Foreign Policy resume o acordo sobre o programa nuclear iraniano: vai funcionar?

Esta é a pergunta que vale milhões, ou uma nova corrida nuclear na região.
Se os demais países acreditarem nesse acordo -- que ainda precisa passar pela aprovação, ou rejeição, do Congresso americano -- pode ser que se evite nova onda de proliferação.
Do contrário, as perspectivas são relativamente obscuras quanto às suas consequências...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The Deal is Done
By Paul McLeary and Adam Rawnsley
Foreign Policy Daily Report, July 14, 2015

It starts here. An agreement has been reached. After an intense 18 days of negotiation, six world powers and Iran finally managed to strike a historic deal Tuesday to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions. The agreement will prevent Iran from producing enough material for a nuclear weapon for at least a decade while giving the international community access to Iranian facilities, including military sites, to ensure compliance.

For Iran, the deal will give the country access to more than $100 billion in assets frozen overseas -- money that critics fear will be used to step up Tehran's support for its armed proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.

A key provision calls for the U.N. arms embargo on the country to stay in place for at least five more years, though it could end earlier if the International Atomic Energy Agency can certify that Iran has stopped all work on nuclear weapons. A U.N. restriction on the transfer of ballistic missile technology to Tehran is set to stay in place for up to eight more years.

FP’s Colum Lynch and Dan De Luce tackle the highly contentious arms embargo issue, writing that U.S. negotiators believe the embargo -- which prevents Iran from importing a range of military hardware, including warplanes and battle tanks -- “has done little to impede Iran’s ability to arm and equip its proxies throughout the region, including in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.”

On the other hand, the agreement mostly leaves in place the infrastructure that Tehran has built up at its main nuclear sites, though much of it will be taken apart and placed in storage. Iran will also be allowed to continue enriching smaller amounts of lower-grade uranium and plutonium.

Fallout. The administration will now start trying to sell the deal to skeptics on Capitol Hill and throughout the Middle East, where both Israel and Gulf powers like Saudi Arabia believe the agreement will eventually allow for Iran to attain a bomb.

The deal will likely set off a new round of weapons buys by Gulf countries who have eyed the Iran talks warily. FP recently reported on the potential Gulfie wish list: more expensive missile defense systems, more long-range radar units, and better command and control equipment to stitch the region’s various missile defense batteries into a networked whole.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- one of the biggest critics of the talks on the world stage -- said on Tuesday in Jerusalem that the deal was "a historic mistake for the world,” since “in every area where it was supposed to prevent Iran attaining nuclear arms capability, there were huge compromises.”

Netanyahu gave a high-profile speech on Capitol Hill lobbying against a potential deal earlier this year; now that one has been reached he and Israel's top diplomats are sure to do what they can to derail the deal or tighten its terms.

Speaking early Tuesday morning at the White House, President Barack Obama said that the deal “is not built on trust, it is built on verification,” while insisting that the U.S. would reinstate sanctions -- and potentially use force -- if Iran cheated and continued work towards a nuclear weapon. Obama also said he would veto any attempt by the Republican-controlled Congress to scuttle the agreement.