L’opinion de la gauche indienne sur l’accord nucléaire iranien
Lifting the Siege on Iran | Economic and Political Weekly
▻http://www.epw.in/commentary/lifting-siege-iran.html
n 2003, Bush assumed that the US military force would tilt the balance of forces in west Asia towards the US. Things unravelled very quickly. The Arab Spring, which has a much longer history of internal struggles in the various Arab countries, is nonetheless drawn from considerable popular anger against the undemocratic regimes that collaborated with the West. By the time Obama came to office in 2009, US power in the region had declined considerably – its inability to force the issue in Syria is not just a mark of the complexity of geopolitics but also of the weakened state of US influence. US allies in west Asia – Saudi Arabia and Israel – are of course more prone to create instability in the region than to bring peace. If anything it is Iran that will be able to manage some of the deep crises in the region. Out of weakness – political and economic – come the P5+1 to the table in Geneva. The bluster had worn off. The language of ultimatums and military force seemed anachronistic. The Iranians cleverly have Zarif, the former UN ambassador, as their foreign minister – and he brought his long-term memory of previous attempts to the table as well as his genial demeanour. It was hard to caricature Zarif as the scowling mullah, not with Zarif and his boss, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani conducting clever Twitter diplomacy for the world’s press. The advantage was always with Iran.
A brief wrinkle came on the scene when France scuttled the first meeting with last-minute demands for the closure of some of the Iranian reactors. These were not serious objections, because Iran had already suspended work at its Arak reactor and it had abandoned its project to build more centrifuges as part of a process to build confidence for the Geneva meeting. When it was pointed out that Iran had already conceded on these points, France nonetheless objected and the meeting had to be put off for a week. France’s President Francois Hollande went off on a tour of Israel where he pledged to hold the line against a deal and called for Palestinians to forgo their right to return to their land. But France’s effort on Israel’s behalf failed. The deal went through with the other European powers outflanking a tendency for France to revive its old colonial ambitions (bombing raids in Ivory Coast, Libya and Mali seem to whet this appetite).
Saudi Arabia’s sulk did not last long. Its Gulf Arab allies – Kuwait, Qatar and Oman (which had hosted the secret Iran-US talks) – came out for the agreement. The Kingdom had to follow saying, “If there is goodwill, this agreement could represent a preliminary step toward a comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear program”. This is indeed an interim agreement. Six months from now the powers will meet again. But they will not be able to roll back Iran’s civilian nuclear programme. Even Israel recognises that. Netanyahu told his Likud Party members that this accord “must bring about one outcome: the dismantling of Iran’s military nuclear capability”. The addition of the word “military” is crucial. It means that Israel accepts Iran’s civilian nuclear programme – something that Tel Aviv had adamantly resisted.