An underlying shift in American foreign policy

An underlying shift in American foreign policy
A successful agreement with Iran will have repercussions far beyond nuclear proliferation.
By John B. Judis
Nuclear negotiations have almost always been about more than curbing an arms race. For instance, Ronald Reagan’s agreement in 1987 with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to eliminate intermediate-range missiles in Europe was also about ending the Cold War. The same can be said about the negotiations that the United States and the P5+1 — Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China, and the European Union — have been conducting with Iran over its nuclear weapons ambitions.
On one level, these talks are about nuclear proliferation. The United States and the P5+1 want Iran to suspend its nuclear program for at least a decade in exchange for ending economic sanctions that these countries and the United Nations have imposed on Iran. In interviews President Barack Obama has insisted that a final agreement based on the “framework” that the sides adopted on 2 April would be a “good deal” even if “Iran is implacably opposed to the United States” in other respects.
But Obama has also suggested that an agreement with Iran could lead to a general breakthrough in Middle East diplomacy. Getting the treaty, Obama told a National Public Radio interviewer, could "strengthen the hand of those more moderate forces inside of Iran" who think it is counterproductive "to seek to destroy Israel, to cause havoc in places like Syria or Yemen or Lebanon.”
Critics of the agreement have argued that removing sanctions would actually enhance Iran’s ability to wreak havoc in the Middle East, but Obama takes the opposite view. Removing sanctions, he argues, would integrate Iran into the regional and world economy and make it less likely they would pursue a disruptive path. “If in fact they're engaged in international business, and there are foreign investors, and their economy becomes more integrated with the world economy, then in many ways it makes it harder for them to engage in behaviours that are contrary to international norms,” Obama told NPR.
If Obama is right, an agreement with Iran could entail a new American strategy in the Middle East rooted in a new configuration of power among the region’s nations. From the American standpoint, Iran would become a major player to be dealt with alongside America’s usual allies in the region, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. Instead of automatically backing the Israelis and Saudis, the United States would now balance their claims and interests against those of the Iranians. That prospect of a new American diplomacy is what has clearly bothered both countries about the American and P5+1 negotiations with Iran. http://americanreviewmag.com/stories/An-underlying-shift-in-American-foreign-policy