In September, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel through the U.S.-facilitated Abraham Accords. Shortly after the Accords were signed, Sudan and Morocco formalized similar agreements with Israel. Thus far, these normalization agreements have created new opportunities for collaboration and prosperity, resulting in the creation of deals relating to financial services, joint investments, counter-terrorism cooperation, defense surveillance technologies, and more. The agreement has also sparked a movement of renewed international political cooperation between Arab nations and Israel and is considered a landmark effort to offset Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East. The Biden administration should take advantage of this newfound spirit of cooperation in the region to shape its foreign policy strategy on Iran and its destructive nuclear weapons program. Thus far, Biden has stated that he wants to reinstate the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal. However, this is not a solution that will generate long-term peace. Instead, the Biden administration should focus on fostering cooperation around nuclear energy, helping to sow the seeds for long-term stability in the region, offsetting Iran’s growing prowess.
When outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, in May 2018, it sparked significant backlash from domestic and international allies. However, most recently, Biden’s national security adviser confirmed that returning to the deal would be a priority for the administration. While the Iran nuclear deal was considered a historic agreement on paper, in practice, it failed to hold Iran accountable and curb its aggressive tendencies.
For decades, bipartisan nonproliferation policy in the United States has interpreted the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as stating that parties to the treaty can pursue the peaceful use of nuclear energy. However, parties cannot utilize enrichment and reprocessing technologies, as they pave the way to developing nuclear weapons. However, the 2015 deal represented a divergence from this interpretation, as it permitted Iran to enrich uranium, demonstrating a major concession made by the United States. The agreement further stirred tension among U.S. allies, many of whom did not have similar enrichment permissions.
The success of the deal hinged on Iran, honoring its political commitments. The JCPOA itself did not include legally binding provisions that prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons. As a result, Iran continued to develop its nuclear weapons program covertly while claiming to comply with the deal. Given Iran’s history of disregarding its political and legal commitments (see its secret nuclear sites, its violation of the legally binding safeguards agreement as examples), experts predicted that such an outcome should be expected. Once the United States pulled out of the deal in 2018, these expectations became a reality. Tehran returned to its pre-deal enrichment activity levels, even Heiko Mass, spokeswoman for Germany’s Foreign Minister, shared that Iran had routinely been violating the 2015 agreement.
Evidently, the Iran nuclear deal also did nothing to combat Iran’s ballistic missile program or its ongoing support for its proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. As a result, the deal was an ineffective attempt to address Iran’s multifaceted geopolitical aggression.
As the incoming Biden administration considers how to craft its Iran strategy, it should steer clear of reinstating the Iran deal and focus instead on fostering a four-way nuclear energy cooperation agreement with Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. While many have expressed their concerns that both the UAE and Saudi Arabia might be developing nuclear weapons themselves, both nations have also demonstrated interest in civilian nuclear energy technologies. Collaboration around nuclear energy is a new and untapped area of international cooperation. Today, more than 30 countries have established peaceful civilian nuclear energy programs without enrichment or processing technologies and have agreed to buy their nuclear fuel through proliferation-proof supplier agreements.
By creating a four-way nuclear cooperation agreement, the Biden administration could help prevent a domino effect of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, and in the process, could also address some critical issues including nuclear safety and security, emergency preparedness and joint exercises, IAEA monitoring and verification, and radiological terrorism and hazardous materials proliferation. Such an agreement could also help establish nuclear safeguards that all Gulf players would be required to meet to guarantee the peaceful use of nuclear power, ensuring that such dialogues are not dominated by concessions to Iran. A four-way deal would also counter the notion that Israel is the primary threat to security in the Middle East, demonstrating that Iran poses the biggest threat to regional stability. Ultimately, this could also encourage other Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel going forward.
In January, the President-elect Joe Biden will have a unique opportunity to promote nuclear security and nonproliferation across the Middle East. Biden and his team should take advantage of the renewed cooperation that the Abraham Accords, and subsequent agreements, have instigated to initiate a new era of safe, sustainable, and peaceful civilian nuclear energy cooperation.
