This is not partisanship: The Iran deal is not enough

I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat. I see issues outside of the orbit of partisanship. One of the greatest weaknesses of Washington is the thoughtless, selfish, knee-capping partisanship that permeates just about all of issues dealt with in this town.

My interests in Iran go back to 1978. My more serious work on Iran goes back to 1993. I have been teaching about nuclear energy technologies for a very long time.

{mosads}Recently I gave a talk on what I see as the potential effects of a deal and of the opening up of Iran for energy and other business. The effects on the oil markets could be significant. Iran has the third largest conventional oil reserves in the world. Natural gas markets could also be deeply affected via the further development of the massive natural gas reserves Iran has. It is listed as either the number one or number two natural gas reserves holder in the world, while jockeying for position with the Russians.  It has the massive South Pars field that is part of an even more massive field system that included the North Field of Qatar. How fast and how much the opening of Iran will have on energy markets will depend mainly on how fast and how the sanctions are taken off and about a thousand other aspects of oil, gas and other energy markets. Internal energy and business policies in Iran could also have great effects. Iran is hardly an investor’s paradise with a strong rule of law and minimal corruption.

However, the amounts of investment that could pour into Iran to capture the massive profits prize of oil and natural gas would likely completely nullify any “snap back” of sanctions.

A “snap back” would also prove to be likely impossible given the amounts of investments that will pour into Iran for electricity systems development, renewable energy systems, energy efficiency technologies, and hundreds, if not thousands of other energy related investments. There is also a lot of pent up investment demand for many other industries in Iran from agriculture to water to services to education and more. There will be a veritable gold rush of investors from all over the world competing to get in.

The Chinese have been there for some time. They are developing two major oil fields in Iran in spite of sanctions and are importing 60 percent of Iran’s oil exports. They have also been investing in transportation and other infrastructure in massive amounts even with the sanctions. The Chinese would want more. They are already in discussions to build a huge gas pipeline to Pakistan.

Once the money train starts the lobby trains follow and the power to keep from snapping back the sanctions could quite easily be overwhelmed. Iran is a very big prize in a world economy where such investments are quite rare.

Another aspect of this deal which is quite insufficient, albeit quite naïve, is the time limits on enrichment and the purchase of certain nuclear technologies. As soon as the time is over all doors are open again for Iran, including the use of more advanced centrifuges that are temporarily banned under this “agreement”. Iran allegedly would have to get rid of a lot of centrifuges under the “agreement”. These could quite quickly be built up again.

Also, the conversion of the Fordow facility to an atomic energy research facility is blatantly an absurd proposition in the short run. How long would it take the typical university to convert a facility to a research laboratory? The likely answer is: many years.

Iran’s “breakout time” is allegedly to be extended to one year from three to five months. Excuse me, but is that supposed to be comforting? There should be no time limits on this deal and the breakout time should be extended to forever, however that may be accomplished. Some of the terms of the “agreement” that are supposed to contain nuclear weapons developments are so vague in time and even in definition that many contrary interpretations could exist at the same time.

This is not even an agreement. Nobody signed off on this. There are many competing interpretations. This is a relatively simplistic “framework” for discussing an agreement. And this agreement is supposed to be complete by the end of June? It takes longer to merge two medium-sized companies and the documents needed for that would be in the hundreds, if not thousands, of pages.

The Iranians seem to think that all sanctions should be taken off immediately upon signing the final “agreement”. That is impossible given the legal complexities and politics in the US, the EU, the UN and many other places. There are also legal limits to what anyone can do without the Congress debating and acting upon changes. Some issues will go to the courts and this could drag out for a very long time. So what will the Iranians do while all of this is going on?

There are so many holes in this framework that it legally and diplomatically resembles Swiss cheese.

Now consider that the “agreement” does not include ballistic missiles, other weapons lift and carry capacity.  It does not consider the dangerous and threatening behavior of Iran in the region in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Eastern Saudi Arabia, Yemen and more. Taking the energy and other sanctions off without some concessions on these activities will effectively subsidize Iran’s bad behavior. Releasing sanctions will also release massive amounts of frozen funds in Asian banks. Hence, we allow another subsidy for bad behavior.

Incentives matter. Giving incentives for bad behavior will simply encourage it.

It is time to take a deep breath, get over our simplistic and selfish partisanship and think of the country and our people – and what is best for them. It is time for those who can contribute to a solution to the Iranian problem to work together effectively, close the gaps, work the interpretations and get us to a more peaceful and manageable situation.

Now that could be quite a refreshing effective and important change, would it not?

Sullivan is a professor of Economics at the National Defense University and adjunct professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. All opinions expressed are Professor Sullivan’s alone.