No diplomatic deal to solve the Iranian nuclear standoff will be possible if it does not allow Tehran’s leadership to proclaim some measure of victory—most probably a recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium for civilian reactors. This creates a profound dilemma for the United States and other Western powers who deplore the Iranian regime’s repression of democracy and human rights.Anything that benefits the Iranian regime must be bad, right? Wrong. A nuclear deal that averts war (which would cause even greater human suffering in Iran) need not betray Iranian democrats nor preclude U.S. advocacy of their cause.
Ronald Reagan and other American presidents made arms control deals with the Soviet Union while still seeking an end to its totalitarian empire. So, too, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney could negotiate verifiable measures to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons without undermining Iranian human rights and democracy advocates.
The objective of negotiations is—as it was with the Soviets—to eliminate risks of nuclear proliferation and war in the wider Middle East. The United States and Iran can continue to denounce each other’s political systems, counter each other’s power projection in the region, and seek history’s vindication of the relative merits of each other’s cause, but within a framework that precludes terrorism and hot war.
Iranian democrats and human rights activists are long-suffering. After the United States and the United Kingdom overthrew nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, Iranians experienced three decades of repressive rule under the U.S.-backed Shah. The 1979 revolution brought early hope, but the forces of democracy and modernity were soon crushed by acolytes of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
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