PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr.
Former Speaker of the House After some 17 months of negotiations, which at times were on the brink of collapse, the United States and Iran are reportedly close to striking a deal to revive the 2015 nuclear accord. We share the hopes of many in the global community that the Iran nuclear deal will finally be restored, as it will immediately help defuse tensions in the Middle East and help reduce the likelihood of a nuclear arms race in the region. Achieving a compromise, despite its imperfections, is better than no agreement. International observers pointed out that the likely alternatives – allowing Iran to become a nuclear country or going to war – are indeed certainly far more dangerous and costly. A war in the Middle East would certainly be catastrophic not just in the region but in the world as it provides more than 50 percent of the world’s petroleum supply, including the bulk of Philippine oil imports, in addition to the humanitarian crisis, among many other devastations, that wars bring about. We have pointed out in this column several times that the flashpoint of conflict between the US and Iran has been a continuing, ever-increasing anxiety in the Middle East and the international community, especially following then President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018. Succeeding events in the Persian Gulf since then have drawn Washington and Tehran closer to a direct military confrontation. Recall that in May 2018, Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal, which was reached between Iran and six world powers — the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany. Except for Germany, the five signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran are permanent members of the UN Security Council. The nuclear pact was a result of two years of intense, long-drawn-out negotiations aimed at curbing Iran’s capability to develop nuclear weapons, in exchange for lifting the crippling economic sanctions imposed on the Persian Gulf country. As part of the agreement, Iran agreed to reduce its uranium enrichment program in such a way that it could maintain the country’s energy needs but without the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. The international sanctions against the Persian Gulf country were lifted in 2016. However, two years later, in 2018, President Trump abandoned the multinational nuclear pact, saying that Iran did not fulfill its obligations under the agreement. He then imposed economic sanctions which have been unduly hurting the Iran economy and people. Indeed, the Vienna talks among the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, Iran, and the US is a diplomatic breakthrough and provides hopes for a renewed engagement between the American and Iranian peoples. The US-Iran engagement will not instantly put an end to the decades-long mistrust and hostility between the two countries, but it would at the very least be a major first step towards a settlement that hopefully would lead to an absence of constant tension and threat of war, and indeed towards a sustained peace, security and economic development in the Middle East. We are delighted that “geopolitical archenemies” Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in direct talks after many years of belligerent relations. The hostility between the two countries has also been a major concern in the tension-filled region and the global community. Cooperation between Tehran and Riyadh could help restore calm and stability in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates is reportedly set to revive top level diplomatic relations with Iran, which would also help build an atmosphere of trust, understanding, and cooperation in the region. Indeed, peace can be very elusive and overly difficult, but not impossible, to achieve.