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The Nuclear Deal and the “Windfall” Distraction

The same hawks that are sounding the alarm about the "windfall" Iran will receive consistently exaggerate its ambitions and regional influence.

This Daily Beast report repeats the alarmist warnings about the “windfall” Iran will use to fund its proxies in the region:

A nuclear agreement with Iran could give Tehran a $100 billion financial windfall—a sum that even the Obama administration is concerned could be used to finance terrorism against American interests.

There’s not much evidence in the article (or anywhere else) that the administration thinks that this is how Iran will use most of the funds it will have access to as a result of sanctions relief. The more important point is that the assumption that this will be Iran’s priority in how it makes use of these funds is not very well-founded. Alireza Nader explains:

Nevertheless, much of the economic boost from sanctions relief is likely to be consumed internally by the Rouhani government, the political-economic elite, and to some extent the Iranian people.

Iran’s economic difficulties have been significantly worsened by sanctions, so it seems reasonable to assume that the priority of the government would be to address its considerable domestic needs first before using more of its resources to support its allies and proxies. That would be the self-interested thing for the regime to do. That doesn’t rule out the possibility that Iran could use some of these funds to pursue its goals in the region, but it needs to be stressed that this would also likely be true if there were no deal and international support for sanctions weakens and eventually disappears. There is no realistic option that sustains international support for Iran sanctions forever, so either the P5+1 accept a trade-off as part of a deal or they will end up with waning support for sanctions and a nuclear program under far fewer constraints. It’s worth noting here that many of the same Iran hawks that are sounding the alarm about the “windfall” Iran will receive consistently exaggerate Iran’s ambitions and regional influence, so it is not surprising that they would also exaggerate the boost that sanctions relief would give to both.

Ali Gharib points out the absurdity of this line of attack from Iran hawks:

And therein lies the problem: any nuclear deal with Iran would give it a windfall. The whole point of the dual tracks of pressure and diplomacy is to say to Iran, “We will allow you back into business if you allow us to know with great certainty that you won’t build a bomb.” Critics who argue about the dangers of Iran’s windfall are being disingenuous: the ends they say they want can come either from regime change or total capitulation, neither of which will come quickly enough as a result of sanctions to halt Iran’s nuclear progress before it is on the doorstep of a bomb. It’s difficult to see how, under any realistically plausible scenario, these critics of negotiations want a “better deal” rather than no deal at all.

Iran hawks have latched on to the “windfall” from sanctions relief as one of their main objections because most of them don’t want to express their loathing for diplomacy and the compromise it requires too openly. By exaggerating the amount of money that Iran will be able to use for its foreign policy, they probably hope to distract attention from the fact that they are insisting on impossible conditions that could never lead to an agreement.

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