Essay: US’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal

On May 8th of this year, the United States of America, headed by President Donald Trump, withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also referred to as the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal. The deal was set up in 2015 by the Obama administration and was a diplomatic initiative of two years between Iran and the countries known as P5+1, the members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. The initial policy lifted heavy international sanctions that were placed on Iran, crippling its economy, in exchange for Iran no longer pursuing its nuclear program. The implications of US withdrawal from this deal are the imposition of economic sanctions on Iran again, though the US Treasury has stated this would not be immediate. This policy will not only affect Iran, as it has been reported than any European companies in business with Iran will be subject to US sanctions themselves if they do not finish fraternisation in six months. Though Iran is eager to save the deal, it has threatened to start its nuclear programme up again if the US re-imposes sanctions on over 400 of Iran’s companies to penalise their economy.
This essay will analyse the United States decision to withdraw from deal, looking in detail at each level of analysis to do so. First, this policy will be analysed on the basis of the individual level of analysis, chronicling the nature, psychology and motivation behind US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal. Secondly, we will analyse it at the domestic or state level, exploring the internal influences on said policy. The final paragraph will look at the policy in terms of the international or systemic level of analysis, investigating what global factors and the element of power in the international system had to do with the US’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal.
In order to analyse the policy of the US’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal we will commence by applying the first level; the individual level of analysis. This level assumes the position of analysing foreign policy in terms of the psychology, personalities and experiences of leaders, questioning personal motives for the decisions made in international relations. As for the policy of withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal, this level would focus on Donald Trump as an individual and a leader. This level also assumes the position of agency over structure, with agency being defined as ‘human beings taking decisions and implementing them on behalf of entities which possess varying degrees of coherence, organisation and power’ (Hill 2015: 58). The most visible level of agency is political leadership. Though there are other political actors who can be focused on regarding foreign policy decisions, this essay will focus on President Trump, as he has personally been very vocal about the policy. One way this policy can be analysed is to suggest Trump is set on dismantling President Barack Obama, his predecessors, legacy. The Iran Nuclear Deal has been noted as one of Obama’s highest foreign policy achievements, while Mr Trump described it as ‘decaying and rotten’ and ‘defective to its core’ (Trump, 2018). This is not the only policy the Obama administration put in place that Trump has targetted. Between stripping protections that the Obama administration placed on undocumented immigrants, and renouncing the US’s involvement in the Paris Agreement on mitigating climate change, Trump has been very outspoken about his personal oppositions to many of the Obama-era foreign policies. Furthermore, Trumps administration has been marked by his ‘America First’ doctrine, and one of his main apprehensions of the deal was that he would not enable a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ access to nuclear weaponry. Trumps foreign policy since coming into office has been largely marked by his favourable relationship with Israel, who also opposed the Iran Nuclear Deal. He has previously called himself ‘very pro-Israel’ (Trump, 2016) and this is proven by his personal correspondence with and support for Israeli President since 2006 Benjamin Netanyahu. All of these are potential reasons for the US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran Deal, and all of them are solely due to the leader of the country, as the individual level of analysis would suggest.
Though the individual level of analysis provides useful information about the motives and personal reasoning of leaders behind foreign policy making decisions, it is also crucial to analyse these decisions at the second level of analysis; the state or domestic level. Individuals are important, but they operate within bureaucracies, organisations and governments which can often put constraints on the decisions leaders can make. In looking at this second level of analysis we will examine the internal influences preceding the US’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran Deal. In applying the domestic level of analysis to this foreign policy decision, one may suggest that an encouraging factor behind the withdrawal of the deal is the rise in conservatism incited by Trumps presidency. Through his ‘America First’ doctrine, the public has potentially become more anti-outsiders, with his largely anti-Islamist views supported by his following, which has swung the political and societal culture to be more conservative in line with Trumps beliefs and preaching’s, meaning such a decision to pull out of the Iran Deal could have been accepted, if not encouraged by his base. However, it’s questionable whether this is actually the case as many articles and polls suggest the majority of Americans were either neutral on the issue, or in favour of staying in the deal. Also, this policy was not one that stimulated his supporters as much as that of his immigration and trade policies.
On the other hand, when looking at the policy using the domestic level of analysis, one can investigate the influence and prevalence of Trumps cabinet on the decision to pull out of the Iran Deal. Foreign policy decisions are usually the products of formal state institutions of which are tasked specifically with producing and lobbying policies. The aim of these institutions is to offset the negative features of individual decision-making such as cognitive bias and irrationality. For example, many of Trumps cabinet advised him against the abandonment of the deal, such as his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defence James Mattis. However, these advisors have since been replaced with Iran hawks and as such Trumps distrust and dislike of the Iran Deal is backed by those of equal distrust, advocating him to withdraw the country from the agreement. This portrays the relevance of internal influences on foreign policy decisions, as policy making is a process of building consensus and support for a policy among relevant participants in the institutions that construct them. Furthermore, it could be suggested that this consensus within Trumps newly constructed foreign policy team is subject to the issue of ‘groupthink’ (Janis 1972). This is defined as a form of mob psychology that discourages dissent from dominant ideas, often promoting conservatism and Irving Janis suggests it is ‘a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgement as a result of group pressure’ (Janis 1972, 9). At this level of analysis then, it could be suggested that the policy to withdraw from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal was subject to problematic internal influences.
Finally, is the international or system level of analysis on foreign policy. This level assumes that states are rational, unitary actors that behave the way they do because of their position in the international system, which implies that the options available to states are determined by their position in the global system relative to other states. Some, suggest the international system is an ‘anarchical society’ (Bull 1977) in which ‘elements of cooperation and conflict coexist uneasily, with the system looking differently according to an actor’s location in it’ (Hill 2015, 169). Waltz identified this level of analysis as the most important when investigating why states act the way they do, suggesting that in the anarchical international system, states aim to balance their power with other states power (Waltz 2001). This is a claim consistent among many neo-realists, believing that the anarchy of the international system can lead to insecurity of states, so one could posit that the US has withdrawn from the Iran Deal due to a level of insecurity as they see Iran trying to secure a monopolising role over other Islamic states. Therefore, to stop this, the US withdraws from said deal and reinstates sanctions on Iran, hoping to cripple their economy and stop them progressing.
Within this system, the distinction is made between big states, middle states and small states. The US is considered a big state and a great power, or a superpower in the current multi-polar international system, whilst a state like Iran is a small or middle state. The role of power in the international system plays a huge influence on policy making in regard to other states, and as a great power, the parameters for such policy making decisions for the US is wide, with few other states matching its power in order to balance it. The materialist definition of power is the distribution or attribution of capabilities, such as military, economy and natural resources. In regard to this, one might suggest that the US is the sole dominating superpower, especially militarily, due to their military capabilities being unchallenged by any other power. In 2017 the US defence budget was put at $523.9 billion, while Chinas was estimated at $145.86 billion and Russia’s at $65 billion. Furthermore, the entirety of NATO combined, excluding the US, was estimated to have a budget of $202 billion, leaving the US as the unwavering military powerhouse of the globe, potentially deeming them the most powerful state.
However, this is dependent on ones’ definition of power, as there are also non-material aspects of it, including the concepts of reputation and status. Nonetheless, the US is regarded worldwide as an ‘overwhelming power’ with ‘[n]o potential adversary … and … no question of a countervailing coalition to block, let alone replace, it’ (Cohen, 2004). As such, the US was able to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal without much resistance from any other state due to its encompassing position as a superpower in the international system. Though its European allies such as the UK, France and Germany advised strongly against the decision to withdraw from the deal, the US faced no real issue in forming this policy, due to its level of power. This suggests that the conditions and power structures or relationships in the international system provide a context within which the US was able to form this policy, and other policies, unchallenged. We can trace this monopoly of US power over smaller states back to the rise of the West, with the history of the US’s foreign policy being a history of its ability to dominate other states in order to protect its own interests, whether economic or military. For example, the US overthrew the democratically elected government in Iran in 1952 to protect its interest of big oil, so for the US to withdraw from this deal and threaten to impose heavy sanctions is not a new thing in the tense relationship between these two states.
In conclusion, in order to explore the motives, processes and outcomes of foreign policy decisions, it’s highly useful to do so in terms of the three levels of analysis; individual, domestic and system. The US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal is a relevant policy today, as the act of reinstating sanctions on the country is currently being discussed and will soon be pursued. For this policy, all three levels of analysis are convincing, and together they create a detailed picture of explanation as to why the US is withdrawing from the deal. If I were to do an in-depth analysis of another foreign policy in the future, focusing solely on one level of analysis, the level I would centre my analysis on would be the systemic or international level. It provides cogent reasoning on a macro-level as to why states behave the way they do, and why they pursue the foreign policies they do, and though the immediate causes of foreign policy often has its foundations in the individual or domestic level of analysis, it is more important to analyse it at the system level, as this is where you can see the outcomes and how it affects the structure of the international system.