Anxious Allies: The Iran Nuclear Framework in its Regional Context
The framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear program achieved by the U.S.-led P5+1 international coalition in many ways goes further, and is significantly more detailed, than most observers had considered possible.
The framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear program achieved by the U.S.-led P5+1 international coalition in many ways goes further, and is significantly more detailed, than most observers had considered possible. However, even as it opens up additional possibilities regarding diplomacy with Iran and the potential for a long-term solution to the question of its nuclear agenda, it leaves significant questions unanswered and raises new concerns that must be urgently addressed. In particular, questions likely to arise in Congress and elsewhere about the specifics of the framework, and perhaps even more significantly among traditional U.S. allies in the Middle East regarding the overall context of the agreement, will have to be effectively answered.
When regional actors or great powers ask these days what determines the success or failure of their strategies in the region, they are increasingly discovering that developments in Syria heavily shape the outcome.
The Trump administration has positioned the United States at a crossroads between a new regime of containment against Iran or a historic drawdown of U.S. influence in the Gulf and broader Middle East.
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi urged President Trump not to attack Iran, but now that the war is into its second month, leaving the current situation in place would be an unthinkable fiasco for them.
Though they were unsuccessful in preventing the current conflict, and, as expected, have been dragged into the U.S.-Israeli confrontation with Iran, Gulf Arab countries remain crucial to hopes for limiting the war and bringing it to a quick resolution.
After decades of tolerating Hezbollah’s warmaking independence, the current crisis has compelled Lebanese leaders to ban its military activities; this project will do much to determine the reach Iran can maintain in the Arab world.
