Iran Hawks' Disingenuous Interest in a Treaty with Iran

Iran hawks are not serious when they propose making a treaty with Iran in lieu of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Joe Lieberman reminds us that he absolutely does not want any agreement with Iran:

Achieving an agreement with Iran that could get 67 votes in the Senate wouldn’t be easy, but it is worth the effort. It would restore the longtime bipartisan consensus in Washington about Iran that was broken during consideration of the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.

Iran hawks are not serious when they propose making a treaty with Iran in lieu of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). For one thing, they would oppose such a treaty under all circumstances, so they are setting up any negotiated agreement for failure. For another, previous presidents have withdrawn from treaties on the slightest pretexts, so nothing would be gained. Making an agreement into a treaty guarantees nothing about its durability. The “longtime bipartisan consensus” on Iran before the nuclear deal was reached had achieved nothing except to goad Iran into expanding its nuclear program. This failed approach is what Lieberman wants to bring back.

The Iranian government wants guarantees that the U.S. can’t provide because a large bloc of our politicians and policymakers are dead-set against reaching any lasting agreement with Iran on any issue. The nature of the agreement is irrelevant. They would fight against it tooth and nail whether it was presented as a treaty or as something else. Iran hawks resent the very idea of reaching a compromise that serves the interests of both states, because they assume that Iran should never receive any benefits in exchange for its concessions. This is not speculation. One need only look at how they respond to any hint of sanctions relief to understand that they believe that Iran should get nothing in return for its cooperation. The truth is that Iran hawks want Iran to be coerced into capitulation, and anything short of that will be considered unacceptable “appeasement.”

Lieberman is the chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a group that is supposedly dedicated to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. This is one of the most misleadingly named organizations in America. One would think that a group that was opposed to a “nuclear Iran” would welcome a nonproliferation agreement that kept Iran’s nuclear program peaceful, but there are hardly any groups that have been more determined to kill the JCPOA. They have railed against it for years and supported efforts to sabotage it. They now object strongly to salvaging it. Like other Iran hawks, UANI argues and operates in bad faith. They pretend to pursue the goal of keeping Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, but then they spend all their time trying to destroy the nonproliferation agreement that has made far more progress on that front than anything else. Lieberman’s happy-talk about bipartisanship and treaties is more of the same.

The open secret for most of the last decade is that Iran hawks don’t really care about Iran’s nuclear program, except to use it as a bludgeon and an excuse for demagoguery. The hawks that have issued the loudest warnings about the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran have been the most aggressive opponents of resolving the nuclear issue through diplomacy. Everything they have supported doing (sanctions, sabotage, assassinations) has pushed Iran to enrich uranium to ever-higher levels and build more centrifuges, and they have fiercely hated the one thing that rolled back Iran’s program. Now many of them want to threaten Iran with military action, as if more coercion would work when it has failed in the past.

The only way to get Iran to reverse the advances it has made in the last two years is to compromise and make good on promises of sanctions relief. Iran hawks are openly contemptuous of these requirements, and they have made it clear that as soon as a new Republican administration takes office the U.S. will once again renege on any promises made. They want to push Iran to build up its nuclear program, because this is how they hope to justify more aggressive action against Iran. If we are to avoid another unnecessary war, more proliferation, or both, it is imperative that they are defeated.