Reading George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, better known to American HBO viewers as “Game of Thrones”, might possibly be much more entertaining, let alone easier, than navigating the 1,400-page thicket of David Prichard's The Encyclopaedia of Chess Variants, or reading Ferdinand Maack's writings on three-dimensional chess (aka Space Chess). But that is exactly the difference between two outlooks regarding the Iranian nuclear programme. The difference between Binyamin Netanyahu (who quoted from “Games of Thrones” early this month in a badly staged performance before the US Congress) on one side, and Barack Obama and Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on the other. While Netanyahu's desperate attempt signified his preoccupation with election tactics to attract voters from fellow right-wing competitors, Obama had to deal with hundreds of international and domestic variants, including the challenges of two giant international powers, Russia and China. As for Sayyed Khamenei, it's enough to say that while his foreign minister was solely negotiating with six foreign ministers of the P5+1 at once, Netanyahu was entertaining his Congress sympathisers with irrelevant tales from the Book of Esther. Iran is dangerous, he said. But only in the miniature Israeli world of “Game of Thrones” an imaginary world might Iran, whose GDP is about two per cent of that of the United States, possibly constitute a threat to the most powerful empire in history. In the real world, such a threat would not exist, even if Netanyahu inflated the numbers of Iran's centrifuges 32 times, contradicted and ignored his own government's intelligence assessments, and used the hitherto common imperial tactic of psycho-pathologising the enemy's leaders. On 29 March, Israel's Y-netnews reported: “Iran has tentatively agreed to limit centrifuges used to enrich uranium to 6,000 or even less.” Thus, applauding Netanyahu's magical number of “190,000” in the US Congress must seem foolish today. The “Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran's Nuclear Program”, published by the US State Department on 2 April 2015, following the announcement in Lausanne, confirms what Y-netnews reported. Al-Jazeera's earlier publication of leaked “spy cables” also revealed that Israel's Mossad contradicted Netanyahu on Iran's nuclear programme. True, Netanyahu's act might have won him additional seats in the Israeli elections. But both Obama and Khamenei seem to indicate they comprehended the lesson of Ferdinand Maack's three-dimensional space chess: in modern warfare, even a seasoned two-dimensional chessboard player will definitely fail to foresee aerial, ground and underwater attacks all at once. Both leaders knew that they are not facing a simple game of thrones, like that of the Netanyahu versus Lieberman Knesset game. They were playing multiple three-dimensional chess games and knew they had to win as many of them as the balance of power allows. Nonetheless, an Iranian nuclear bomb, one that belongs to the world of imagination, according to most experts, does not even constitute a threat to small Israel, let alone the US Empire. Why? Because a February 2015 released US document from a 1987 assessment of Israel's nuclear weapons capabilities by the US Pentagon states that Israel was experimenting with coding “which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs.” Yes, hydrogen bombs, described in the Pentagon's 386-page document as “a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.” That was the US assessment of Israel's programme 28 years ago. It is not surprising, therefore, that Obama is not fooled by Netanyahu's absurd account. He, like Netanyahu, knows it is not about the bomb. So, if it is not the bomb, what is it about? If you were deceived by Netanyahu's theatrics, try to read his speech carefully instead. You will find part of the answer. It is Iran's competitive regional status and rising power that concerns him the most, not the fantasy of an existential threat. In short, it is the regional balance of power, not the bomb. But, according to the speech, even dismantling Iran's civilian nuclear programme entirely does not satisfy Netanyahu's appetite. It's Iranian “policies”, “behaviour”, and the “state” that he wants eliminated. Nothing less than dismantling the Iranian regime by the US military will please Netanyahu. Once again, why? According to experts in Israel's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), the agreement is dangerous mainly because it might “widen the existing disputes between the Israeli government and the US administration.” Translation: Israel's influence is slightly declining, and Netanyahu's failed campaign against the negotiations is worrying. This is understandable since any US withdrawal from the Middle East might have significant ramifications for Israel's regional status. Israeli strategic experts argued at the most recent Herzliya Conference that the US is “the most important political and security asset that Israel has in the international sphere.” It is not the agreement. It is not the bomb. It is US priorities in a new world reality and implications on the regional balance of power. Do you remember Hillary Clinton's “America's Pacific Century”? “The future of politics will be decided in Asia not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the centre of the action,” wrote Clinton in Foreign Policy on 11 October 2011. Neither war nor more sanctions, but only a good deal with Iran fits very well into this grand scheme. The other two options are simply fruitless, if not counterproductive. We should unlearn everything we know from the experience of the past 30 years to assume that continuing with sanctions might simply work. As for the military options, experts agree that aerial bombardment will not achieve Israel's objectives. Land invasion, also, means we have to unlearn the Iraq experience. But opting for either of the two bad options means that the US must abandon its grand international scheme, abandon American interests and myopically ignore the world and region's new realities in favour of Netanyahu's fantasies. At the same time, the extension of negotiations, and later the agreement, simply meant that the US cannot afford to bear the implications of the two bad options. The agreement meant that neither Iran nor the US is interested in military confrontation and both have much to gain from an agreement. But since this deal will constitute a building block towards diplomatically resolving other regional conflicts involving Iran and the US, all sides have been negotiating with their eyes on the future. In the end, Iran received recognition as a regional power and a threshold nuclear force, while the US can now organise its retreat from the region. Thirty-six years after the Iranian Revolution, and despite sanctions and siege, the scene from Lausanne this month is very telling. Iran was negotiating with the major world powers (the P5+1), proof that Iran is undoubtedly a rising power to reckon with. It is proof that the resolution of any regional conflict must have Tehran's blessings. It is proof that a new regional order and a new world order are in the making. It is not the bomb. But Iranians can't be trusted, we are told. Right? If you, again, fell victim to Netanyahu's psychopathological tactics of casting Iranian leaders as people who cannot not be trusted, this is what the White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough wrote in a letter to Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee: “We anticipate that the Security Council would pass a resolution to register its support for any deal and increase its international legitimacy. A resolution would also increase the international pressure on Iran to live up to the deal and would expand the risks if they failed to do so.” Finally, if I were Netanyahu, I would watch less “Game of Thrones” and play more three-dimensional chess. As for theatre, I would stick with Shakespeare, and in Netanyahu's case, I would read, and reread, Macbeth. Maybe Netanyahu never foresaw the beginning of a post-American Middle East. But, once upon a time, as Shakespeare told us, the “Great Birnam Wood” did actually come to “Dunsinane Hill.” The writer is professor of sociology and international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
