Nuclear 'deal' with Iran says it all

By John J. Metzler

UNITED NATIONS ― The Obama Administration and the tireless Secretary of State John Kerry have endlessly striven to reach a nuclear “deal” with Iran. Now they have a “framework agreement.” After marathon negotiations, diplomats have reached an accord with the Islamic Republic of Iran over its nuclear development, but world concern remains focused on whether this elusive accord may genuinely stop what many observers see as Tehran’s race to get a nuclear weapon.

But beyond the obvious questions ― how close is the Islamic Republic to getting a nuclear weapon, what would it do if it had such a game-changing force and how such a destabilizing development would bode for the security of Israel ― there’s a question of linguistic semantics in the negotiating process which has been largely overlooked.

We are not talking about the technical capacities of Iran’s centrifuges or uranium enrichment here, but the simple use of words which official Washington gushes confidently; a “deal.”

The phrase “diplomatic deal” does not evoke enduring permanence, but rather fleeting political expediency. Munich 1938, perhaps?

A diplomatic deal shows good alliteration but leaves the nagging innuendo that the agreement is less an achievement or an accord, than well, a “deal.” In English, the word “deal” comes to mind with buying used cars, iffy real estate transactions or buy-one-get-one-free shoe sales. A “diplomatic deal” leaves an initial good feeling about a hard won political achievement, but then followed by buyer’s remorse. Remorse in this context is not about a product you probably don’t need but a geopolitical sea change in an already unstable Middle East.

There’s little question that the Israelis and much of the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates, and Egypt, are decidedly nervous over a nuclear Iran.

Make no mistake, this is not exclusively an American or Israeli concern but a real game-changer. Once Iran’s nuclear genie is out of the bottle there’s a new order.

The United States along with the so-called P-5 plus Germany negotiation group ― namely, Britain, China, France and Russia ― are pressing for an accord which would allow Iran’s civilian use of nuclear power but curtail Tehran’s parallel push to achieve an atomic bomb capability. Western sanctions have crippled much of Iran’s economy, in direct proportion to the Iranian regime not coming clean on its illicit nuclear development program.

Since 2006, the U.N. Security Council has passed six separate economic sanctions resolutions that require Islamic Iran to cease enriching uranium. It’s the sanctions, most diplomats agree, which has brought Tehran to the negotiating table.

But everyone is talking deals. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned, “France wants a deal, but one that is robust…it’s the only way to avoid proliferation.”

Recently Kerry intoned, “We continue to be focused on reaching a good deal, the right deal, that closes off any path that Iran could have towards fissile material for a weapon that that protects the world from the enormous threat that we all know a nuclear-armed Iran would pose.”

In separate comments Kerry admitted, “Let me be clear, we don’t want just any deal.”

President Barack Obama praised the framework agreement as a “good deal.”

Iran loves dealing, the more the better, to keep the proliferation clock running. And there’s the unspoken issue of Tehran’s political hardline opposition to “reformist” President Rouhani over any perceived softening with the West.

There’s also a serious rift in the U.S. Congress which is not only nervous about the likely concessions to the Islamic Republic, such as the secret clauses in the pact, but more concerned that Obama has vowed to bypass the legislative branch for final approval of the accord later in June which most Congressional Republicans and many Democrats view as a disastrous deal.

President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry offer glib rationalizations about why the deal would be good for the U.S., Israel and the wider Middle East. The political palaver coming from the White House towards why we should make this transformational accord with Tehran, as part of a presumed Obama presidential legacy, is put in the context of a deal. Indeed it should be.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of “Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China” (2014)

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