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Iran Isn’t Going to Be the Regional Hegemon

Opposing the nuclear deal does nothing to rein in Iranian activities in the region.
iran map

Justin Logan thoroughly refutes hawkish alarmist claims about impending Iranian regional hegemony as a result of the nuclear deal:

Iran is a weak regional power that regularly defies U.S. prerogatives and complicates U.S. defense plans for the Middle East. It engages in terrorism and other initiatives that kill and destroy, but fail to produce control over its neighbors. Iran would be similar in any likely version of the future. Far from being a regional hegemon or dominating the Middle East, Iran is a nuisance [bold mine-DL]. Great powers, to say nothing of the self-styled “home of the brave,” should not convince themselves that nuisances somehow constitute peers.

Logan makes a number of excellent points in this article. First, he explains why Iran doesn’t come close to being a regional hegemon, noting that it doesn’t and won’t have either the economic nor military might to exercise that degree of dominance over its neighbors. It cannot project power effectively, and its military is outclassed by its nearest rivals. He goes on to show that Iran isn’t dominating other capitals in the region. Iran has at most varying degrees of influence through its allies and proxies, and this, too, has been exaggerated.

Logan also counters familiar claims about the “windfall” that Iran will receive from sanctions relief:

First, Iran will not be given $100 billion as a consequence of the nuclear agreement. As Treasury Secretary Jack Lew noted in congressional testimony in July, the figure is closer to $50 billion. The Iranian estimate is $29 billion. Moreover, this is not “frozen” money, but rather Iranian oil revenue that has been held in foreign banks and useable for purchases from the countries holding the funds. Iran has not spent all this money because it could not purchase enough Chinese (or Indian, or Turkish) products that it needed. Also, as sanctions scholar Sam Cutler has observed, it bears mentioning that this money would likely become available if U.S. negotiators walked away from the deal, as hawks suggest, because the foreign countries holding the funds probably would stop complying with the extraterritorial provisions of U.S. law that limited the funds’ use in the first place [bold mine-DL].

He drives home the point that even if Iran received the $100 billion amount and used all of it for military purposes it would still be incapable of coming close to dominating the region. That is because Iran would continue to be outspent by many of its neighbors:

But even if Iran directed all of this money toward its military, it would still be dwarfed by other regional players and their allies.

The reality is that Iran will not have nearly as many additional resources as Iran hawks claim, it is unlikely to devote all of those resources to its proxies, and even if it did that wouldn’t have the substantial impact that they say it will. More to the point, opposing the deal does nothing to rein in Iranian activities in the region, but if the deal were wrecked Iran’s nuclear program would be under far fewer constraints.

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