Among the many flaws of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran were the expiration dates placed on various provisions. On October of next year, the deal dictates, the conventional-arms embargo—imposed on Tehran by the UN over a decade ago—will be lifted. Eli Lake, calling this clause “one of the worst mistakes” made in the negotiations, points to its dangers:
The concession wasn’t to Iran so much as to China and Russia, two great-power rivals that participated in the nuclear negotiations. In the 1990s, China and Russia sold Iran a variety of weapons systems, which the Iranians then reverse-engineered. By this time next year, America’s two most potent geopolitical rivals will have a green light to sell advanced missiles to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
It would be bad enough if Iran kept those weapons for itself. But if past is prelude, there is a good chance Iran’s numerous proxies in the Middle East will benefit as well.
Last week, in little-noticed testimony before the Senate Foreign-Relations Committee, the U.S. special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, shared information from newly declassified U.S. intelligence assessments. Since mid-2017, he said, Iran has “expanded its ballistic-missile activities to partners across the region.” That includes Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups and, as of mid-2018, Shiite militias in Iraq.
Taken together, this information underscores not only the need to extend the United Nations arms embargo, but also the limits of the current U.S. strategy of “maximum pressure.” While crippling sanctions on Iran have made it much harder for groups such as Hizballah and Shiite militias to pay salaries, they have not put a dent in Iran’s broader quest to arm those proxies with weapons capable of hitting U.S. allies.
Source » mosaicmagazine