US should drop its 'state of emergency' regarding Iran
Ever since US President Jimmy Carter declared a "state of emergency" concerning Iran, it's been renewed by his successors on a quasi-routine basis, but now the geopolitical situation — most important, US-Iranian nuclear negotiations — calls for it to end.
In 1979, in response to the hostage crisis, US President Jimmy Carter declared a "state of emergency" concerning Iran. Every November since then, US presidents have routinely renewed the declaration that Iran constitutes an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security. Beside its political perks, maintaining the "state of emergency" allows presidents to impose sanctions and regulate trade with Iran.
However, the decision to renew the declaration against Iran every year seems to be a purely political decision rather than one based on a concrete and objective security assessment. In fact, when Tehran protested the renewal of the state of emergency by President Barack Obama last year following the thaw between the two countries and the historical breakthrough agreement between Iran and the P5+1 in Geneva, the White House simply responded, "This is a routine renewal of the policy" — one that must be renewed "to prevent it from expiring." In other words, Washington preferred not to adapt its Iran policy to new realities.
As we approach the Nov. 24 deadline for the nuclear talks, and as the Islamic State (IS) rampages through Iraqi and Syrian cities, maintaining the same routine by renewing the state of emergency against Iran could have much more disastrous consequences than before — for a few reasons:
First, since the annual renewal of the declaration would inevitably coincide with the decisive last round of nuclear negotiations, the renewal would send Tehran the signal that the Obama administration is not serious about reaching a deal. At best, it would send the message that Obama will not be capable of overcoming domestic political constraints to lift the US unilateral secondary sanctions against Iran once an agreement is reached. From Tehran's perspective, a president who cannot even exercise his own constitutional authority with regard to the renewal of a particular designation would certainly not be able to act on his promise to put an end to politically sensitive sanctions or convince the US Congress to abide by the terms of the eventual agreement. This would reset all the mutual efforts put toward "confidence-building" within the last year and seriously jeopardize the chances of success at the negotiating table. Of course, the failure of the nuclear talks would in turn further complicate the already explosive situation in the Middle East.
