Analyze the situation and propose a strategy to try and avoid not only an international conflict but also a fracture between the european union and USA.
The United States of America entered into a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2015 and this exercise garnered international attention and was praised as well as criticized from a large number of countries. The United States of America had previously imposed economic sanctions against Iran on the allegations that Iran was secretly developing Weapons of Mass Destruction. When that allegation was refuted due to the unavailability of factual evidence, the United States of America decided to enter into a civil nuclear deal to facilitate the Iranian authorities to develop the Nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only. This essay involves the escalation of conflict among the countries, which had arisen due to the increase in tensions among the countries, which were shaken due to the US-Iran Nuclear deal. The essay also presents a critical analysis of the whole event and presents solutions to save the situation from escalating further. The situation can be resolved if the countries involved in the conflict engage in humanitarian causes and start building confidence building measures so as to increase the prospects of engaging the tensed country into a dialogue process and calm down the situation. The essay highlights the different tumultuous relationship, which the countries have with each other and how one country’s relationship with one country affects the relationship with the other countries. This essay is used to analyse the already strained relations which exist in the middle east and how the US-Iran nuclear deal presents a different alternative to these strained relationships which exist in the middle east.
Iran, officially referred to as the Islamic Republic of Iran, does not possess the nuclear weapons and has denied any claims whatsoever of having ever possessed any Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Iran has signed a number of treaties and has constantly denied any report of possessing the weapons of mass destruction, which covers the Biological Weapons Convention, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Iran has been a victim of the impact of Weapons of Mass Destruction when in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, about 100,000 Iranian soldiers and common citizens were afflicted by the weapons of mass destruction (Roos). The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supported by the other clerics had issued a common religious decree, commonly known as Fatwa, to denounce the usage, production and stockpiling of the use of nuclear weapons. Iran has repeatedly stated the fact that the nuclear program which involves the enrichment of uranium is for the peaceful purposes only. It therefore, remains significant as to how the other players in the region reacted to this development made by Iran (Guzansky). Reports based on the projects and information gathered by the Intelligence agencies such as the CIA, suggested that Iran was indeed pursuing research which could enable her to develop nuclear weapons, but surprisingly Iran was not attempting to anything of that sort.
The senior leadership of all the American intelligence agencies confirmed the fact that Iran was showing no signs of developing her nuclear arsenal and there was no evidence whatsoever to validate the point that Iran is actually developing nuclear weapons. The whole process of limiting Iran’s nuclear program started in 2005 when the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors again documented the need to highlight the former Iranian policy of concealment regarding her enrichment programs (Morag). The documentation brought to the limelight the fact that there was serious discrepancies in the uranium enrichment policies of Iran which proved that Iran had indeed violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty Agreements. The fallout of this discovery was that Iran was summoned by the United Nations Security Council in 2006 and the UN Security Council decided to impose sanctions against Iran as a measure of reprimanding Iran for her violation of the NPT agreement. Even more stricter sanctions were imposed in 2007, when Iran refused to stop the enrichment program of Uranium. The representatives of Iran to the United Nations stated that the sanctions were an injustice to Iran and were deterring her designated rights as the member of the Non-proliferation Treaty to gain access to peaceful nuclear technology. In 2005, the United States Intelligence agencies gave a prediction that Iran might have all the ingredients which are necessary for the development of nuclear weapons by 2015. Similarly, the United States declared the Revolutionary Guards as the accumulator of weapons of mass destruction and designated the Quds Force as a sympathizer of terrorism. The response from Iran was strong and pointed towards the United States of America. Iran alleged that the United States herself is the producer of weapons of mass destruction and has no right to levy charges against other nations.
After years of hostility and animosity regarding the abrupt imposition of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the breakthrough arrived in 2015, when Iran conformed to a list of agreements in its nuclear program set by the permanent members of the United Nations along with Germany, more commonly known as the P5+1 (Duncombe). The decision to adhere to the norms set by the P5+1 came as a welcome judgment after long periods of stress and turmoil over the alleged development of weapons of mass destruction by Iran. Iran stated that the nuclear program and the purpose of enriching uranium is solely for peaceful purposes and that the entire nuclear program will be peaceful, which was not initially accepted by the International community. The Iran-US nuclear deal limited Iran from pursuing any sort of sensitive nuclear activities and Iran had to conform to allow the international inspectors to inspect the activities in the nuclear plants of Iran. In return, the P5+1 countries decided to lift the sanctions imposed on Iran. The nuclear deal which was signed between the President of the United States of America Barack Obama and the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
The Iran-US nuclear deal was signed on July 2015 and the deal was signed between Iran and the P5+1 countries, namely, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, France and Russia. Under this agreement, Tehran conformed to limit her ambitious nuclear program as a form of barter to uplift the economic sanctions imposed against Iran (Geranmayeh). The economic sanctions were said to be lifted for ateast 10 to 15 years. The US congressional deadlines are given the task to review the need for Washington to assess whether the sanctions should be suspended or continued. All this depends on the changes in the tumultuous relationships which Iran has with the United States of America.
The relationship of Iran and the United States of America depends on a number of factors, such as the relationship USA enjoys with the Israel and the relationship USA has with the Saudi Arab (Wolf). All these factors play an important role in juxtaposing the Iran-USA nuclear deal. The Israeli lobby plays an important role in deciding the outcome of the Iran-USA relationship as this lobby has a significant presence in the White House and this lobby exerts significant pressure on the administrative and legal advisors of the President of the United States of America. The leadership of the United States of America is dependent on the support of the Israeli and the Saudi Arabian alliances so any treaties which pose a threat to these alliances will pose a great problem for the United States of America to tackle with (Iqbal). These situations force the United States of America to rethink about her relationship with the Iranian authorities. The change in the leadership of the United States of America has somewhat made the situation worse for the Iranian authorities as the present leadership in the United States of America holds a very skeptical view of Iran and the Iranian leadership in particular.
The European Union has somewhat hold a mixed reaction to the US-Iran nuclear deal with the leaders of the major economies of Europe such as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Emmanuel Macron of France have been supportive of the US-Iran nuclear deal but at the same time have been cautious in their approach. The leadership of Europe insisted that the nuclear deal between the United States of America and Iran must be scrutinized in the strictest of terms possible (Kroenig). The evaluation of the treaty must be done from time to time and any discrepancy found in the agreement must result in the imposition of stricter sanctions against the Iranian authorities and leadership. The authorities in Iran have the duty to make sure that no nuclear enrichment program goes on which goes into the other non-civilian aspects of nuclear weapon designing and manufacturing. These activities will sever the already doubtful relationship between Iran and the United States of America (Gordon).
The European Union has been supportive of Iran’s right to have access to a civilian nuclear deal. Even with the United States of America being extremely skeptical of the activities of Iran due to the Israeli pressure groups, the European Union countries have been supportive of the US-Iran nuclear deal. Israel has been the most vocal critic of the US-Iran nuclear deal with Israel alleging that her intelligence agencies, the MOSSAD, has gained access to a large amount of Iranian documents which lay testimony to the act that Iran has deceitfully gained access to the US-Iran nuclear deal and has lied throughout to the international community. The main allegations by Israel include that Iran, even has continued to develop and increase her production of the nuclear weapons infrastructure for future uses.
The Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu alleged that the Iranian leadership, even after signing the nuclear deal in 2015, had kept on developing the nuclear missile technology in order to develop more weapons of mass destruction as well as efficiently hide those documents and files which will showcase Iran’s secret missile developing regime and policy. The change in leadership in the United States of America raised the hopes in the Israeli Leadership Think-tank with the Israeli President Benjamin Natanyahu stating that the new President of the United States of America Donald Trump will do all the right things in order to review and reassess the Iran nuclear deal (Shirvanu and Vukovi?). Tehran has dismissed the allegations by Israel stating that the only purpose of these allegations was to influence the review of the sanctions imposed by the United States of America and to influence the United States of America to pull out of holding any deal or treaty with the Iranian authorities. The Iranian authorities have questioned the demands, which have been made to change the structure and content of the nuclear deal, and the main argument of the Iranian authorities is to assess the treaty in a fair and just manner and without holding any biases whatsoever.
The situation is tense in the Middle East and the positioning of the different world powers in the already tensed situation in the Middle East makes the present situation even more complex and difficult to figure out a solution. There appears to be a rift in the assessment of the situation between the United States of America and the European Union. The European Union seems to be more neutral and unbiased in its formulation of policies regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America on the other hand is heavily influenced by the opinion of her allies. The juxtaposition of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and the Arab-Iran rivalry makes the present US-Iran deal even more difficult to come to reality. The present situation entails a huge responsibility upon the United Nations, more so, over the P5+1 countries because they have to make sure that the conflict in interest between the tensed relations of the countries involved does not escalate into a major conflict between these countries. The United States has to make sure that for the greater good of the interest of the world, the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran must be respected and acknowledged (Korn).
The trust deficit, which exists between the countries in the Middle East, can only be overcome by humanitarian efforts and engaging these countries in dialogue process. The escalation of conflict and holding suspicion towards other countries will only make the situation worse than the present situation. In order to solve the problem from aggravating further, the United States of America along the other members of the P5+1 must make sure that the trust building process among the countries which are engaged in conflict with each other must be encouraged and held more often.
The nuclear deal between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran must be scrutinized by a neutral body and assessed as to whether the Iranian authorities are adhering to the guidelines, which has been imposed upon them to abide by (Katzman et al.). The guidelines and framework of the nuclear deal must be strictly abided by botht the Iranian authorities as well as the United States of America. Hurling abuses and allegations against the Iranian authorizes will only aggravate the already tensed situation. There must be a mechanism to evaluate the process of assessing the Nuclear Deal in a transparent manner and this must be for both the sides. Iran must not exploit the nuclear resources and develop the nuclear weapons and the United States of America must not impose economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran in an unjust manner. There must be a governing body to check the actions of all the stakeholders involved.
From the above analysis, it can be deduced that the already strained relationship among the member countries in the Middle East can only be improved by the encouragement of confidence building measures. In order to start confidence building measure and to fill the trust deficit, which exists among the nations in the Middle East, it is extremely important for the nations in the middle east to engage with each other in dialogue and resolve any issue which arises amongst them. The easing of the issues can only solve the strained relationships and in order to address the conflicts, the big nations such as the United Nations along with the other member countries of the P5+1 must view the whole situation of the middle east in an unbiased perspective rather than taking sides of their allies and supporters. The nations of the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran must make sure that both sides are willing to trust each other as well as help each other in making the deal, which exists among them a long lasting one. The United Nations has an added responsibility to make sure that the issues and conflicts are resolved peacefully and there is no escalation of any conflict in the long run. The United States and the Iran Nuclear deal can bring a lot of countries closer if it is followed in the right principle by the acknowledging countries. There must be a scrutinizing body to assess the working of the US-Iran nuclear deal and this body must make an unbiased analysis of the working procedure between the two countries.
References
Duncombe, Constance. “Representation, recognition and foreign policy in the Iran–US relationship.” European Journal of International Relations 22.3 (2016): 622-645.
Geranmayeh, Ellie. “Towards and Beyond a Final Nuclear Deal with Iran.” The International Spectator 50.2 (2015): 1-7.
Gordon, Philip. “A Vision of Trump at War: How the President Could Stumble into Conflict.” Foreign Aff. 96 (2017): 10.
Guzansky, Yoel. “The Saudi nuclear genie is out.” The Washington Quarterly 38.1 (2015): 93-106.
Iqbal, Khalid. “Regional Implications of Iran Nuclear Deal.” Defence Journal 19.1 (2015): 10.
Katzman, Kenneth, Paul K. Kerr, and Mary Beth Dunham Nikitin. Iran: Interim Nuclear Agreement and Talks on a Comprehensive Accord. Congressional Research Service, 2015.
Korn, Adam B. “Expanding the Executive Branch’s Foreign Relations Power: An Analysis of the Iran Nuclear Agreement.” Suffolk UL Rev. 50 (2017): 157.
Kroenig, Matthew. “The Case for Trump’s Foreign Policy: The Right People, the Right Positions.” Foreign Aff. 96 (2017): 30.
Morag, Nadav. “The Strategic Impact of an Iranian Nuclear Weapons Capability on Israel.” Nuclear Threats and Security Challenges. Springer, Dordrecht, 2015. 135-145.
Roos, Bas. Mulitimedia in digital diplomacy: A case study of the Iran nuclear deal and the ttip. BS thesis. 2017.
Shirvani, Tara, and Siniša Vukovi?. “After the Iran Nuclear Deal: Europe’s Pain and Gain.” The Washington Quarterly 38.3 (2015): 79-92.
Wolf, Albert B. “After the Iran deal: Competing visions for Israel’s nuclear posture.” Comparative Strategy 35.2 (2016): 124-130.
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