Not an Unclear Deal
By Dr Mohammad Taqi
Florida

The framework of a deal agreed last week between Iran and the US, UK, Russia, China, and Germany — the P5+1 — seems to have considerably stabilized Iran’s geopolitical stock if not sent it sky-rocketing. Just days prior, the conflict in Yemen between the Zaydis and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh on one side and the Saudis, ousted president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the southern tribes on the other, was being framed as yet another Iran-Saudi proxy war. The deal agreed between Iran and the P5+1 in Lausanne, Switzerland seems to have changed the narrative about just not the present Yemen conflict but also how an Iran eventually unshackled from crippling UN, US and EU economic sanctions could actually be restored as a legitimate counterweight to the unbridled power play by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan may just be the bellwether of Iran’s restoration to its rightful place as a regional powerhouse. Among the regional powers Turkey was the first one to have sided with the Kingdom in the latter’s aggression into Yemen. Just last week Erdogan had thundered, “Tehran’s bid for domination of the region could no longer be tolerated” and is also said to have alleged that “Iran is pushing out the Islamic State in Iraq with the aim to replace it itself.” Erdogan ended up not only eating his words and keeping his prescheduled itinerary to Tehran last week but also had an audience with Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei while there and then signed a slew of bilateral agreements that would increase the trade volume between the two countries to $ 30 billion. Not that Turkey abandoned its claim to leadership in west Asia overnight or quit the Kingdom’s coalition abruptly but Erdogan’s much more tamed call issued in Tehran that “Turkey and Iran should act together to stop bloodshed” in Yemen, in tandem with his request to Iran to reduce the prices of the natural gas it exports to Turkey, reflects a quick recognition of the emerging realities in the Middle East.

Iran’s proven oil reserves are estimated at about 158 billion barrels, which is higher than the Kuwaiti and the US reserves put together. While Iran is ranked fourth in oil reserves — Venezuela leads the pack — the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) lists its proven gas reserves at 34 trillion cubic meters, which is a smidgeon above that of Saudi Arabia and Qatar combined, and trails only Russia. Turkey has tried to position itself as the energy transit hub for Europe with the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) project but with Russo-Ukrainian rifts it is bound to fall back on Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan to keep both the TANAP project and its focal position buoyed. The prospect of Iran potentially opening the gas spigots to Turkey and onwards to Europe is way too significant to ignore.

While several questions still loom over the Iran nuclear deal, most importantly about the lifting of sanctions, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is the pace and not the act of rescinding the embargo that is moot. Once the embargo is lifted, oil and gas exports will be the first to resume, Iran’s battered infrastructure notwithstanding. India, China, Turkey, the EU and most likely the US have an interest in not just Iran’s energy resources but also its sizeable consumer market — the largest in the Middle East — and that country’s need to revamp its beat up infrastructure.

With President Barack Obama coming out swinging in defense of the framework agreement within hours of its announcement, it is more than likely that the July 1 deadline for the actual agreement will be met. President Obama has been at his acerbic best in rubbishing the Republican opposition to the proposed agreement. He just cut to size the Republican hopeful for the 2016 presidential elections, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who had pledged to scrap the deal on day one if he is elected to the high office, saying: “It would be a foolish approach to take and, you know, perhaps Mr Walker, after he has taken some time to bone up on foreign policy, will feel the same way.” President Obama has said that he is certain that the next US president would not renege on the US’s obligations under an international agreement with Iran that is also guaranteed by the four other members of the UN Security Council and Germany. The US president has overridden Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s exaggerated apprehensions not because he is not concerned about Israel but, firstly, due to profound understanding that despite all its bluster Iran does not consider the Jewish state an existential threat and, secondly, the inspection regime and access guaranteed makes it nearly foolproof. Mr Obama’s firm position and better part of two years left in his term are certainly not lost on leaders like Tayyip Erdogan and above all Saudi Arabia, which has meekly acquiesced as well.

At the time of this writing, the Pakistani parliament was still debating whether to commit forces to the Yemen conflict while Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is scheduled to arrive in Islamabad. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif’s decision to defer the issue of involvement in Yemen on behalf of the Saudis is certainly commendable no matter what parliament, the executive and military’s ultimate decision might be. By not painting itself into the Saudi corner off the bat, the Pakistani leadership has allowed itself some room to capitalize on the economic and energy windfall of the Iran nuclear deal. Pakistan had cited an international embargo as the reason not to build its part of the Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline, which would have brought much cheaper gas compared to the LNG that it is currently importing. The lifting of sanctions on Iran would open up another opportunity for Pakistan to revisit at least the Iran-Pakistan portion of the pipeline. In fact, since Iran proclaims no direct involvement in Yemen, even a decision to come out on the side of the Kingdom in the current conflict should not deter Pakistan from diversifying its energy sources. There may be some uncertainties about the implementation of the P5+1-Iran nuclear framework agreement but what is not unclear is that it is here to stay and the region will have to adjust to take full economic advantage of it.

(The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki)