How Obama Should Sell the Iran Deal

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/opinion/how-obama-should-sell-the-iran-deal.html

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LONDON — IN the long run-up to Tuesday’s nuclear agreement with Iran, the Obama administration repeatedly suggested that the accord was part of a larger strategic shift in Washington’s approach to Iran. Past experience with arms control debates during the Cold War demonstrates that this is a big mistake that could jeopardize hard-won security gains.

The administration should now seek to justify the deal exclusively on narrow national security grounds.

Although President Obama and his advisers have recently begun to change their tune, they have repeatedly, over the past few years, characterized the nuclear talks as part of a more comprehensive administration strategy to establish “a new equilibrium” between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.

The unfortunate consequence of these and other exaggerated claims was the alienation of moderate Republicans and friendly Arab leaders, many of whom supported steps to reduce the risk from Iran’s nuclear program but opposed any attempt to improve relations with the Iranian government.

As recently as April, when the framework for Tuesday’s deal was announced, Mr. Obama was emphasizing the idea that as the United States reduces its presence in the Middle East, better relations with Iran could help establish a new balance of power there. In an extensive interview with The New York Times’s Thomas L. Friedman at the time, Mr. Obama envisioned a nuclear accord and sanctions relief changing Iran’s overall approach, and “then what’s possible is you start seeing an equilibrium in the region, and Sunni and Shia, Saudi and Iran” would begin to consider reducing their tensions.

These and similar statements have become fodder, among some observers, for a heroic narrative that Mr. Obama has achieved a rapprochement with Iran comparable to Richard M. Nixon’s breakthrough visit to China in 1972. Indeed, in another interview with Mr. Friedman, on Tuesday, Mr. Obama repeatedly invoked President Nixon’s historic diplomacy with China and promoted the idea that Iran “will be and should be a regional power” — precisely the kind of thinking that drives away potential supporters of a more limited approach. This is unfortunate, because the Iran deal is a solid achievement in terms of nuclear arms control — not a geopolitical watershed.

The accord simply offers sanctions relief in exchange for extensive limits on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, which is the hard part of building a nuclear weapon. By limiting the equipment that can be used for this purpose, it will be far more difficult for Iran to transform its civilian nuclear program into a weapons program. In exchange, and under tight controls, financial sanctions and the ban on oil sales will be lifted, allowing Iran much-needed access to frozen funds and Western investment.

The accord’s benefits far outweigh its costs. While the agreement will not prevent a determined Iran from building a nuclear weapon, it will make doing so much harder, and the extensive verification and inspection procedures will make it much easier to discover any such attempt. The easing of sanctions, and the ease with which they can be reimposed, provides a powerful incentive for Iran not to take that risk.

In addition to worrying allies abroad, the other problem with linking the nuclear accord to improved American-Iranian relations is the fact that ties may not get better, especially if Iran’s regional policies — like providing life support to Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria and supporting terrorist organizations — become more aggressive.

No one knows if the nuclear agreement will be followed by a more moderate Iranian approach to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. I suspect it won’t be, because the Revolutionary Guards remain at the core of the Supreme Leader’s coalition and they, not the moderate foreign minister, are the crucial advocates of an aggressive stance in the region. It’s far better to explain how the accord advances American national interests, whether or not Iran changes its regional policies.

The best analogy for the deal with Iran is the arms control agreements of the Cold War. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) limited Soviet modernization of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and granted the United States an unprecedented degree of access to a closed society.

SALT I and SALT II drew strong opposition in Congress when the agreements were seen as part of a broader improvement in American-Soviet relations. In fact, SALT II was never ratified, partly because the Senate debate was hijacked by other foreign policy problems, including the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and its deployment of troops in Angola and Cuba.

The fact that American military and intelligence agencies supported SALT II was forgotten in the larger political firestorm. Only because President Ronald Reagan decided to continue American compliance with the treaty’s main numerical limits was the steady increase in Moscow’s overall number of missiles and launchers halted.

Like the earlier agreements with the Soviet Union, the deal reached with Iran on Tuesday substantially reduces the potential nuclear threat from an adversary and provides access to a relatively closed society. But Iran’s program will not be completely abolished, as many wished.

To maximize congressional and international support, Mr. Obama must now focus on the national security benefits of this accord and avoid any new suggestions that the deal was intended as part of a grand strategy for the region.

American-Iranian relations may one day improve when Tehran’s destabilizing policies in the region change.

The White House can hope that will happen but should not expect it. Whether it occurs is irrelevant to the wisdom of Tuesday’s arms control agreement.