The Real Threat to the Iran Deal: Tehran's Banking System

In this op-ed for The Diplomat, MTA Associate Aaron Arnold argues that the key to ensuring long-run stability of the nuclear agreement will be reintegrating Iran’s banks in the global system:

"For Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani, negotiating the nuclear agreement in exchange for sanctions relief was but one step in turning around the country’s economic woes. While a decade of financial and economic isolation has taken its toll on the country’s banking system, populist policies under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, like forcing banks to provide cheap capital, have left the country undercapitalized with a high percentage of non-performing loans—as high as 20 percent, according to some estimates. Not surprisingly, foreign banks are not rushing into Iranian markets at the rate many expected, and this could spell trouble for the nuclear agreement in the long-run..."