On January 21, 2014, the P5+1 and Iran implemented the interim agreement that was outlined in Geneva last November, known as the Joint Plan of Action, regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Whether or not the JPA is a real step toward halting Tehran’s decades-long project is a key question.
Equally important is the fact that the JPA seems to embody the White House’s larger Middle East strategy. What President Obama is aiming for, according to a recent New Yorker article, is “geopolitical equilibrium” in the region, where Iran and Washington’s traditional Arab allies in the Persian Gulf balance each other out. And yet U.S. allies—from Israel to Saudi Arabia—are concerned that the White House has misread the clerical regime. American allies in the region view Iran not as a potential partner, but as an expansionist power inflaming sectarian conflict from Beirut to Baghdad–-a power that the Obama administration, they worry, may no longer be willing to help contain.
On January 31, 2014, Hudson Institute hosted a panel of distinguished experts for a discussion of the Joint Plan of Action, Iran, and the future of American security policy in the Middle East.
Watch the discussion on C-SPAN here.
