Rare News Desk
Many of my fellow conservatives are deeply skeptical of the Iran talks, which will come to a head next week. This skepticism is understandable: Iran has repeatedly been caught with its hand in the atomic cookie jar, with covert uranium-enrichment facilities discovered in 2002 and 2009.
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The broader U.S. relationship with Iran has been bad—Iran has ties to extremist militias throughout its neighborhood and is a threat to many of our allies. Iran’s authoritarian regime sticks in our craws, too—it regularly takes a break from repressing Iran’s ancient, diverse and highly educated civilization to denounce the United States or call for the end of Israel.
The temptation to write off any deal with such nasties is strong.
But conservatives are, in the words of the great conservative philosopher Russell Kirk, “guided by their principle of prudence.” Conservative leaders have a history of striking deeply pragmatic deals with some of our most committed international foes. Richard Nixon found ways to cooperate with Mao’s China—a government far more radical and far more ruthless than today’s Iran. Nixon’s trip was a savvy move—it worried the Soviet Union, which signed two major nuclear compromises with the United States within three months of Nixon’s return. Gerald Ford continued Nixon’s diplomacy with the Chinese and broader talks with the Soviets. And even as he was being attacked as a war-hungry cowboy by the American left, even as he kept nuclear missiles in Europe that ratcheted up tensions with the Soviets, Ronald Reagan was mulling a U.S.-Soviet agreement to get rid of all nuclear weapons within just ten years. That fell apart, but Reagan’s deputy George H.W. Bush would follow up on negotiations Reagan had started, signing the START I deal that dramatically reduced American and Russian nuclear arsenals.
These men weren’t cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Their willingness to negotiate didn’t mean they’d make just any concession in order to seal an agreement: they were unyielding where it counted. Thus, for example, Dwight Eisenhower was aggressively standing up to Communist moves around the world even as he ended the Korean War and proposed a forerunner of today’s Open Skies deal with Russia. Thus Reagan continued to denounce the evils of Communism.
They made the deals they did because compromise served U.S. national interests. Their actions reduced the risk of war, realigned global geopolitics in America’s favor, saved the taxpayer money, and helped stabilize the world economy. An agreement with Iran represents another opportunity for prudent action in service of American interests. Here’s why:
1. It will contain the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program. Critics of a potential deal have argued that it leaves Iran a path to the bomb, and that we must continue to take a confrontational approach to Iran until that path is closed. Yet Iran already has a path to the bomb, and it has advanced on that path even as we confronted them. In 2007, just after the United Nations had begun applying sanctions, Iran had fewer than two thousand centrifuges, operating at limited efficiency in one facility. Today, it has just under twenty thousand, operating at greater efficiency in multiple facilities, with advanced new centrifuge designs being tested and deployed. The Iranians have made it clear that they won’t make a deal that closes down the centrifuges. If we pass up a deal now, there’s a real danger we’ll be negotiating in a few years against an even higher centrifuge count.
2. It will prevent, or at least delay, an Iranian bomb, and increase the price Iran will pay if it seeks one. Pausing the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, coupled with a strong inspection regime, will make Iran’s path to the bomb harder. That’s what’s in the deal shaping up in Vienna this week. If Iran does intend to build a nuclear weapon—which still isn’t certain, according to the U.S. Intelligence Community—it will either have to wait or defy the world, creating a major crisis and risking war. Both sides have already agreed that any deal will be temporary—likely in the eight-to-ten-year range. The risks of pursuing a nuclear weapon will remain—and some will be heightened by the improved inspection regime.
3. It will prevent a return to crisis and get us off the path to war. Before the talks began in earnest, there had been several occasions when the drums had been sounding in the deep—including as recently as 2012. Because Iran sits atop the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 30 percent of the world’s maritime oil trade must pass, tensions drive up oil prices and put a damper on the global economy. War would do that, and more—former Reagan administration official Geoffrey Kemp and I wrote a book last year that argued a war would create a real danger of a renewed global recession and hurt our relations with key allies. Worse still, an attack wouldn’t destroy Iran’s new nuclear know-how. They could rebuild. War won’t solve our Iran problem.
4. It makes strategic sense: With the Middle East in chaos and tension building in both Eastern Europe and East Asia, a conflict with a regional power like Iran wouldn’t just be costly—it would draw American energy and resources away from our larger, more important challengers. They’d have a freer hand, and they might take advantage of our weakness. That’s a recipe for miscalculation and conflict. On the other side of this coin, a deal with Iran would free us to pay more attention to the areas that really matter. You can’t pivot to Asia with confidence when you keep getting sucked back into the Middle East.
5. The negotiations are appropriately limited: We’ve been careful, despite a few hiccups from the Obama administration, to keep the talks on target. They’re about fixing the nuclear issue and nothing else. We aren’t abandoning our efforts to counter Iranian support for terrorism or to improve the human rights of Iran’s people. We aren’t recognizing Iran’s suzerainty over Iraq and Syria. Limits like these made the talks possible—both Iran and the United States disagree about far too much to reach some grand bargain while also navigating the technical complexities and political third rails of the nuclear issue. These limits are also wise. It’s hardly clear that America and Iran can overcome their differences, realign their foreign policies, and become partners. But that doesn’t mean we can’t reduce tensions in some areas. A deal builds a little trust and opens lines of communication. Those are useful, even between enemies—no, especially between enemies—as they can help prevent misinterpretations and mutually unintended escalations.
6. The deal will build trust, but it’s not built on trust. Ronald Reagan’s slogan in negotiations with the Soviet Union was an old Russian proverb: “Trust, but verify.” Verification, not trust, will be at the core of any good deal with Iran. Iran has already agreed that the final deal will include its implementation of an “Additional Protocol” agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will allow the agency to make more extensive inspections that can ensure that Iran isn’t hiding anything.
No nuclear deal will be perfect, and it would certainly be preferable for Iran to have no centrifuges and to come clean about all its past nuclear activities. But conservatives have always taken special pride in their emphasis on what is possible, not what is ideal. We do not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
Conservative presidents from Eisenhower to the elder Bush made prudence the lodestar of their foreign policies. An Iran deal is in their tradition: a practical, restrained compromise that conservatives can embrace.
