U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tameem bin Hamad Al Thani while hosting the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at Camp David in Maryland May 14, 2015. From left are Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Oman Deputy Prime Minister Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud Al Said, the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Obama, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tameem bin Hamad Al Thani, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Almost every presidential candidate has weighed in on the Iran nuclear deal reached earlier this month, including Donald Trump. Democratic front-runner Hilary Clinton cautiously welcomed the deal and noted it will “put a lid” on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. She warned Tehran’s destabilizing activities and threat to Israel still require a stringent response, noting that her posture as president would be “Don’t trust, and verify.” Republican candidates have uniformly rejected the agreement. They have been somewhat divided, however, on the best way to undo the damage: rip it up on inauguration day or take a more deliberate process to revise the deal. Regardless, if the nuclear agreement is still in place by January 2017, the next president will confront a host of strategic issues set off by the deal’s implementation.
Here are five questions that any credible presidential candidate should have clear answers to:
1. How should the United States best guarantee Israel’s security and survival after the nuclear deal?
After eight strained years, the next president will have a better relationship with Jerusalem practically by default. However, more substantive steps need to be taken to reassure Israel in this post-deal Middle East. Lebanese Hezbollah and other Iranian partners and proxies will likely be flush with new rockets, missiles, and other military capabilities that in the coming decade could overwhelm Israel’s defensive systems, including the Iron Dome. A future commander-in-chief will have to consider: what does the United States need to do to strengthen Israeli deterrence and capabilities against Iran’s ballistic missiles, whose accuracy will almost certainly improve? Should the United States ensure that Israel retains viable military and covert options against Iran’s nuclear program? Does Israel have a credible cyber deterrent against Iran?
2. Should the United States become a partner with Iran in the Middle East?
The nuclear agreement has led some to conclude that we should partner with Iran to resolve conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and some also talk of restoring diplomatic relations. ISIS may be a short-term common threat, but Iran’s efforts to rebuild Iraq and Syria may prove hostile to our interests. The Iranian-backed proxies and militias are unreliable and insufficient to defeat ISIS, and their behavior will fuel greater sectarianism and polarization. Senior US policymakers have called them a “grave concern.” There may be some very practical activities—limited in scope—that Washington could undertake with Tehran to target certain Sunni extremists. However, this cooperation might clash with Iran’s long-term efforts to push the United States out of the Middle East. It might clash as well with as its history of supporting groups such as Hezbollah that directly threaten Israel, our Arab allies, and our own security. How will the future president determine if Iranian behavior has really shifted? Will the next president put conditions on broader collaboration or cooperation with Iran?
3. What should the United States do to support our Gulf allies after the deal?
The Gulf States have publicly backed the agreement, but privately express serious reservations. The core of their concerns are not whether the deal will prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but whether the United States is pulling back from confronting the destabilizing Iranian activities which directly threaten their interests and security. Gulf leaders doubt President Obama will fulfill the rhetorical promises made at the May Camp David Summit to bolster their respective militaries significantly. They fear that the nuclear deal is a harbinger of a longer-term shift in American policy towards embracing Iran as a key strategic partner. Kerry’s argument that Arab states are well secured—on defense spending alone, they already spend vastly greater sums than Iran on their defenses—does not pass muster when the greatest challenge comes from Iran’s relatively cheap asymmetric capabilities, support for proxy forces, and their extensive covert activities. How does the next president plan to reassure Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and other Gulf capitols against pursuing risky security operations to resist growing Iranian influence? Will the next administration work to convince Gulf states that pursuing their own nuclear weapons capabilities isn’t the best path forward to securing their security? If so, how?
4. How will you prevent Iran from threatening global energy security?
While the United States has made great strides on the path to energy security, the Middle East is still a core global supplier of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG). The disruption of such a flow of energy through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz would greatly impact global energy prices both at home and abroad. Iran has heavily invested in military capabilities—such as anti-ship cruise missiles, submarines, mines, unmanned aerial vehicles, and swarming armed speedboats—specifically tailored to target US naval vulnerabilities and to control the Strait if necessary. The lifting of the Iran’s conventional arms embargo five years into the nuclear deal could allow Tehran to acquire advanced missile guidance systems and over-the-horizon radars that could severely limit the ability of US forces to operate near Iranian territory. Thus far, the United States has been one of the prime enforcers of free trade and naval security in the region. How will the next president square the threat of Iran’s increasing conventional capabilities with free US action in the region? Can the United States remain the guarantor of freedom of navigation in the changing regional environment? Is more international cooperation the answer? Can Iran have a role??
5. How will you confront Iran’s growing ability to support terrorism?
President Rouhani may proudly announce that Iran is the center of stability in the region and leading the fight against extremism, but Tehran remains the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. The Islamic Republic’s so-called Resistance Network of proxies, partners, and terrorist groups—including Lebanese Hezbollah and variety of Shia militia groups—are on the front lines fighting ISIS in Iraq and opposition forces in Syria. The network is also Tehran’s primary means of threatening Israel, our Arab allies, and US interests worldwide. The nuclear deal will mean a large influx of much-needed resources for Iran and its proxy forces in Iraq and Syria, but will also allow for a significant expansion of activities in the Middle East and around the world. How will Washington contain and roll back the Iranian network? How can we best enable our allies to fight back against Iranian clandestine activities in the region? Will the United States work to restore the sanctions, lifted under the nuclear agreement, on many of the leaders of the Resistance Network?
The next US president will face a Middle East transformed by the fight against ISIS, failing states, and the nuclear deal. In the midst of an increasingly polarized debate in Washington over the potential for change in the regime’s behavior, the future US president must be willing to see honestly the Islamic Republic for what is and what it is trying to do. How the new president responds to this challenge goes to the heart of America’s commitment to regional and global leadership.
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