CHANCE THAT MUSTN’T BE MISSED

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/chance-that-mustnt-be-missed.html

Tuesday, 14 April 2015 | Abhijit Iyer-Mitra | 

The Iran nuclear deal is a wonderful opportunity for India. It’s an occassion for Iran to be revisionist. Importantly, it bogs the jihadi problem down in Iran’s own backyard and severely tests the limits of Pakistan-Saudi Arabia security guarantees

The Iran nuclear deal is a wonderful opportunity for India. However, the real test will be whether the deal follows through (or even has the ability to follow through) on the opportunities that are presented. Far from being a stabilising factor, the deal gives Iran the licence to destabilise the region significantly. It is this instability, though potentially economically damaging to India, which can be geopolitically beneficial for India. While North Korea and Pakistan had to nuclearise themselves in order to exploit the sub-conventional space and to change the status quo, the Iran nuclear deal gives Tehran this space without ever having weaponised. Why is it so?

At the top of this argument is the Russian opposition to snapback sanctions. There are two layers to these sanctions — one imposed by the UN that have less bite and one set imposed by the US and the EU that are crippling. The US and the EU can snapback sanctions at will, but should the UN sanctions be lifted? Re-imposing them becomes an onerous task, one that Russia will leverage heavily to its advantage in situations like Ukraine — which is what it wants.