Iran nuclear agreement a 'good deal', say experts

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON

 A long-sought nuclear accord between world powers and the Islamic republic is the best possible outcome for both sides, according to experts.

Negotiators in the Austrian capital of Vienna signed a final agreement Tuesday, bringing to a close nearly two years of contentious talks that focused on providing Iran with dire needed sanctions relief in return for unprecedented curbs and inspections on its nuclear program.

President Barack Obama said he is confident that the milestone accord “cuts off every path Iran might take to creating nuclear weapons” and that it meets the security needs of the U.S. and its negotiating partners in the P5+1 group.

"I have, many times, been forced to consider the idea of using armed force to restrict Iran's nuclear program," he said. "Happily, a diplomatic solution made that unnecessary.”

Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said that the deal is an “historic” achievement that could, if properly put into practice, ensure that Iran does not attain a nuclear weapon.

“If successfully implemented it would be a historic non-proliferation and national security breakthrough,” he told Anadolu Agency.

He said that despite compromises made to broker the accord, it is “overall a very strong, effective, and verifiable agreement.”

And to be sure, in the time it took diplomats to reach an agreement compromises had to be made.

Duke University professor Bruce Jentleson believes “it’s a good deal” and that the agreement goes far enough to prevent Iran from realizing any ambitions it may have to acquire a nuclear weapon. “In my view the concessions that Iran has made are substantial enough to give a high degree of confidence that it will not be able to pursue nuclear weapons, and the mechanisms for verification, and transparency are strong,” said the former State Department policy advisor.

“This is a country that has been, on principle, a state adversary for over 40 years, and to have a major agreement with them is significant in and of itself,” Jentleson said of Iran.

The next major hurdle for the agreement in the U.S. is Congress, which has already shown its distaste for the nascent agreement - even before a full text has been made available.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner said early Tuesday that the agreement “is unacceptable”, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain called the accord a “bad deal”.

"Ultimately, the problem with this agreement is that it is built far too much on hope – on the belief that somehow the Iranian government will fundamentally change in the next several years," McCain said. "This is delusional and dangerous."

Despite the heated rhetoric, the agreement will likely make its way through Congress, though not without resistance.

“If, at the end of the day, Congress chooses not to accept this deal it will need to take responsibility for the consequences, and the consequences would not only be in relation to Iran’s nuclear weapons, but what it would mean for one of the few issues on which the United States, Russia, China and Europe have been able to work together,” said Jentleson.

Congress has a 60-day period to review the accord, and can attempt to prevent Obama from lifting sanctions the U.S. promised to remove under the final agreement.

One of the most contentious obstacles may be the last-minute inclusion of language that eventually lifts an arms embargo on Iran, which the U.S. says is the leading state sponsor of terror.

“I think the part about the embargo coming off on weapons shipments to Iran will make it a little bit more difficult to keep certain centrist Democrats in the Senate on the approval side of the column,” Hardin Lang, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said of vital Democratic support that Obama will rely upon to ensure that his veto power cannot be overridden by lawmakers. “At the end of the day I think they’ll be able to pull it off. I just think that it’s going to be a difficult summer.”

And as the bill winds its way through Capitol Hill, it will also have to gain approval in Iran where President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif have much at stake.

“Rouhani has staked his entire political career, and that is true of Zarif, on getting the deal and using the deal to leverage a process of internal political and social change in Iran against what’s going to be tremendous opposition from hardliners,” said Daniel Brumberg, a special advisor for Iran at the United States Institute of Peace.

“Had the agreement collapsed, the reformists would have been buried by an avalanche of hardline political power and efforts to reassert their influence,” he added.

But even as Iranian and American leaders prepare to face the final tests in the agreement’s domestic ratification, it may be too soon to say whether or not the years of negotiations have provided Washington and Tehran with an opening that the longtime rivals could further use to mend ties.

“The idea that we’re all going to join hands and sing Kumbaya going forward, I think, is sorely mistaken," said Lang. "That said, the fact that we’ve had a whole diplomatic process that appears to have borne fruit - that develops a certain degree of diplomatic muscle memory,” he added.