WHY THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL MUST FAIL
Since the Second World War there have been two moments that have defined the West’s relationship with Iran. The first was in 1953 when Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson Kermit (‘loveable and fuzzy’ was apparently a naming convention in the Roosevelt household) and a group of American and British spies, overthrew Iran’s only ever popularly elected government to stop them from nationalising Iran’s oil fields. The second was in 1979 when a group of students and radicals (and possibly former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) stormed then occupied the American embassy in Tehran in the wake of the Islamic Revolution.
Now it seems we have possibly come to a third defining moment in the relationship. Recently a US-brokered deal was struck between the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Iran that would essentially dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and allow international inspections that would ensure that a reconstitution of the nuclear weapons program would be detected. In return the economic sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy would be lifted, and the diplomatic relationship between Iran and the west would finally start to normalise. The lives of the 77 million people living in Iran would be improved significantly, and that country would be more accessible than it’s been since the seventies.
As someone who’s been to Iran and likes to jabber on about what it’s like there after a few lagers, I say this deal must be stuck down, and it must be struck down immediately. My dinner table stories must stay intact, and the deal presents a clear and present danger to my ability to top someone babbling on about how travelling to Cuba was like going back in time.
I see a post-deal world where Iranian visas are widely available and negative press about the country is gone. If that happened there would be a terrifying spike in tourism which could have stories about Iran devalue to Ugandan or Nepalese levels within a year, and possibly even Indian or even Greek levels within the next decade. Iran’s incredible historical sites and delicious food would be Instgrammed widely. Tales of the friendliness and surprising good English of the locals would become ubiquitous. A Getaway junior producer may, at this very moment, be deciding which billowing white pantsuit Catriona Rowntree should wear while she rides a camel at sunset in Persepolis. No sir, no madam, it must not happen.
The deal may even affect my enjoyment if I ever decided to join new the Iranian travel horde. Taking the boot off the throat of the Iranian economy would probably cause the Iranian rial to jump against western currencies, and all of a sudden meals in Iran could cost up to four or five dollars, with hotel rooms becoming perhaps even ten times that, not to mention having to book and make reservations.
The deal may also impede one of the most delicious delicacies on the Iranian travel menu- seditious conversation. When in Iran people regularly invited me and my travelling companion to teahouses or restaurants, sometimes to voice their displeasure about religious restrictions, but most often about how their tertiary education is going to waste, as there are few jobs Iran, nor any opportunity to work elsewhere. Where would that fun go if there were jobs and travel permits? And what about the man who stopped us at a train station to earnestly ask what it was like to go to a Metallica concert? If that man can actually go to a Metallica concert, then what are we going to talk about? We’d probably have to talk about that time the Socceroos blew an unblowable lead against Iran in the1998 World Cup qualifier at the MCG. I don’t want to have to talk about that. I don’t want to have to queue up to visit the Blue Mosque, I don’t want to have to pay up to fifty cents for chai, and I certainly don’t want to have someone else show me their pictures of Naqsh-e-Rostam, or Shiraz or the Dizin snowfields on their phone while I smile and nod politely.
Thankfully the US senate still has the power to refuse to ratify the deal, which would result either in an Iranian nuclear bomb, war, a more favorable deal, or an endless continuation of the sanctions. Only the bravest of us are willing to risk the first two outcomes to ensure the latter two, including the US Republican party, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, the Netanyahu government, and me, dinner party bore Ben Mckelvey.
