A Deal Despite All the Chaos and Violence

There was never any expectation that the nuclear agreement with Iran would be signed immediately after President Joe Biden assumed office. The Biden administration took a long time with negotiations, but with only two months left before the midterm elections, the administration is now at a critical juncture, and the Democrats don’t want to go into the election with the weight of finalizing a deal with a state that sponsors terrorism still on their shoulders.

Washington believes that it knows the interests of the Middle East’s major countries best and that an agreement with Iran would be in the best interests of the Gulf States, Israel and Egypt because it would shield them from a real catastrophe. Yet, those same countries have explained to two Democratic administrations that their concerns are not limited to Iran developing nuclear weapons and that the extremists ruling Iran have managed to cause chaos and destruction in every country they have entered, with ambitions that hinge on Iran’s development of ballistic weapons.

It’s not as though President Biden or former President Barack Obama were unaware of this obvious reality, but the Gulf States, Egypt and Israel all need to realize the limits of what the Biden administration is willing to do. A confrontation with Iran is not on the table, and there is no appetite to hold Iran accountable for its criminal activities on every continent. The Biden administration, already facing great challenges, cannot sacrifice soldiers and money under the banner of fighting evil or until the Middle East calms down.

The truth is that Tehran has managed to embarrass the West with its extreme transparency — it does not hide its actions and presents itself as it is. Only last week, Germany, the largest European Union country, woke up to the largest drug shipment in its history, which turned out to have originated from Iran. Albania complained about a cyberattack targeting its border computer systems and perpetrated by Iranian hackers. U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain Steven Bondy stated recently that Iran is a prime example of a country that does not respect the rules-based international order.

Iran, ruled by extremists, has not spared anyone its evils, and yet it remains, in the eyes of Western politics, a state with a potential that is difficult to ignore. Pressure groups operating abroad exert economic, media and political pressure on Western governments to sign an agreement with Iran, and the West currently needs an unrestricted source of energy.

Despite the apparent hostility of the West toward Iran’s behavior in the world, and despite the rumors that America is inclined to fully side with Israel, powerful voices inside America are now saying that the United States, under whichever administration, needs to strike a balance between the three main powers in the Middle East — Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel — and needs to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear state all while allowing it to be a rebellious pariah state.

Although the foreseeable future will not see Iran become a U.S. ally akin to Saudi Arabia or Israel, Iran’s extensive influence across the Arab countries has given it an important role irrespective of how negative that role is. In Syria, for example, Iran, which has supported Bashar Assad from the beginning competes for influence with Russia, which is convenient for Washington. Similarly, Iran’s interference in Iraq has been destructive, creating division among the Iraqi ranks and hindering the country’s prospects for stability. To the Biden administration, however, this interference is still a much better option than the nightmarish alternative of having to hunt down Islamic State terrorists, and Washington is willing to accept any political reality imposed by any Shiite party in Iraq.

Is it possible for the region to survive, thrive and prosper in the presence of a destructive and destabilizing state? Some argue that growth cannot take place amid instability and that the constant state of warfare will hinder the ability of Middle Eastern countries to make any progress. That might seem reasonable in theory, but in reality Israel has become a developed country with advanced technological capabilities despite its high defense budget and despite the fact that it is surrounded by enemies who threaten to wipe it off the map. In the same vein, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has saved his country from ruin, and Egypt has recorded its highest growth rate — over 6% — this year even though it is still fighting terrorism and extremism in the Sinai, which borders the Iran-leaning Gaza Strip, and has to contend with a war-torn Libya on its western border. As for Saudi Arabia, it is facing Iran’s proxies in Yemen, the Houthis, yet this ongoing war has not stopped the Saudis from implementing a massive and cross-sectional structural reform program.

As long as the regime in Iran remains unchanged under the rule of Ali Khamenei or whoever succeeds him, a reckless and ambitious Iran will continue to be a reality that the region has to deal with, irrespective of who occupies the White House, because it is too much of a gamble to rely on the United States, where one president signs an agreement only for the next one to undo it.