America and Iran: New Allies?

When taking a good look at the family gathered in Lausanne, doubts about Iran’s importance on the international stage dissipate. The ministers of foreign relations from five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are there: Mrs. Mogherini, high representative of EU foreign affairs, the German minister as well, in addition to, of course, Javad Zarif, the Iranian. Their faces show smiles; after all, a preliminary agreement was reached on a nuclear Iran, saving face for everyone, from the Obama administration to the moderates of the Iranian regime. It was not by chance that The New York Times welcomed the agreement. Neither was it a coincidence that people were in the streets of the Iranian capital celebrating what could be the beginning of the end of the sanctions that complicate life for a country of 80 million, especially with the price of a barrel of oil so low.

The American secretary of state was the leader of the process, but John Kerry has much to thank the P5 +1 partners for, particularly his Chinese and Russian colleagues, who, interested in challenging the unipolar world, tend to tolerate most challenges to the United States. This time, however, Moscow and Beijing took Washington’s side with the need to halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, agreeing to give the green light for future civilian uses, provided that international monitoring ensures there are no bombs. In this agreement, Iran commits to not procuring weapons and moves to accept the remodeling of structures such as the famous Arzak reactor. With everything being done to ease tensions, the world knows that uranium enrichment will be limited to the necessary levels for a nuclear power plant to work, but not to make the bomb that only nine countries in the world have, one being Israel, the main detractor of Thursday’s agreement.

Israel, so discrete about its nuclear arsenal that it won’t admit to having it, does not forget that Iran has a history of financing groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Neither does it forget that the ex-president of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, referred to wiping the “Zionist government” off the map several times, and the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, recently re-elected, has built his career on objecting to a Palestinian state as well as denouncing a nuclear Iran, to the point of clashing with Barack Obama, the American president, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, and who believes that his diplomatic legacy will be left in the Middle East.

Israel will not be the only one upset with this agreement. Another traditional ally of the United States, Saudi Arabia, is so suspicious of Iran that it became the world’s largest importer of weapons in 2014 and keeps its nuclear options on the table. Additionally, in a geopolitical dispute rooted in ethnicity — Arabs against Persians — and religion — Sunnis against Shiites — Saudi Araba gained a new front in Yemen, with Saudi planes bombing Houthi rebels who are pro-Iran.

Iran’s position is fragile in Yemen, a country in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, too distant from Tehran. It is solid, however, in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where it has powerful friends. On the opposing side of the fence is usually a faction that enjoys Saudi favoritism and whose King Salman claims to be the legitimate leader of the Muslim world, which is contested by the ayatollahs of Tehran.

The fact that Obama has made progress in the agreement with Iran, against the wishes of the Israelis and Saudis (and the American Congress) proves that the president who succeeded George W. Bush in 2009 has historical perspective and that he, in contrast to his predecessor as well, does not ignore State Department specialists nor academics, as there are many in the U.S. who understand the Middle East. If Bush Jr. had listened to the Islamologists more and to neoconservatives less, perhaps the Middle East of today would be less of a complicated puzzle than it is.

Returning to Iran’s importance: It is one of the oldest nations, heir to the Persians who fought against Leonidas’ Spartans 2,500 years ago and, later, joined Alexander to form an extraordinary but ephemeral empire. They ceded to Islamization in the seventh century, but never gave up their language for Arabic. With the Safavid dynasty they officially made Shiite Islam the religion of the state to distance themselves from Sunni Islam, which surrounded them from the Ottoman Empire in the west to the Bedouin tribes in the south. Compared to those thousands of years, the Islamic Republic’s 36 seem negligible. Iranian society is also demanding openness that strengthens moderates like President Hassan Rouhani and forces a compromise with conservatives such as the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. This is openness that does not jeopardize the country’s honor, as nationalism is strong with all Iranians; even those who criticize the regime do not argue with the fact that Iran has the right to nuclear technology.

There is a history of grievances between Americans and Iranians: The CIA, of 1953 toppling the Mosaddegh government; the kidnapping of the American ambassador in Tehran that only ended in January of 1981; the killing of marines in Lebanon by groups supported by the ayatollahs and when an Iranian plane was shot down by American missiles in 1988. However, in the time of the shah, Iran was seen as America’s gendarme in the Middle East. As early as the post-Obama era, and depending on who is president, it should not be a shock to witness the establishment of a surprising alliance of interests between the “Great Satan” and the Islamic Republic. The nuclear agreement is a sign. The cooperation in the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is another. Remember when Obama called Rouhani in 2013, and he said good bye in Persian? That is how you start to change the world.