The lifting of sanctions against Iran last weekend, alongside an exchange of US and Iranian prisoners, shows that “concerted international action and dogged diplomacy” can work, says David Gardner in the Financial Times. It also brings Iran, seen by many as a rogue nation since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, “in from the cold”.
It is to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for an end to sanctions and the unfreezing of around $100bn in Iranian assets, paving the way for growth. It reconnects a “potentially vibrant” economy with world markets and could provide a “brighter future” for a large, progressive, internationally minded young population.
But Iran has a “long road to travel” to “win acceptance” inside the Middle East, where it has “forged a Shi’a axis from Baghdad to Beirut”, and where Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Arab power, is “unremittingly hostile to” its re-emergence, which “it believes can only come at its expense”.
Saudi officials fear the deal will boost Iran’s “subversive” regional activities, creating a potent economic rival, agrees The Jerusalem Post. Iran is a fellow oil producer in “an era of oversupply and low prices” and it also has a more self-reliant and multi-skilled economy. Sanctions allowed Saudi’s GDP to overtake Iran’s. That may now reverse. The Saudis also feel betrayed by America and see President Obama as “pusillanimous” in the face of what they consider Iranian aggression.
Other Gulf states and Israel worry too, says Josef Federman in The Washington Post. They fear that Iran will now increase its efforts to dominate the region by supporting anti-Israel militant groups (the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas), the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. “Restive” Shi’ite populations in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province and neighbouring Bahrain provide “further openings” for Iran, says Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal.
There is much to “detest” about Saudi Arabia, but it would be a “very bad idea” to abandon America’s 71-year alliance now. Indeed, says Kim Ghattas on ForeignPolicy.com. “A never-ending debate over which country is worse isn’t going to help steady the region. The fact is that Obama is losing an ally in Riyadh, but has yet to find a friend in Tehran.”
True, agrees Nicholas Burns in The New York Times. Despite the “clear benefits” of this deal in terms of security, Iran “remains a powerful adversary” of America in nearly all of the Middle Eastern conflicts. One problem is that America is really dealing with two Iranian governments. The deal was brokered with US-educated Javad Zarif, backed by Iran’s reformist president, Hassan Rouhani.
But real power still lies with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a “recluse” who is “supremely distrustful” of America and closer to the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Corps’ influence has been visible in Iran’s recent testing of ballistic missiles in breach of UN Security Council resolutions. The Corps is behind continued support for the Houthi rebels, Hezbollah and Bashar al-Assad. And it is the Guard Corps that “may be tempted to cheat on Iran’s nuclear obligations”. America “must continue to balance engagement with deterrence”.