A deal on Iran would also benefit UAE

A good deal would be very welcome in the Gulf. But not a deal at any price

Workers load a wooden cargo dhow bound for Iran from Dubai. (Photo: Antonie Robertson/The National)

To the surprise of few analysts, the talks over Iran’s nuclear programme have been extended for several more months. Those are yet more months of uncertainty: for Iran’s people, who are still gripped under sanctions, for Iran’s businesses and for the people of the region.

The view from western capitals is that the process is continuing and that a framework agreement can be agreed by February, with a final deal by the new deadline of July. That would slow Iran’s nuclear programme and ensure it is only used for peaceful purposes. The view from the UAE is slightly different.

It is no secret that the outcome that the UAE, and broadly the Gulf states, would like is a deal that halts Iran’s nuclear programme and also ends sanctions on a country that is, after all, a close neighbour of every Gulf state. But there is a further component, which is the impact on the geopolitics of the region.

This is what the UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, had to say in a recent interview when asked about the Iran talks: “The question that we in the region will ask, more than what that deal will contain, is what will Iran’s role be the day after?” What, he asked, would Iran get out of a deal “not on the nuclear front, but on the regional front”.

That is the question which most exercises the Gulf states. The extent of Iran’s ambitions in the region have been clear for some time and their policies in places such as Yemen, Syria and Iraq have made the Gulf less safe. At the same time, it is a mistake to imagine that the UAE prefers no deal. On the contrary, a good deal would benefit the entire region, both the Gulf and Iran. If proof were needed, read the report in these pages yesterday about the “bonanza” expected to come to the UAE once sanctions are lifted. The end of sanctions could expand Iran’s economy by nearly 25 per cent from where it is today. That is an enormous increase and it would be felt particularly in the UAE.

A deal, then, would bring benefits to this region first, above and beyond the benefits to the western powers now negotiating. But not any deal, not at any cost, not a deal that does not recognise the reality of what Iran’s leadership is doing in the region. That would not solve the issue. On the contrary, it would only – as the extension itself has done – delay the inevitability of hard decisions.