Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrive to give a press statement on the second day of the third round of talks of the European Union and Iran at the UN headquarters in Vienna, Austria, on April 9, 2014. (DIETER NAGL/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]
With a little less than three months to go before the July deadline for an agreement on Iran's nuclear program, Iran and the six world powers remain on track to reach an accord many thought could not be reached. The process is now close to achieving that most vital ingredient: a sense of inevitability. Even Israel now believes a deal will probably be reached. Recent reports suggest that Israel has shifted to a rearguard action aimed at extracting cast-iron assurances from the US over monitoring and enforcement in regards to Iran’s nuclear program. But despite these promising signs, the past few weeks have shown that domestic politics, the weight of history between the US and Iran, and the complexity of the technical aspects of the deal will continue to throw up plenty of obstacles to a successful outcome.
Since the Joint Plan of Action was announced on November 14, the two sides’ top negotiators have met on a roughly monthly basis, with the interim periods used to defend their progress to allies and domestic constituents. There’s been much defending to do. The past few weeks have been particularly testing for Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. First, US Secretary of State John Kerry testified to Congress that Iran could produce fissile material for a nuclear bomb in just a few months. This raised expectations that Washington would increase its demands during the next round of talks in May.
Then the Obama administration denied a visa for Iran’s proposed new ambassador to the UN, on the grounds that Hamid Aboutalebi had participated in the 1979–1980 hostage crisis. This was inevitably presented as yet another attack on Iran. Aboutalebi pleaded that he was not one of the hostage takers and had only acted as a translator at the request of more senior revolutionary leaders. Others argued that he was now a respected diplomat who actively supported warmer relations with the US.
In reality, Obama was left with no choice. Once Aboutalebi’s past was uncovered he knew better than to waste energy and vital political capital fighting against a formidable Congressional campaign to bar him. Rouhani should have known this, and the whole episode was an avoidable mistake by Iran. Not only did it provide ammunition to domestic opponents, it opened up the much wider (and at this stage unnecessary) issue of whether both sides must formally apologize for past sins.
Rouhani’s next challenge was to clear up the catastrophic package of subsidies his predecessors had bequeathed him, estimated to cost the Iranian economy as much as 50 billion US dollars every year. A long-running joke among Iranians is that they pay more for bottled water than gasoline. Decades of heavily subsided prices have led to chronic overconsumption, pollution and a massive loss of potential earnings from oil exports. For a country facing the harshest economic sanctions in its history it was an act of economic suicide that Rouhani, whose credibility is pinned to his economic competence, was no longer willing to continue. At midnight on April 24, Iranians saw prices at the pump increase by up to 75 percent. Ordinary Iranians will likely accept the phasing out of the subsidies only if Rouhani succeeds in ending the sanctions regime that is inflicting even more significant damage on their living standards. If Rouhani loses public support, the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is less likely to keep shielding Rouhani from his many critics. Subsidy reform thus increases the pressure on Rouhani to get a deal and on Obama to unravel the hugely complex network of sanctions.
Meanwhile, hardliners continue to push back against the “cultural openness” promoted by Rouhani. In recent weeks, gender equality has become a key battleground. In a speech marking Iran’s Women's Day, Rouhani criticized "those who consider women's presence in society as a threat," adding that "we will not accept the culture of sexual discrimination." This was in stark contrast to the Supreme Leader’s own message that gender equality was "one of the biggest mistakes of Western thought." As has become the norm, Rouhani’s deviation from the “red lines” set out by Khamenei encouraged other powerful hardliners to mount their own attacks. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps again defied the president’s demand that they stay out of politics and issued a statement decrying attempts to “secularize” Iranian culture. Damaged by these attacks and the fallout from the subsidies reform, the Rouhani government yielded ground and has generally dampened down on issues of political reform or culture.
The last few weeks illustrate two things. Firstly, the nuclear negotiations have so far survived all manner of obstacles and setbacks. Both sides remain broadly optimistic. Other obstacles will emerge, but as a solution to each is successfully negotiated momentum builds behind the notion that a deal will be struck come what may. More worrying, however, are the signs continuing to show that this tunnel vision could come at the cost of political reform in Iran.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
