a good deal for
the Western powers who do not wish to see the Middle East's major powers
involved in a nuclear arms race that would plunge the region into further
turmoil. As for Iran, it has returned to square one: Tehran has neither
achieved its goal of building its own nuclear program nor benefited from its
oil boom to ease the sanctions that slowed down its economic growth. In other
words, Iran has suffered the most from this deal. Iran's propaganda machine
has fabricated terms not even included in the deal, promoting it as a triumph
of Iran's foreign policy. Iran's "fifth column" in the Gulf states would
probably receive the news of the deal in the same way, cheering and welcoming
the so-called Iranian "triumph."
If the deal has limited the nuclear capabilities of Iran and forced it to bow
down, at least temporarily until it catches its breath, the real concern is
what it will produce and whether the Iranian regime will use it as a
political card. No wise person would believe that Iran will give up its
policy of destabilizing the region. Similar fears have even been voiced by
senior US officials, including David Patreus, the former director of the CIA,
who said that the most dangerous threat facing the region comes from the
Iran-backed militias rather than from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS).
If we show good faith in Obama's pledges and assurances that Iran will not be
given concessions at the expense of other countries in the region, Western
governments will be under great pressure to make the deal succeed and
therefore turn a blind eye to many of Iran's destabilizing policies as well
as Tehran's blatant interference in the domestic affairs of its neighbors.
Moreover, the West will also have to neglect Tehran's support of extremist
militias, such as Iraq's Popular Mobilization forces, also known as the
Hashid Sha'abi, that have gradually become almost part of Iraq's military.
Iran has established a policy based on the equation of fighting terrorism
with terrorism amid deafening silence from the West.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states can only welcome the nuclear deal, which in
itself is supposed to close the gates of evil that Iran had opened in the
region. However, the real concern is that the deal will open other gates of
evil, gates which Iran mastered knocking at for years even while Western
sanctions were still in place.
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EsinIslam.Com
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