It is no surprise that Donald Trump is eager to cancel the deal President Obama made with Iran. He is allied most closely with the extreme right of the Republican Party, which opposed the deal from the start and which is eager to eliminate the Islamist government in Iran either with a direct American invasion or by outsourcing the deed to Israel. Trump has demonstrated a deep desire to obliterate every accomplishment of the nation’s first black president, and the Iran deal was Obama’s biggest (and perhaps only significant) foreign policy success.
The surprise is that most of the American foreign policy establishment wants to preserve the deal and lobbied hard, though unsuccessfully, to convince Trump to recertify Iranian compliance. The future of the deal now is in the hands of Congress under the terms of the legislation that allowed Obama to suspend the sanctions. Sanctions will be reimposed only if majorities in the House and Senate vote to do so. We can expect intense lobbying from the military, from former diplomats, and behind the scenes from the State Department to prevent Congress from acting. While we can’t be sure whether those efforts will be successful, there clearly is a split among elites that once were united in their desires to topple the Iranian government.
That split reflects the pressures and contradictions that face the US in its role as the hegemonic power in the world. On the one hand, the US has specific interests, and particular actors who stand to make money, in each part of the world. Yet at the same time, America’s dominance over allies is based in part on its ability to act as the guarantor of stable relations among nations. It does that by using the threat of its overwhelming military power to prevent countries from invading their neighbors and to enforce the web of treaties and agreements among the nations of the world. Thus, for the US to unilaterally abrogate its agreement with Iran, even though Iran is universally acknowledged to be living up to its obligations, would undermine America’s ability to demand that other countries also adhere to the treaties they have signed.
American elites all have powerful reason to want and need the web of international treaties to continue without disruption or challenge. Corporations derive many of their profit opportunities from global trade agreements. The US military enjoys access to hundreds of bases around the world thanks to treaties between the US and other governments. The UN, IMF, World Bank, ITO and other international agencies all were created under the direction of the US and are structured to give the US the dominant voice and often veto power over decisions. These legacies of America’s global dominance since 1945 all would be endangered if the US set a precedent with the Iran agreement of allowing countries to simply withdraw in pursuit of momentary advantage or to satisfy narrow domestic pressure groups.
It is for these reasons that business groups want to maintain the agreement, even though most of them never will do significant business with Iran. It is why the generals in Trump’s Administration all asked him to keep recertifying the deal. That is why current and former diplomats oppose withdrawal. And it is why America’s European allies are adamantly opposed to abrogating the agreement and have made it clear they will maintain and even expand their ties with Iran, regardless of what Trump does.
If those were the only pressures on Trump and the Republicans in Congress, then the deal surely would survive. However, in the American empire, just like in its British and other predecessors, there are narrow groups that see foreign affairs and war as opportunities to enrich themselves or to further narrow ideological or identity agendas even at the cost of their nation’s larger goals. Such narrow groups opposed Obama’s Iran deal and are the force pushing Trump to withdraw US recognition of Iran’s compliance.
First, Israel and its backers in Washington worry that the nuclear deal is merely the first step in a broader rapprochement between the US and Iran. If the two countries draw closer, and work together to resolve conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere, Israel would no longer be America’s only credible proxy in the Middle East. Under those conditions the US could end its unquestioning support for Israel’s unending occupation and creeping land expropriation of the West Bank.
Second, as the embargo against Iran ends, that country will be able to export more of its massive oil and gas reserves, undercutting Saud Arabia’s dominant position in those markets. Of course the entry of a huge new producer will lead to lower oil and gas prices, costing Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies a large part of their incomes. US oil companies also benefit from high energy prices and don’t want Iran back in the oil business. In addition, if Iran becomes closer politically to the US, then America will not necessarily take Saudi Arabia’s side in disputes on Yemen, Qatar, Egypt and other countries where the Saudis are pushing to install or keep in power oppressive Sunni regimes. The Saudis have been strategic for years in making contributions to universities, think tanks and non-profits to build a network of foreign policy ‘experts’ and defense ‘intellectuals’ who argue that the US should be allied with the Saudis. Of course, Saudi Arabia’s main way to recruit allies is to spend billions on weapons and other products sold by US firms that will advocate for maintaining a hostile US stance toward Iran.
So which side will win: the ‘permanent government’ of State Department diplomats and military commanders who see extreme danger in the US breaking an agreement with another country, even one that until 2014 the US sought to embargo and perhaps attack. Or will a narrow set of elites with specific interest or allegiance to Israel and Saudi Arabia set US Middle East policy. The outcome will tell us a lot about the future of politics in the US. Is there still a cohesive ruling elite that can override narrow interests and pressures from ideologues? Or can specific small groups focus their money and influence on single issues and parts of the globe and push through policies that benefit them even at the cost of disrupting the stability that maintains US global power?
