Contentions | The Iran Deal’s Evaporating Logic, Commentary Magazine, Noah Rothman, August 11, 2015
Proponents of the Iran nuclear deal are finding the justifications for compelling Congress to ratify the accord, save for preserving Barack Obama’s fragile self-image, are coming apart. As such, the accord’s supporters have increasingly turned to defending the deal with appeals to the president’s stature and authority, as well as by calling into question the motives and character of its opponents. That alone should tell you all you need to know. Though some of the Iran nuclear deal’s remaining backers do still occasionally claim that it will succeed in what was once its singular purpose: limiting Iran’s ability to produce prohibited armaments. One of most convincing precedents supporting this contention has, however, been largely disaffirmed.
When asked to cite a model to demonstrate how the nuclear deal will not only prevent Iranian from developing a fissionable device but also produce a variety of happy byproducts like the moderation of the Islamic Republic’s destabilizing behavior, the deal’s supporters most frequently point to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with the Soviet Union.
“From the Western perspective, the nuclear deal represents the most important security agreement since the signing of the Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF) Treaty between Washington and Moscow during the twilight years of the Cold War,” Al Jazeera columnist Richard Javad Heydarian averred.
Peter Beinart took this contention an ill-advised step further. “By 1987, Reagan had signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, the most sweeping arms-control deal of the Cold War. His rhetoric toward the Soviet Union also radically changed,” Beinart wrote in The Atlantic. “Reagan, in other words, dramatically de-escalated the Cold War long before he knew Gorbachev would let Eastern Europe go free and at a time when prominent conservatives were literally calling him Neville Chamberlain for signing the INF deal.”
That’s true. Graham Allison, also writing in The Atlantic, quoted a few conservatives from the period that feared Reagan was providing the Soviets with a reprieve from the crushing obligations of the arms race. “Reagan insisted that he was capable of brokering agreements to reduce the risks of accidents or unauthorized actions that risked nuclear war with one hand, while redoubling his efforts to undermine the Soviet regime with the other,” he insisted. “And he did just that. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.”
This is a remarkable simplification of history. Beinart claims that Regan’s shifting rhetoric (he renounced his “evil empire” comment while standing in the middle of Red Square under the watchful eye of a young Vladimir Putin) provided Mikhail Gorbachev space to make the case to the Politburo that he was not capitulating to Reagan in this accord. But this is a variation of the liberal case that ideational and not material considerations led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the INF effectively marked the end of the arms race, in part because it had already been lost by the Soviets. By contrast, there has been no ideational shift in the theocratic regime in Tehran nor is there any indication in Iran’s behavior that it is desirous of rapprochement with the West. If anything, Iran has behaved in a more bellicose fashion as nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 intensified.
The USSR is long gone, but the INF remains in place. Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are advised to pay close attention to what that arrangement has become. It is no longer an arms control agreement but a political relic that serves little purpose but to shield from public scrutiny the extent to which Russia has become an irresponsible and revanchist international actor.
Writing in Politico Magazine in April, Foreign Policy Initiative scholars Eric Edelman and Tzvi Kahn outline the scope of the Russian’s efforts to game the INF. In response to Russia’s brazenness, American officials have routinely downplayed Moscow’s cheating. Despite repeatedly warning the United States that it was prepared to violate the INF over the course of the last decade, the Bush administration refused to acknowledge that reality. When Moscow did violate the terms of the INF in this decade, the Obama administration also pretended not to notice. And when this administration finally did address Russia’s violations of the terms of the INF, that acknowledgement was not followed on with any consequences.
That failure of resolve continues even today. According to the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz, a Pentagon assessment last month revealing the extent of Russia’s violations of the INF paints a damning picture of the Kremlin’s behavior. Unfortunately for anyone who would like to fully understand how Russia has undermined the INF, the White House is allegedly blocking that report’s release.
“Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, disclosed the existence of the Pentagon assessment last month and said the report is needed for Congress’ efforts to address the problem in legislation,” Gertz reported. “Rogers said the assessment was conducted by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, and noted that it outlines potential responses to the treaty breach.”
To acknowledge the treaty’s failure would provide additional political legitimacy to an effort by House Republicans that seeks to provide funding for short-range cruise missile defenses in Poland and Romania. That’s a direct repudiation of this White House, which continues to stand by its 2009 rejection of a Bush-era deal that would have provided the Czech Republic and Poland with long-range interceptor and radar technology. In short, politics is dictating American national defense planning and strategy.
“Similarly, for decades, Tehran has violated its nuclear commitments — and the United States has failed to hold it accountable,” Edelman and Kahn observed.
There is no evidence to suggest that regime as demonstrably duplicitous as Iran’s will not cheat on this arrangement. In fact, the terms of this deal would make it difficult to definitively identify cheating, much less to marshal support for an international response to it. Even if such behavior could be identified, though, it’s not entirely clear that this administration (or its successor, presuming the next administration is a Democratic one) will be predisposed to punish Iranian cheating at all. To acknowledge the fact that the nuclear deal with Iran has failed would be to invite searing criticism from the deal’s domestic opponents.
The INF is a treaty in a persistent vegetative state; it’s corporal form remains, but its spirit has long since passed on to another plane. A conventional arms race in Eastern Europe has taken its place. If the West were to acknowledge that arms race, it would be obliged to participate in it. So it simply refuses to acknowledge it. If the Iran deal fails, its proponents in Washington are unlikely to ever say as much. Not until it is too late.
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