Iran warned against any misadventure

WASHINGTON: Iran should use a nuclear deal agreed this week with six world powers to improve its economy, and not to pursue “adventures” in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said on Thursday. “We hope that ... if the deal is implemented that the Iranians will use this deal in order to improve the economic situation in Iran and to improve the lot of its people ... and not use it for adventures in the region,” Al-Jubeir said after a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry. “If Iran should try to cause mischief in the region, we’re committed to confront it resolutely,” he said. Al-Jubeir stressed the importance of inspections to verify Iran is complying and the “snapback” of sanctions if it is found to be cheating. Kerry said he would brief GCC members in Doha on Aug. 3. Meanwhile, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former ambassador to the US, has said in an opinion piece for Elaph newspaper that the US moved forward with the deal despite predictions of the situation developing into a North Korean-style scenario. In a column published by the London-based Arabic news website Elaph, the former chief of intelligence said the nuclear deal “will wreak havoc in the Middle East,” a region already plagued by major conflicts. “Serious pundits in the media and in politics say that President Obama’s Iran deal is ‘déjà vu’ in relation to President Clinton’s North Korean nuclear deal.” President Clinton’s decision was based on strategic foreign policy analysts, top secret national intelligence, and the desire “to save the people of North Korea from starvation,” wrote Prince Bandar, in reference to the 1994 “Agreed Framework” between North Korea and the US that aimed to freeze the country’s nuclear power program. The agreement broke down in 2003 when North Korea announced its withdrawal from the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “I am convinced more than any other time that my good friend, the magnificent old fox Henry Kissinger, was correct when he said ‘America’s enemies should fear America, but America’s friends should fear America more’,” wrote Prince Bandar, quoting the former US secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize winner who served under former presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. -arabnews