As the Trump administration pursues new diplomatic efforts with Iran, it is incumbent upon special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and others not only to ensure the destruction of Tehran’s nuclear program, but also to address policies that have enabled Iran to continue its development of fissile material in violation of international agreements since 2003.
Critics of Trump’s approach will be quick to cite the president’s termination of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, arguing that Tehran was complying with the terms of the deal and would be in a weakened state today if the agreement had remained in place. But as I outlined in detail here in 2019, the JCPOA contained various loopholes that allowed Iran to cheat the entire time.
The sheer fecklessness of this agreement from the Obama administration (coupled with Joe Biden’s easing of Trump-era sanctions and unfreezing of Iranian assets) provided Tehran with critical time and money for uranium enrichment as well as funding for its terrorist proxies against Israel. The cold-blooded murders of Jewish men, women, and children on October 7, 2023 underscore the consequences of submitting to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism and its repeated goal of destroying the planet’s only Jewish state.
However, Iran’s unhindered development of nuclear fuel began long before the JCPOA went into effect in 2015. As noted above, international efforts to curb the country’s uranium enrichment program have been in place since 2003. During this span of 22 years, Tehran has violated (among other agreements) six U.N. Security Council resolutions insisting that it suspend its nuclear enrichment program. In 2003, Iran possessed approximately 160 centrifuges for uranium enrichment; as of 2023, that number had increased to 12,994. Despite being unable to produce any fissile material in 2003, by 2013, Iran possessed seven tons of low-grade enriched uranium capable of being transformed in a number of months into weapons-grade material.
The Iranian leadership has had no incentive to dismantle its nuclear program due to the fact that it has never had to face significant penalties for its repeated violation of sanctions. Though this may be due, in part, to geopolitical cowardice, it is also indicative of the shortcomings of collective security since the onset of the 20th century.
The concept of collective security formed the basis for both the League of Nations and the United Nations in the aftermaths of the First and Second World Wars, respectively. Spearheaded by Woodrow Wilson (and later Franklin Roosevelt), this new paradigm in international relations was fundamentally different from the notions of alliance-building and balance-of-power politics that had defined European diplomacy since the end of the Thirty Years War and the resulting Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
From the mid-17th to the early 20th century, partnerships had been forged between nations with shared interests and values in order to deter threats to their existence (advancing “raison d’état”) and the existing geopolitical order. Allied countries identified explicit actions by hostile polities that would not be tolerated and provided concrete retaliatory measures that would be enforced in the face of such actions. Deterrence was effective due to a complete lack of ambiguity regarding threats to national existence and subsequent reprisals for violating an alliance’s stated red lines. As the first American president to grapple with the United States’ role as a world power, Teddy Roosevelt advocated this mindset, stating that foreign policy was the art of adapting American policy to balance global power discreetly and resolutely, tilting events in the direction of the national interest.
The notion of collective security changed all of this. Rather than championing alliances where shared interests and capabilities served to strengthen national security and the existing order, collective security sought to make the world “safe for democracy” by attempting to remake all nations in the image of the United States. According to Woodrow Wilson and subsequent advocates, furthering democracy across the globe was vital to lasting peace because all peoples, at their core, were believed to be motivated by American values. This prompted them to create intergovernmental organizations in which all nations could participate on the basis of their opposition to undefined “aggression.”
The pitfalls of such thinking are obvious. Actions that constitute “aggression” are vastly different among nation-states whose interests and values are diametrically opposed. Given these disparities, violations of the status quo can never be articulated in advance — they can only be addressed once hostile actions have already been committed. However, because not all participating nations will see the aforementioned actions as aggressive, there is no consensus as to how to eliminate the threat. Consequently, hostilities are allowed not only to take place, but to fester in perpetuity.
The folly of this mindset is exemplified in the record of the United Nations. From bloody border disputes between India and Pakistan to genocide in Rwanda to Islamic terrorism against Israel and the West, the 20th and 21st centuries are replete with failures by the U.N. to effectively halt conflicts with regional and global ramifications. The unimpeded strengthening of Iran’s nuclear capabilities over more than two decades is merely a symptom of a diplomatic ethos that disregards reality in favor of ideology.
In working to secure a new deal with Iran, the Trump administration’s commitment to dismantling the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program must be unequivocal. If Tehran seeks to avoid ruinous military, economic, and political consequences, U.S. diplomats must make clear that this will be possible only through inspection and disposal of nuclear fuel under the auspices of America and its allies (including Israel). There is no other means by which to end Iranian flippancy toward the West’s anemic efforts to circumscribe its murderous ambitions over the past 22 years.
Having done so, the United States must address the collective security apparatus that not only has exacerbated international conflicts, but maintains an unabashed record of blatant Jew-hatred. The U.N. has not merely outlived its sell-by date; it is inherently flawed, because it is founded on a set of beliefs at odds with the history of human existence. Its survival constitutes an existential threat to Western interests and the post–Cold War balance of power.
In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire’s increasing decline and vulnerability earned it the moniker “Sick Man of Europe.” It is time to discard the concept of collective security that remains the foundation of the U.N. — the “Sick Man of the World.”
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