Is Nuclear Weapon Agreement with Iran a Historic Opportunity for Obama?

Signing the initial agreement on the Iranian nuclear weapon program is a big success and even a bigger challenge for President Barack Obama.

Tehran negotiations have been led by the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany, but there is no doubt that the real contest is between Tehran and Washington. For Obama, this agreement would mean not only going down in history, as every U.S. president tries to do, more or less successfully, but it would also prove that the policy of dialogue adapted by Obama since becoming president is more successful than the violence used by his predecessor, George W. Bush.

As a part of his diplomatic strategy, President Obama took a risk in supporting the Burmese democratic reforms undertaken and controlled by the military junta. In December of last year, after 53 years of hostility, President Obama announced the move to normalize relations with Cuba and lifted the economic embargo on export and travel to and from Cuba. However, all this means little in comparison with the potential success of what Obama views as reintroducing Iran into the international community.

It is not only about preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. It is not even certain that Iran has enough enriched uranium to do so. It is certain, though, that Iran, run by Islamists for the last 35 years, supports international terrorism and destabilizes the Near East. Obama himself admits that he cannot be sure his approach is going to bring positive results. However, his view is that dialogue is better than bombing Iranian nuclear plants, which would only result in another war in the region.

The right wing accused the president of being naive and yielding to mullahs, but the surprisingly detailed and restrictive agreement achieved in Lausanne proves that Obama is anything but naive. One of the deal’s provisions is to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment by two-thirds. In exchange, both European and American sanctions will be gradually lifted. That won’t happen, though, until international inspectors confirm that Tehran fulfills its obligations. Iran won’t be allowed to build any uranium plants for the next 15 years, and during that period it will reduce its reserves of low-enriched uranium from 10 tons to 300 kilograms (660 pounds). The pressurized heavy water reactor used to produce plutonium will be destroyed or removed from Iran. The inspectors will have a right of control for 25 years. “This deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification,” President Obama emphasized last Thursday.

The Republicans threaten to block the negotiations and they have prepared two draft acts for that purpose. One of them requires new sanctions to be imposed on Tehran if the final agreement is not fulfilled within the specified time frame. The other specifies that the president will need the permission of Congress to sign the deal with Iran. The White House announced that both acts will be vetoed and that the right wing does not have enough votes to overturn a presidential veto.

Obama’s bigger issue is to convince his Near East allies that the deal with Iran is not putting them in danger. Last month Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not hesitate to use the U.S. Congress to advocate his view that the deal will allow the lifting of sanctions without any actual guarantees from Iran. Netanyahu’s speech caused a severe strain in American-Israeli relations. However, President Obama was first to offer an olive branch. He rang Netanyahu and assured him that the deal with Iran does not threaten Israel.

If President Obama overcomes all the obstacles along his way, he has a guaranteed place in the history books.