Obama Bets on Iran

The link has not been broken. The negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program will proceed. The major world powers, engaged in extremely complex talks with Tehran for over a year now, have decided to give June 30, 2015, as their deadline which initially had been Nov. 24, 2014. The agreement is important: The Western world would promise to lift its economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for being able to place draconian monitoring procedures upon its nuclear program. In the last few days, the delegations observed that, although many details had still not yet been resolved, there was a real will for this to succeed on both sides. Rather than sign a poorly written agreement or become stuck in a stalemate, they preferred to take a third path and conclude this temporary accord which, in itself, is already a success for those participating in the dialog. The most prominent of these are United States President Barack Obama and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani.

The leaders’ determination to succeed and, notably, to reverse the 35-year conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America is already transforming the Middle East. During these negotiations, the Western powers, in fact, implicitly recognized Tehran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful, civilian purposes. In return, they want to prevent Iran from exploiting the process for military reasons. Although it will change Iran’s position in the region, an agreement seems possible.

Under Barack Obama’s leadership, the United States seems prepared to recognize and encourage this transformation. Its diagnosis of the Middle East is, indeed, very pessimistic, and it feels that normalizing relations with Iran has the potential to put a stop to the current chaos. For a few years now, two major nations in the region, Iraq and Syria, have been imploding, which is threatening the stability of their neighbors. They are the battleground for the terrible rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran. The United States, allied to the former, opponents of the latter, considers it urgent that this divide end. This strategy is a bold bet on the capacity of the Iranian leadership to play a constructive role; at this juncture, it can only be put into place gradually.