The Obama Agreement

Reaching the “2015 agreement” took years of negotiations, and during that period the Iranian regime managed to secure gains by exploiting a deep-seated aversion by Barack Obama toward Gulf countries, as well as his drive and insistence on containing the nuclear program. The agreement was born amid American turning a blind eye to Iran’s expansion of its regional influence, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. Compared to these gains, the nuclear concessions (enrichment conditions and monitoring) appeared painless.

This time, Donald Trump pre-empted any potential agreement through two wars during which a large part of Iran’s nuclear facilities and other military capabilities were destroyed. It has therefore become natural to expect Tehran to be more realistic and to acknowledge that its nuclear ambitions have cost it greatly and may cost it even more if it insists on pursuing them.

Previously, Obama bet that his agreement (without war) would allow “moderates” to rise to the forefront of the Iranian system, but the effects of the deal did not unfold as he had expected. Now Trump believes that the “rational actors” are in power and that he is negotiating with them, but he overlooked the fact that they have imposed on him a timeline that suits their interests, and he failed to acknowledge that they exploited his involvement in the “Strait of Hormuz trap” and imposed their conditions, knowing that Trump wanted to “end the war” even if he had the capability to continue it.

JD Vance was among the American officials involved in carefully managed leaks promoting the “agreement,” especially as he was known for being the least enthusiastic about war. Vance stated that the “agreement” included an Iranian commitment to “not support terrorist groups,” referring to Iran’s regional proxies that participated in the war alongside it, whether by launching missiles and drones from Iraq against Gulf countries, or by igniting a war that caused the devastation of much of southern Lebanon. However, after the text of the “agreement” was published, it became clear that it imposed no requirements on Tehran regarding its proxies.

After the 2015 agreement, and before any new deal, Iran-backed militias had taken their destructive role to such an extent that many began to regard them as the real “nuclear bomb” produced by Iran. This raised a dual question: why, in that case, does Tehran (despite its denials) still seek nuclear weapons, and what could it do if it actually obtained them?

The answer lay at the core of political discourse, explicitly rather than implicitly. There was no doubt that the Islamic Republic aspired to revive the Shah’s legacy and go beyond it, and it wanted that weapon to dominate and intimidate the Gulf region and control the Arab world more broadly.

The prevailing view now is that the “memorandum of understanding” rehabilitates the regime to exercise that dominance. This is its strategic objective, as described by both junior and senior figures of the “Axis of Resistance,” who consider American influence to be the only obstacle to achieving it.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar