Why They Hate the Deal With Iran - Counterpunch July 15, 2015 (original) (raw)

In negotiating the deal with Iran, the Obama Administration is taking one step toward a change in posture toward Iran, forced of course by the fading U.S. power and failing military efforts in the Middle East. The key to U.S. policy until now has been unremitting effort to dislodge the Islamic regime, using military, economic and political leverage. The constant attention to Iran’s nuclear project has always been a diversion from the regime change goals, but it does have one element of urgency: were Iran to get a nuclear weapon, it would be a definitive deterrent against a military effort at regime change. So the agreement codifies that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon for the foreseeable future, and thus preserve the possibility regime change achieved through military action. But in exchange, the Obama administration has to give up the economic war, thus removing the immediate pressure on the regime. To make this pill easier to swallow, the economic detente will be utilized (by the Western powers) to re-integrate Iran into the global economy—i.e., opening it to global corporations. However, this increasing presence of global capitalism in Iran will also make less vulnerable to regime change, both because the government will be more resourceful and because any military attack would hurt the interest of the global corporations that the U.S. is so loyal to. So this agreement is a tentative step toward “reintegrating” Iran into the (U.S. dominated) “global economy.” If it does open Iran to Western investment, the agreement can be a non-military route to bring Iran back into the U.S. orbit, as it was under the Shah until 1979. Sounds like a good deal for the U.S.—using economic investment to achieve what military incursions and threats and economic boycotts have not achieved over the last forty years. So why the opposition? Well, in the case of Israel, this would constitute a shift away from U.S. reliance on Israel as the prime Ally in the regime, it would constitute a shift away from the military-primary policies that Israel is wedded to, and it would allow Iran to become an even more formidable opponent to Israeli influence in the region. And, at home, it would constitute a first, tentative step away from the military-first/military-primary/military-always foreign policy that the GOP and most Democrats have favored; and which that the U.S. government has pursued at least since the fall of the Soviet Union.