The outline of an agreement to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons is being hailed as the defining diplomatic achievement of the Obama administration, and indeed such a deal would be an accomplishment in nonproliferation. But it isn’t likely to have a huge impact on the security situation in the Middle East, where the current, dangerous dynamic is driven by non-state actors. And it doesn’t mean the American intelligence community can sleep easily; even if Iran doesn’t have the bomb, nuclear Pakistan and North Korea will keep US strategists up at night.
Meanwhile, the White House’s real opportunity to forge an international consensus worth taking credit for is falling by the wayside. It involves the fate of the country’s economic strength, an issue far less dramatic-sounding than the threat of nuclear annihilation, but no less important to the future of American security.
After all, the might of the United States doesn’t come from its world-spanning military, although that helps—it comes from the economic power that, among other things, allows US defense spending to outstrip the next 10 military powers combined. Even then, Iran didn’t come to the negotiating table because it feared US military strikes. It came because the US had implemented a global economic sanctions regime that crippled Iran’s economy; the prospect that a nuclear deal would mean an easing of the sanctions had Iranian youth dancing in the street.
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