For Iran, nuclear deal is not at expense of regional concerns
The Geneva nuclear deal between Iran and the West can provide Iran the opportunity to address regional concerns with its neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia.
With the Geneva nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1, the ground for increased Iran-West cooperation for dealing with regional and global issues has been laid. But this development will not be at the expense of Iran’s increased regional relationships, which have been a fundamental priority of Iran’s foreign policy.
The prevailing view in the Arab world — especially among the conservative Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf, at the top of which is Saudi Arabia — is that a possible permanent nuclear deal with Iran is equivalent to increasing Iran-West, and especially Iran-US, relations at the expense of Arab countries’ interests.
But strengthening regionalism has been a constant in Iran’s foreign policy strategy for two reasons. The first is to decrease the role of outside power in regional affairs. The second is to withdraw from the traditional balance-of-power architecture and instead focus on a balance-of-interests strategy and regional cooperation.
From a realistic point of view, an increased foreign role — for example, the US role — in regional issues such as the Syrian or Afghanistan crises will minimize Iran’s role in its political-security backyard because the foreign actor seeks to impose its favorite political-security and economic trends in the state-building process in the post-conflict era. In doing so — and as experience shows — the foreign actor expands relations with friendly domestic factions and becomes a rival to regional countries, decreasing Iran’s role.
