Obama’s Iran Deal Breaks From Past By Carol E. Lee
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-iran-deal-breaks-from-past-1436868053
President Barack Obama has effectively shredded the foreign-policy playbook that had guided the U.S. on the world stage for decades.
WASHINGTON—With the signing of a historic agreement over Iran’s nuclear program, President Barack Obama has effectively shredded the foreign-policy playbook that had guided the U.S. on the world stage for decades.
Now comes another hard part.
He must turn to selling the deal to a skeptical Congress, and to managing relationships in a volatile Middle East, where the notion of an emboldened Iran has rattled longtime U.S. allies, particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Some of the core milestones for the implementation of the agreement, sealed in Vienna on Tuesday, will overlap with the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, the one that will choose Mr. Obama’s successor, ensnaring them in an unpredictable political dynamic. And after more than three decades of hostility and mistrust between the U.S. and Iran, American officials are uncertain how compliant Tehran will be over the deal’s time frame.
That means the true test of Mr. Obama’s foreign-policy doctrine of engaging American adversaries, outlined in his earliest days as a presidential candidate, won’t be complete until long after he’s left the White House.
The deal faces political headwinds in Congress, where criticism crosses party lines. Lawmakers have 60 days to review and vote on whether to approve it. Mr. Obama has vowed to veto any rejection of the deal. But the White House is concerned lawmakers could amass a veto-proof majority and is mounting an aggressive campaign to thwart such an outcome.
As part of the final deal, lawmakers will also be asked to lift congressional sanctions on Iran. Some of the toughest punishments against Iran were imposed by Congress.
Mr. Obama first promised to engage Iran as president eight years ago this month, when he was a long shot candidate challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. On July 23, 2007, Mr. Obama was asked in a debate if he would meet with the leaders of nations hostile to the U.S., such as Iran and Syria, which the George W. Bush administration had refused to do.
“I would,” he said. “The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them—which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration—is ridiculous.”
Mrs. Clinton, who later became Mr. Obama’s first secretary of state and is now campaigning to succeed him in the White House, called his position “naive.”
In office, Mr. Obama not only kicked off talks with Iran but also ended the U.S.’s isolation of Cuba, upending decades of settled policy.
The White House is moving to blunt criticism from U.S. allies in the Middle East. Israel in particular carries significant sway over American lawmakers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has railed against an Iran deal, and the White House has struggled to counter his influence.
The administration in May promised a host of new security and military guarantees to members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council to mitigate their concerns and reduce the prospect of an arms race in the Middle East.
The financial windfall Iran is set to receive in coming months under the terms of the deal, largely from the easing of sanctions, is a top concern for American allies in the region, who fear Tehran will use the money to fund sectarian conflicts. The White House risks intensifying their anxieties with talk of a broader rapprochement with Iran.
Mr. Obama is planning to pivot from the Iran talks to focusing more heavily on finding a resolution to the civil war in Syria. Administration officials are also exploring ways to possibly engage Iran on other conflicts in the region, including in Iraq and Yemen.
Perhaps most concerning to critics of the deal is the White House’s hope that Iran’s leadership will soften while the deal is in place, a calculus that top administration officials used to only express privately, but increasingly articulate in public.
“There is an Iranian populace that clearly wants to move in a different direction,” Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, said recently at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
“In a world of a deal, there is a greater possibility that you will see Iran evolve in a direction in which they’re more engaged with the international community and less dependent upon the types of activities that they’ve been engaged in.”
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