The Latest on Non-Nefarious Iranian Behavior

Paul R. Pillar

Iran, Middle East

One of the arguments recited most frequently by those wanting to keep Iran ostracized in perpetuity—so frequently that it has achieved the status of cliché—has been that the partial sanctions relief provided for in the agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program would lead to increased “nefarious” and “destabilizing” behavior by Iran in the Middle East because it would have more financial resources for such activity. (The public discourse about Iran is surely responsible for one of the biggest increases in usage of the adjective nefarious.) It is easy to see why those determined to defeat the agreement came to rely so heavily on this argument (while ignoring the fact that the sanctions to be relieved were always intended to help induce Iranian concessions on nuclear matters, which they did). Much of the other rhetoric that the anti-agreement forces voiced, about centrifuges and uranium stockpiles and breakout times and the like, concerned subjects on which it was clear, upon even the most casual reflection, that the agreement was superior to the alternative of not having the agreement. So opponents clung tenaciously to the notion of sanctions relief not only making bad behavior more financially feasible but also automatically leading to such behavior. Still hoping either to sabotage the agreement or at least to limit any rapprochement with Iran, the opponents continue to cling to that argument.