Iranian nuclear deal raises questions about what follows

Dec. 9, 2013
While signing a tentative agreement to moderate nuclear development hardly makes Iran a beacon of geopolitical goodwill, speculation is hard to resist.

While signing a tentative agreement to moderate nuclear development hardly makes Iran a beacon of geopolitical goodwill, speculation is hard to resist.

What if the Islamic Republic not only ditched whatever plans it has harbored to build nuclear weapons but also made friends with former detractors? Possibilities abound.

Already, the slight warm-up with Western powers essential to a late-November nuclear deal has chilled countries within striking range of Iran.

With good reason, official Saudi Arabia feels betrayed by its erstwhile American protector. So, more outspokenly, does official Israel.

The former needs US support in its rivalry with Iran over regional influence. The latter needs US support in its defense against explicit threats from Tehran.

Both countries loath the prospect of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Both must wonder what the US meant by leading the six-country group that traded partial relief from economic sanctions for a partial nuclear slowdown.

The highly conditional agreement represents a diplomatic breakthrough but no more than a first step toward permanent retreat from the nuclear-weapons program that the West alleges and Iran denies.

Saudi Arabia, its Persian Gulf allies, and Israel prudently suspect the worst of the Iranian regime. They assume new President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have made an agreement they won't honor in return for relief from sanctions eroding the revolutionary regime.

But what if those assumptions are wrong? What if, because of the deal, Iran regained its economic footing and came to prefer prosperity to international conflict? What if it surprised everyone by not only keeping its nuclear promises but also ceasing to foment Shia unrest abroad?

Who'd be willing to change then: Sunni monarchies sustained by strategic disbursement of oil money and various shades of oppression? A fractious Israel necessarily obsessed by self-defense? A US losing credibility for a variety of reasons but still needing friends in the region?

These questions are hypothetical. Still, any deal between Iran and the West makes them worth prompt attention.