We need a better Iran nuclear deal

The current pact is deeply flawed and a second one must tackle Tehran’s influence peddling in region

Since coming to power, United States President Donald Trump has made no secret that he considers the agreement reached between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union with the regime in Tehran, to be a “bad deal”. That deal took three years to negotiate and ties Tehran into commitments to ensure its nuclear programme would only be used for peaceful purposes, limiting its ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium, and ending crippling economic sanctions in return.

Certainly, President Trump is right in saying that it is a bad deal — it does lack safeguards and it fails to ensure Tehran won’t be able to continue its nuclear programme surreptitiously. It also falls short on the regime’s deliberate hegemony in spreading its sectarian agenda from the Bab Al Mandab to the Mediterranean, its arming and support for militia groups and its seditious activities in the Arabian Gulf.

The reality is that this bad deal is better than no deal. But it doesn’t have to be the only deal. And French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed a second, more comprehensive, all-embracing accord that would certainly plug the gaping holes in the original deal that make it so repugnant.

At the same time, as Tehran was negotiating the deal, it was also arming its militias and working on its armaments and ballistic missile programmes. Any new deal must focus on these aspects as well as ensuring the regime cannot work on a surreptitious or secret programme, with regular, unfettered, unconditional and unannounced inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency being a key element. Simply put, if Iran is committed to a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes, then it has nothing to hide, and these inspections should be welcomed as a matter of course — and confidence.

Any reworking or second deal must also tackle Iran’s continued involvement across this region, from its support of Al Houthi militias in Yemen; its funding and arming of Hezbollah in Lebanon; its assistance to the regime of President Bashar Al Assad in Syria; its manipulation of internal Iraqi affairs; and its deliberate spread of sedition in the Arabian Gulf.

Iran’s reaction to any revision in the nuclear pact has been to say that if the deal dies, then all bets are off and it will do as it pleases. That’s not encouraging. If anything, it shows that there is all the more need for a more comprehensive deal to rein Tehran in — once and for all.