Negotiations aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon have been going on for a dozen years now. It has been more than five years since US president Barack Obama, in a speech in Cairo, offered the hand of friendship to Iran after three decades of enmity.
All this diplomatic effort has culminated in knife-edge talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne. They have already overrun the March 31 deadline for a framework nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers. The highest hurdles towards a final agreement may yet remain. But what is certain is that during the dozen years of negotiation over Iran’s nuclear programme, the balance of forces in the Middle East has changed out of all recognition.
It was in Lausanne’s Beau Rivage hotel – the same one where the latest round of talks has been held – that that the shape of the modern Middle East was agreed in 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne completed the carve-up of the old Ottoman Empire, establishing the borders of modern Turkey alongside the new Arab countries of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. These borders – apart from the creation of the state of Israel – remained largely stable during the Anglo-French colonial period, the US-Soviet stand-off during the Cold War, and the final triumph of America in the 1990s. All that began to change in 2003, when America invaded Iraq and overturned the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
That war hastened the rise of sectarian politics in the Arab world, while the incompetence of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad destroyed a bulwark of stability. Syria has collapsed into civil war, Iraq is fractured and Yemen is going the same way. Even sober commentators such as Richard Haass, president of the venerable Council on Foreign Relations in New York, say that the Arab world may face decades of instability.
Against this apocalyptic backdrop, there have been two constants in US policy: the desire not to get involved in another war in the Middle East and the pursuit of a comprehensive deal under which Iran will get relief from sanctions in exchange for accepting an inspection regime preventing it from developing nuclear weapons.
Washington’s reduced engagement has led to a radical shift in the regional landscape. Three powers now vie with each other. Turkey, which until recently had a strict policy of non-involvement in regional conflicts. Iran, the dominant power in Iraq following the removal of Saddam Hussein, and the military and financial backer for the Assad regime without which it would surely have collapsed. And the Arabian Peninsula countries grouped in the GCC, which can rely on the military support of Egypt.
When the nuclear talks began in 2003, Iran was encircled by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a very real fear that it might be next on George W Bush’s hit list. History decided otherwise. Now Iranian forces and Iranian-backed Shia militias are growing in power across the Arab world. America meanwhile is hedging its bets. It is providing air support for the Iranian-backed assault by the Iraqi army and Shia militias against ISIL in the city of Tikrit, while providing intelligence for the GCC air strikes on the Houthi rebels in Yemen who have Iran’s vocal support.
This situation has spread confusion among America’s allies who see John Kerry, the US secretary of state, closeted day after day with Iranian officials who take orders from the viscerally anti-American Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It has exposed Mr Obama to attack from the Republican-controlled Congress.
Objectively, Iran needs an agreement – and the consequent lifting of crippling economic sanctions – more than the US does. But Mr Obama’s need for a quick result has opened possibilities for Iran to try to extract ever greater concessions in the final weeks of the negotiation.
It had been expected that a broad framework would be agreed by the “soft” deadline of Tuesday evening and that the details would be hammered out by the end of June, the final deadline. But this double deadline is an unwieldy affair. Mostly, it was required by Mr Obama so that he had a deal he could use to stare down a disruptive Congress when it resumes after the Easter break on April 13.
Diplomats believe that the March deadline put the US negotiators under excessive pressure. And the likelihood is that US allies in the region and Mr Obama’s critics at home will see any result – if there is one – as too favourable to Iran. The problem with this criticism is that no one has proposed anything better. Because of US overreach, Iran is no longer under military pressure. Rather, it is on the march throughout the region. Those who accuse Mr Obama of “appeasement” are implicitly calling for war on Iran. In previous cases of countries acquiring nuclear arms – China, India, Pakistan or North Korea – the military option has never been used.
If there is finally a deal under which Iran suffers intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities for a decade or more but which still leaves US allies unsettled, it will have a perverse effect. Washington will have to raise its game and engage in Cold War-containment in the same way that it was able to reach arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, while opposing Moscow’s expansion around the world.
That may be scant reassurance for US allies. The truth revealed at the Beau Rivage hotel is that, during the time it has taken to get within striking distance of a nuclear deal, Iran has come close to being the dominant regional power.
Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs
On Twitter: @aphilps
