Challenges for the U.S. and the International System After the JCPOA

Bringing the nuclear talks with Iran to a conclusion and reaching a nuclear agreement with Tehran was one of Barack Obama's key foreign policy priorities. Efforts continued around the clock and culminated on July 14, 2015. The JCPOA was achieved. Iran committed to limit its nuclear program, and world powers took action to lift international sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program. Although the JCPOA was reached, international challenges became more complex alongside it. It was not expected that this agreement, which was centered on a nuclear issue, would remove all problems. However, supporters of the JCPOA unanimously agreed that reaching a nuclear agreement with Tehran removed one of the most significant international crises that had lasted for years. Barbara Slavin, director of the 'Future of Iran' project at the Atlantic Council in Washington, is among these analysts. 'Certainly, there are multiple crises in this region, but if we go back a year, we see that there was concern that Iran might acquire the capability to build a nuclear weapon, which could lead to military intervention by Israel or the U.S., and this could also result in rapid proliferation of weapons in the region, with the Saudis or Emiratis seeking to enrich uranium and build weapons. We always forget the crises that are resolved, and I think the situation without a nuclear agreement could have been much more unstable than what we see today.' The Middle East is currently engulfed in numerous crises. On one hand, the flames of war in Syria have been burning for over five years, and on the other hand, instability in Iraq poses a serious challenge to the security of this region. Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have intensified, and Saudi Arabia and its allies continue their military engagement in Yemen. Meanwhile, staunch critics of the JCPOA, including in the U.S., view Iran's role in these insecurities as prominent and believe that even with the JCPOA, Iran remains a strategic threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East; including Cliff May, founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, who sees this as a challenge for the next U.S. president: 'Iran remains a strategic threat to the U.S. and in the Middle East. Iran wants to take regional hegemony, Sunni countries view it as a threat, it wants to at least annex Shiite parts of Iraq to its empire, it wants to keep Assad as a client, and it wants Hezbollah to act on its behalf in Lebanon, and it has relations with Hamas, and Yemen is another battlefield. These are problems and threats that the next U.S. president will have to face.' The JCPOA and its ramifications are part of what the next U.S. president will inherit regarding the Middle East. 'Obama's doctrine' regarding the Middle East is intertwined with his decision to avoid military operations in Syria to remove President Bashar al-Assad and is also linked to the cooling of relations with close allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. A group of analysts criticize the U.S. president for seemingly deciding to pivot away from the Middle East, suggesting that he intends to focus more on relations with East Asian countries. However, analysts like Gary Sick, who was previously a senior White House assistant on Gulf affairs, believe that not only has the U.S. not left the Middle East, but it has become more involved: 'When Barack Obama talks about establishing a new balance for U.S. forces in the region, it does not mean leaving and abandoning the region. Perhaps it is his fault for raising this issue that led to a misunderstanding. The U.S. is in the region and is present in a way that was unimaginable two decades ago. Until 1986, the U.S. had almost no military presence, and sometimes a few ships would come and go. Today, we have bases in various parts of the Gulf, we are fighting in the remnants of two wars, and we are indirectly involved in a third war in Yemen. This is not abandonment, and we are deeply involved in this region. Whether we are too involved and should reflect on our actions? Yes, I think that should happen and it would be beneficial.' As the JCPOA approaches its one-year anniversary, the relationship of Barack Obama's administration, which has only a few months left, with a conciliatory approach towards Iran faces serious challenges with its traditional allies. On one hand, Sunni Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, were dissatisfied with this approach, and on the other hand, the relationship between Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu's government has cooled with the White House. At one point, as Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic, Obama stated, 'The competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has led to proxy wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, requires the U.S. to tell both its friends and the Iranians that they must find an effective way to partner in the region and somehow achieve peace.' This perspective is felt even more with the ascendance of the new Saudi monarchy, as noted by Barbara Slavin, who says that time is needed to repair this bilateral relationship: 'There has always been a difficult relationship between Barack Obama and the Saudis, particularly with the arrival of the new king of Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has lost both trusted and long-standing voices in Saudi Arabia, such as King Abdullah and Prince Saud al-Faisal, and now King Salman is in charge, and his young crown prince, who seems to have control over the situation, does not appear to have the same relationship with the U.S. as his predecessor.' Such challenges are evident, but after the JCPOA was achieved, Barack Obama invited the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council to Camp David and attempted to reassure them about the continuation of Washington's support. Saudi Arabia also tried to officially show its support for the agreement, but it seems that the challenges in U.S.-Saudi relations go beyond focusing on the nuclear agreement, and as Gary Sick states, even this issue is not the main priority in these relations: 'The main problem between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is not the nuclear agreement. This agreement may have caused these difficulties and differences in the relations of the two countries to surface. However, the two countries have differences regarding how to manage the oil market, Saudi Arabia's policy regarding the U.S. use of its domestic oil reserves, regarding Syria and Saudi Arabia's previous policies there, and support for Sunni groups that sometimes were extremist, regarding Egypt, Yemen, and the war in that country, and the indirect role of the U.S. in that campaign. As a result, there are many problems, and in the U.S., there is curiosity about where Saudi Arabia is headed with the arrival of King Salman.' During the negotiations and the achievement of the agreement with Iran, the challenges in the relationship were not limited to Washington and Riyadh. Another long-time U.S. ally in the region, Israel, has also experienced serious ups and downs in relations in recent years. This challenge in relations escalated to the point where it spoke at a U.S. Congress. Despite these efforts by the Israeli Prime Minister and his opposition to an agreement he calls a historic mistake, the JCPOA was implemented, and today, as even critics of the agreement in Israel say, the JCPOA is a reality, and Tel Aviv must think about the future; how to confront what it considers a threat from Iran, and on the other hand, think about improving its relations with the U.S. A relationship that, as Yossi Mekelberg, a researcher at Chatham House in London, says, one of its main problems is the connection between the two leaders, Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, and is not necessarily facing challenges in all areas: 'There is a deep rift between the Obama administration and Netanyahu's government. And I think Obama has decided to withdraw from the peace process (between Palestinians and Israelis) and does not believe that anything constructive can be done in this area from now until January when his term ends. That mutual understanding between the two sides was not present as it was during the [Bill] Clinton era. It should also not be forgotten that Netanyahu is now leading a more right-wing government than before. However, at other levels, I believe there is a very deep relationship between the U.S. and Israel. For example, we recently witnessed the unveiling of the F-35 fighter jet in Texas, which is one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world and is set to be given to Israel. For the unveiling of this jet, Avigdor Lieberman, the new Israeli defense minister, went to Texas and expressed hope that these jets would soon be delivered to Israel after meeting with Ashton Carter, the U.S. Secretary of Defense. On the other side of this balance, the challenges in diplomatic relations have not harmed the defense security cooperation between Washington and Riyadh, as the Defense Security Cooperation Agency has reported that since the initial Geneva agreement with Iran, the U.S. has conducted negotiations with Saudi Arabia regarding the sale of approximately $37 billion in arms, over $13 billion of which has been after the start of Saudi military engagement in Yemen. This approach, where Washington is facing challenges in its relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia on one hand, and does not hesitate to provide them with arms on the other, has been criticized by those who believe this action has turned into a cost of the agreement that the U.S. has achieved with Iran. Hossein Banaei at Indiana University believes that regarding the concerns of the Saudis in the region, especially regarding Iran, Washington should choose another method of reassurance: 'It is the responsibility of Western countries to reassure the Saudis. Unfortunately, the way this has been done is that they have entirely focused on the aspirations of the Saudis who wanted more military weapons and equipment. I believe this reassurance should be in the form of honest dialogue, and this political relationship should be explained.' The tumultuous relations of Riyadh and Tel Aviv with the Barack Obama administration, and the implementation of the nuclear agreement by six world powers with Iran, have amplified the whispers of another balance in the region. A balance that, in recent years, was difficult for observers to imagine has now become an idea that has even manifested in public forums. These days, whether in the Middle East or in Washington, discussions of new delineations in the Middle East are being raised, with one side consisting of Sunni Gulf countries and Israel and the other side consisting of Iran. In one of the most recent public comments, in an unprecedented meeting, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Minister of Information of Saudi Arabia, and Yaakov Amidror, former national security advisor to the Israeli government, spoke about this and did not consider cooperation between the two countries to counter the threat from Iran as far-fetched. These remarks by two former officials from Israel and Saudi Arabia, in front of American analysts, as Yossi Mekelberg in London states, stem from a shared understanding between Israel and Saudi Arabia regarding Iran: 'Israel not only has a competitive approach towards Iran but some strategists in Israel view this country as a real threat against Israel, an approach that is seen in Riyadh and some other Gulf countries. This atmosphere creates a level of understanding that Saudi Arabia, other Sunni countries, and even Turkey should move towards more cooperation with Israel to prevent Iran's development. Israel currently sees Iran everywhere; from the border with Syria, Hezbollah at the border with Lebanon, and support for Hamas. And such conditions are seen as a serious threat by Avigdor Lieberman, the new defense minister, or Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, which makes them inclined towards Sunni countries led by Saudi Arabia that could potentially become allies for Israel. However, many analysts, including Mr. Mekelberg, emphasize that achieving normal relations between Arabs and Israel is impossible without advancing the Arab peace proposal that was presented in 2002 by Saudi Arabia, which called for Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories including East Jerusalem and finding a just solution for the status of Palestinian refugees based on UN Resolution 194: 'I believe Israel is somewhat fooling itself if it thinks it can have a close relationship with Saudi Arabia without returning to the peace proposal with the Arabs in 2002, as that proposal was originally from the Saudis. However, with a real peace process that addresses all fundamental issues including refugees, Jerusalem, and the determination of the fate of lands, Israel's reward would be to be accepted in the greater Middle East, and we would witness a diplomatic, economic, and cultural relationship with Saudi Arabia and some other Sunni countries in the region.' Regardless of the depth of these efforts to improve relations between Israel and the Arabs and their outcome, there is little time left until the end of Barack Obama's administration in the U.S., and in any case, it will be the next U.S. government that will have to establish its relations with countries.