Or should that read when the international community finally reached an agreement with Iran as to its nuclear ambitions? The distinction is an important one not least because each side left the negotiating table with a fist-pumping sense of triumph.
Since the end of World War Two, the world has experienced three major political impasses of the sort which many a political scientist thought is unsolvable – the Berlin Wall, the complete collapse of US-Iranian relations and the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Yet with the Israeli-Arab conflict to one side, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the brokered nuclear deal between Iran and the international community in Vienna in July 2015 represent a milestone of considerable proportion. A collective achievement which provides some hope for humanity.
The hallmark of any agreement likely to stand the test of time (as this one seems likely to do) is an agreement whereby each party walks away feeling victorious and grinning from ear-to-ear. This was one such agreement. The international community (and particularly the USA) turned around and left its table with that same sense of contentment as one does when he realizes that the ball has wiped out all the pins on the bowling floor – strike time! For the USA, Iran would never be able to obtain a nuclear weapon and that represented the optimum result.
For Iran, the prospect of sanction lifts and the unfreezing of major global assets as well as the ability to sell its oil more freely (sending a long debilitating shiver down the metaphoric spine of Riyadh which has all too often enjoyed a monopoly) meant that the men from Tehran were laughing all the way to the bank – quite literally.
One step forward…
This was the breakthrough which not, as we are told, only guarantees world peace but which will open trading doors and a cohesive dialogue between Tehran, Washington and their respective peoples.
For the estimated 1 million US citizens of Iranian descent (or actual dual-nationals) many of whom still have prominent familial ties in Iran, this represented a new dawn.
This dawn was short lived. The milestone agreement was supposed to represent a cohesive understanding and foster trust – the two strongest forces capable of rooting out terrorism, hate and extremism.
Yet, despite this large step forward, two equally large steps were hauntingly taken backwards with the introduction of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement Act of 2015 (H.R. 158), as amended.
The Visa Waiver Program allows citizens of 38 participating countries to travel to the U.S., Europe, Japan, and South Korea without a visa for stays of 90 days or less.
HR 158, amending the Program, seeks to exclude dual nationals from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria or anyone who has travelled to those countries in the past five years from using the program to enter the country.
The program is based on reciprocity, this would most likely trigger similar restrictions on American citizens from European and other participating countries. As such, Iranian Americans could be barred from the visa waiver program solely based on their national origin, and be impacted in a disparate fashion.
For American Iranians (by far the largest group amongst the four excluded countries), this legislation has severely harsh and arbitrary consequences which restricts travel to Europe. For British Iranians (the second large dual national group affected), this has an equally demoralizing and restrictive effect on British Iranians seeking to travel to the USA.
The consequence is that a high-flying, well-educated individual born in London without a blemish to his/her background but with ancestral ties to Iran (i.e. a recognized dual national of both Iran and the United Kingdom) would be excluded from visa-free travel to the USA whilst other British citizens remain eligible for visa-free travel. There is no exception for humanitarian travel to blacklisted countries, nor for so-called “accidental” nationals who may have derived dual citizenship through their parents but with no real connection to the country of origin.
This is a form of open, blanket discrimination based on national or ancestral origin. That it is anything but that would be to sugar-coat and embellish a bleak reality. In fact, the legislation is perhaps the leading and purest example of open and direct discrimination based on racial/national origin.
Moreover, it is very hard to escape the tangible sense of apartness which this legislation imbues. It creates a form of second class citizenry. It creates a form of second class British citizens or second class French citizens (the country with the second largest population of Iranian origin in Europe).
The adverse impact of such legislation cannot be assessed from an objective prism but the key to integration is an assessment from a subjective prism. It does not matter whether the legislation does not intend to make British Iranians or French Iranians or American Iranians. What matters is whether British Iranians, French Iranians, American Iranians or any other combination feel that the legislation creates a form of second class citizenry and strips them of their Britishness or the like.
The answer to that question is that there is an overwhelming since that the legislation fosters a palpable division. In the UK, it has stripped British Iranians of their Britishness because, unlike an indigenous Brit, this legislation views their British citizenship as a mere token – a piece of paper without any further interest or enquiry into the individual’s personal achievements, accolades and achievements.
At this juncture, it is perhaps apt to point out how lucky we are in the United Kingdom for the strength and fairness of our constitutional framework. Such legislation, in the English constitutional tradition (against the backdrop of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010 as well as rich tapestry of common law traditions), would have barely survived a legal challenge.
Our constitution’s (unwritten all the same) firm separation of powers would have placed any executive government in the hot seat over this legislation if something similar were to have been conceived in the political machinery of Westminster.
What aim does the legislation fulfil – does it pursue a legitimate aim and are the proposed measures necessary to fulfil those aims? Even if necessary, are the proposed measures proportionate to the undue or harsh consequences which individuals may face as a result? The above are all questions in the European constitutional tradition which would have needed to be asked if such legislation were to survive in the UK or on the continent.
The context of such arbitrary legislation both in the past and in the present in the case of HR 158 is all too familiar.
In the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino tragedies, various visa programs allowing foreign nationals to enter the United States have come under fire. The Paris attackers were French and Belgian citizens who were eligible to enter the U.S. without a visa.
However, it is misplaced to think that HR 158 is the answer.
The first point to note is the “visa-free” travel does not mean “screening-free” travel and individuals can and should, in any event, be screened. Most of the recent attacks in France, for example, over the last few years have been carried out by individuals already known to law enforcement, both local and international, as unsavory.
HR 158 does not learn from previous US legislative history. For example, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, was an ill-conceived program after 9/11 which required males from 25 countries (all but North Korea were Muslim-majority ones) to register with the government.
Like H.R. 158, NSEERS as a façade for discrimination on basis of national origin which ostracized individuals by casting a sweeping net of law-abiding foreign nationals into its gasp. All countries were removed in 2011 so that the program, whilst nominally extant, is all but gone. In its active years, NSEERS did not even secure one criminal conviction much less throttle a single terror plot.
It did, however, devastate the lives of many law-abiding and contributing citizens of Middle Eastern or Muslim origin in the years following 9/11.
HR 158 is the reincarnation of NSEERS – an approach which only serves to ostracize and marginalize entire communities in a form of blanket discrimination without even securing or achieving the aim of combatting crime or terrorism. It is a medicine which does not arrive at a cure but simply produces the side effects of further hate and social divisions.
In the wake of Iranian’s nuclear deal with the US and the international community, President Obama delivered a characteristically articulate speech before the American University in Washington, DC on 5th August 2016 where he said:
“Now, when I ran for President eight years ago as a candidate who had opposed the decision to go to war in Iraq, I said that America didn’t just have to end that war — we had to end the mindset that got us there in the first place. It was a mindset characterized by a preference for military action over diplomacy; a mindset that put a premium on unilateral U.S. action over the painstaking work of building international consensus; a mindset that exaggerated threats beyond what the intelligence supported.”
Obama’s words are delivered with precision. He is framing his legacy as the President who made the USA a safer place to live through diplomacy and a “mindset” which prevents conflict. He seeks to frame his legacy as the President who ended the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as securing peace with Iran.
He spoke of a mindset – a mindset which favor diplomacy and did not exaggerate threats. Ultimately, these are warm but empty words as the mindset which produced HR 158 is the same mindset which exaggerates threats and fosters conflict.
For the largest group of dual citizens plighted by HR 158 (American Iranians and British Iranians), HR 158 is a chilling reminder that the “mindset” which fosters paranoia, skepticism and hatred has not been eradicated and that President Obama merely speaks of a false legacy.
American Iranians and British Iranians could be forgiven for pointing out that no person of Iranian origin was involved in 9/11 or the atrocities of Al-Shabab or Boko Haram or the recent attacks in Belgium and in France or at the Boston Marathon before them. Despite this, it is individuals of Iranian origin who are disproportionately affected by HR 158 and this only serves to colden US-Iranian ties thus nullifying the diplomatic progress of any nuclear deal.
More appallingly, dual-national Iranians living in the West are bridge to better understanding between Iran and the West. Much of this citizenry, integrated, educated and economically-astute, should be seen as an ally having fled Iran in the first place. Despite this, HR 158 is a piece of legislation which specifically burns that bridge down for no identifiable policy benefit.
Hojabr Afshar is a freelance journalist based in London. He has received BA in law from University of West London and has done his MA in international law in University of Warwick in the UK.