Back when the administration of Barack Obama was negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, I asked National Security Council officials why they were expending economic leverage plus political and diplomatic resources on stopping Iran from developing a bomb it didn’t have, when these same resources could have been mobilised to pressure Tehran to end its destabilising behaviours?
Despite this reservation, when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was announced, I supported it for three reasons. First, the nuclear deal was a negotiated settlement, which is always better than conflict. And despite White House spokespeople saying otherwise, Catherine Ashton, a leading British diplomat involved in the negotiations, offered assurances that the deal was only a first step and that Iran’s behaviours would be next on the agenda. My hope was that sane minds would prevail and the initiated process might lead to a regional security compact and framework for peace.
The second reason was the way Republicans were working overtime to sabotage the agreement. It was unconscionable that they invited a foreign leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to address a joint session of Congress to urge members of Congress to vote against their own president. That was unacceptable interference in US politics.
The third (and maybe most unexpected) reason was the reaction to the JCPOA inside Iran. In a poll we conducted months after the deal was announced, we found a significant change in Iranian public opinion. Our earlier polls had demonstrated that Iranians were largely in favour of the government’s spending money on allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. With the hint of peace, Iranians turned their priorities inward, with declining support for the regime’s foreign involvements. Instead of resources going abroad, Iranians wanted them to be used at home to create employment and opportunity. They also elevated their demands for greater personal freedom and political rights.
When, after Donald Trump’s election, he cancelled the Iran deal and began threatening the regime, we repeated the poll. The results had reverted. When citizens feel their country is being threatened, they tend to be less critical or to “rally around the flag.”
In the ensuing years, amid continuing signs of hostility from all sides – the US, Israel and Iran – the situation has shown no promise of improvement. Despite promising a better agreement, Mr Trump did nothing more than deepen the animosity. The Biden administration was handed the thankless task of bringing a dead deal back to life – a task to which they never appeared to be fully committed. For its part, Iran continued to behave as a bad regional actor, all the while making threats and building its military capabilities.
Left on their own, the Arab Gulf countries sought to create stability out of the possibility of chaos with which they were forced to contend. Unlike Iran, which had decided to use its wealth to export its influence and its anti-Western ideology, the Gulf states had taken a different path, focusing on development, tourism, and trade. Their continued prosperity required a stable regional environment.
And so, amid the tensions between the US and Israel and Iran, the Gulf countries made diplomatic and economic overtures to Iran, hoping for a more secure environment. They even hoped that the lure of joint prosperity and security might move the Iranians to join them in pursuing a more stable and prosperous future and convince the Israelis to resolve the longstanding wound of Palestinian dispossession and occupation, fostering conditions for regional peace. There was to be no such luck.
Israel wanted the economic benefits of regional peace but was unwilling to play its part. It intensified its occupation and the repression and strangulation of Palestinians. Then came October 7, 2023, and the region exploded. In short order, as Israel was pursuing a genocidal war in Gaza, Iran’s ally in Lebanon became engaged in a fateful and costly exchange with Israel in the north, a miscalculation with devastating consequences. The Israelis launched a deadly bombing campaign, killing thousands of Lebanese – including Hezbollah’s leader. Months later, Israel and the US attacked Iran and killed its supreme leader. Iran returned fire, setting off a broader confrontation.
Negotiations produced what were called ceasefires during which Palestinian and Lebanese death tolls continued to mount. When, egged on by Israel and Republican neocons, Mr Trump decided to “finish the job” by defeating the Iranian regime, the conflict took on a new character. Iran intensified its attacks on neighbouring Gulf states that housed US bases and closed the Straits of Hormuz, cutting off 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas supplies, and negatively impacting the Gulf region’s economies.
Reading some of the Israeli, Arab and US press is enough to make one pull out one’s hair. Some Israeli commentators from the far right – and their American neocon acolytes – remain convinced that all that’s needed is another massive bombing campaign, coupled with yet a few more “targeted assassinations” – as if those tactics, which Israel has used repeatedly, will be any more successful than they’ve been in the past.
Meanwhile, hardline Arab opinion writers celebrate the “brilliance” of Iranian tactics. It’s hard to see how incurring the enmity of their neighbours and putting their own and the region’s economic futures at risk can be construed as anything but reckless.
The US media is even more confounding, with its apparent addiction to uncritically following the barrage of confusing and contradictory posts coming from the president.
And so, a decade after the JCPOA, the Middle East is in a more precarious place than ever. Although the situation is far more complicated than a decade ago, and the enmity on all sides so much deeper, the way forward is recognition that piecemeal approaches to the region have only made it less secure.
