Politics in Practice

Insights from our authors

Dennis Jett on The Iran Nuclear Deal

Dennis Jett is a Professor and founding faculty member at the School of International Affairs at Pennsylvania State University, USA. A former career diplomat, he served 28 years in the State Department in a wide range of positions including as Ambassador to Peru and Mozambique and on the National Security Council. He is the author of four books published by Palgrave Macmillan: The Iran Nuclear Deal, Why Peacekeeping Fails, Why American Foreign Policy Fails, and American Ambassadors.

The Iran nuclear deal took two years to negotiate and ran to over 31,000 words when it was finally completed. The debate over it in the United States was as long as it was heated and the conclusion of the agreement did not end the arguing.

Congress, anticipating a Democrat continuing in the White House, required the president to certify every 90 days that Iran was complying with the deal. President Trump, who had called it the worse deal ever, refused to do so in October claiming Iran was not living up to the spirit of the agreement. He then tossed the problem to Congress to take any further action.

The Republicans in Congress and the White House are now engaged in a game that allows them to criticize the deal while, at the same time, they attempt to avoid taking responsibility for killing it. Two things have become clear from this history.

The first is that the other five countries (Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) are not going to follow American leadership on this issue. They are moving ahead with commercial ties with Iran and are fully satisfied that it is complying with the deal. Given the erratic nature of American foreign policy today, their reluctance to be passive followers of the United States is understandable. With the State Department being dismantled, the Pentagon’s growing budget and government by Tweets, America has left both its friends and enemies unsure and fearful given its potential for the unpredictable.

 The second point that should be clear is that negotiations are not an exercise in humiliation and subjugation. Those who say all that needs to be done is to go back to the bargaining table and obtain an agreement that meets every American demand are either secretly longing for another war or have no clue as to what is involved and what is possible.

 There are three possible outcomes for the attempts to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. The North Korean model, where the offending country is ignored until it develops nuclear weapons. That leaves the threats that are currently being made against it either hollow or the prelude to a war with unthinkable consequence.

There is the Iraq model, where military action is taken against a country with no nuclear weapons. That invasion did not go well and Iran has three times the population and four times the land area of Iraq.

And then there is the third model, which is the Iranian one, at least up until this point. That is the one where an agreement is negotiated that is acceptable to both sides and respected by both sides. Anyone who says there is some magic scenario where the United States gets all that the hawks want and gives nothing in return are dangerously out of touch with reality. And yet they still may prevail.

Dennis Jett

Stay informed

  • e-Newsletter

    Receive e-alerts about new books and journal launches, events & offers

    Note to the studio editor

    Actions from the studio need to be interpreted by the displaying application and only certain ids are interpreted. When you see this text the id you entered is not mapped to the context where it is currently used in.

    Current ID: nba-subscription

    The following ids are possible as standalone widgets:

    mixed-products-recommended-short

    Shows a list of recommended books and journals with covers only.

    books-recommended

    Shows a list of recommended books (either given by ISBN, recommended via Baynote or the latest of the discipline). The viewtype can be default (covers, information, price) or carousel (cover, title).

    baynotePageType (string)
    Name of baynote page type for filtering.
    disciplineResourceKey (string)
    Suffix of the resource key that contains the headline for the page on e.g. the facet search page. Maintained in 'Frontend.ProductSearchPage@section.resultlist.facet.'.
    discipline (string)
    Name of the main discipline as given in the CMA channel name (EAST view).
    discipline (string_list)
    List of subjectcodes.
    isbns (string)
    List of isbns separated by comma.
    isbns (string_list)
    List of isbns.
    random (boolean)
    If checked the list is randomized.
    size (int)
    Number of products to show. If missing the default is 18.Isbn-based lists ignore the size.
    textbook (boolean)
    Defines whether the list contains textbooks
    checked
    Only textbooks are shown
    unchecked
    Only non-textbooks are shown
    missing
    Textbooks and non-textbooks are shown
    hideDynamicLink (boolean)
    If checked no link is built to the facet search.
    latest (boolean)
    Shows a list of matching products from the product index (not Baynote) with newest products first.
    imprint (string_list)
    Shows a list of matching products from the product index which match the imprints.
    language (string)
    Used for language as a filter in baynote recommendations
    productCategoriesOnly (string_list)
    List of product categories required in book recommendations
    productCategoriesExclude (string_list)
    List of product categories to be excluded in book recommendations
    seriesIDs (string_list)
    List of Series ids required in book recommendations

    journals-recommended

    Shows a list of recommended journals (manually maintained) with covers and title.

    journalNumbers (string)
    List of journal numbers separated by comma.
    random (boolean)
    If checked the list is randomized.

    series-recommended

    Shows a list of recommended bookseries (manually maintained) with covers and title.

    orderNumbers (string)
    List of order/series numbers separated by comma.
    random (boolean)
    If checked the list is randomized.

    disciplines-short

    Shows a list of disciplines without title.

    careers

    Shows a list of jobs open for different locations

    shop-usp-text

    Shows list of three USPs

    shop-advantages

    Shows list of advantages

    shop-trustpilot

    Shows three columns of trust pilot

    shop-disciplines

    Show a list of disciplines links

    show-books-newest

    Show a list of newest books

    shop-books-recommended

    Show a list of recommended books

    article-approval

    Author query article approval

    nba-subscription

    A widget that allows a user to subscribe to the NBA by entering his email address

    daily-deal

    Shows the daily deal in homepage design.

    The following ids are possible in the context of a Wizard-Collection:

    instructor-registration-setup-account

    Shows a registration form with instructor address information.

    instructor-registration-instructor-data

    Shows a registration form with instructor data information.

    instructor-registration-confirmation

    Shows a welcome message to the new instructor.