Any negotiation with Iran that bypasses its "project" in its entirety is futile, and will yield no tangible results for the future security of the region, its stability, or the safety of its waterways.
The Iranian project is what stands between Tehran and the security of the Arab states. Attempting to restrain Iran's conduct through any single instrument of that project is a piecemeal approach that distorts the assessment of the real danger the project poses. It amounts to a perpetual deferral of the problem, as has been the practice for decades.
Confining weapons to the hands of the state in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen should be a priority on a par with the nuclear file. Without both, the project will not come to an end. It is the established practice of negotiating each of these files separately that sustains and protects it.
The nuclear file, the proxies file, and the file of missile and drone threats are all instruments of the project. Negotiating any one of them in isolation, or negotiating them piecemeal, drains the process of its substance and keeps Iran's sword hanging over the region. This serves the Iranian project, whose foundations were laid on the first day of Khomeini's rule and enshrined in the constitution under the banner of "exporting the revolution and supporting the oppressed."
Iran's entire armament, the establishment of the Revolutionary Guard, its proxies, and the nuclear file alongside them were all designed to serve and advance this project. Yet all parties have been drawn into the trap Tehran set: the separation of the files and their distribution across distinct negotiations, while Iran has ensured that they are never consolidated and negotiated together.
A case in point is the nuclear agreement the United States concluded with Iran under President Obama in 2015. Tehran then concentrated on financing terrorist groups, including the Houthis, Hezbollah, and the Iraqi factions loyal to it, with funds released by the American administration in return for Iran's acceptance of reduced and slowed enrichment for a number of years and the return of inspectors.
The agreement served the project: the project endured, and its other instruments were reinforced, in exchange for slowing only one of them. Iran is pursuing the same course today. It is negotiating the opening of the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a ceasefire and may yet sacrifice one of its instruments so that the project and its remaining instruments stay beyond the reach of negotiation.
There is a fundamental difference between negotiating with Iran to improve its conduct in each of these files separately and negotiating an end to its project.
Any party negotiating with Iran must keep the whole picture in view. Nothing will change if Iran improves its conduct with respect to one instrument of the project while strengthening the others.
The restoration of the national state, with weapons confined to its hands, in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen is no less grave a file than the nuclear one, and no less grave than the persisting intent to use missiles and drones against the infrastructure of Arab states. All fall under a single Iranian heading: "the Iranian project."
