After 12 years of fierce battling over Iran's nuclear programme between Iran and the West, a landmark deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany has been reached. Many analysts are identifying the deal as a historical diplomatic breakthrough, the likes of which has not been seen since the collapse of the Communist bloc in the late 1980s. The agreement is now pending final approval in the legislatures of Iran and the US. Observers believe that the agreement could substantially alter the political and economic landscape in Iran, the Middle East region and internationally, and there will undoubtedly be new trajectories in Iran's domestic politics in the wake of the Vienna agreement that are worth examining. When the agreement was reached last week, Iranians poured into the streets of the country's cities after iftar to celebrate the successful conclusion of the deal. Many shouted in joy and car horns were honked by jubilant motorists. In a televised statement, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said, “Today marks both an end and a beginning. An end to the cruelty and wrong and unsubstantiated accusations against the great Iranian nation and a beginning of a new trend in the start of new cooperation in the world.” Entekhab, a popular Iranian news outlet close to the moderate camp, referred to the nuclear deal as “the victory of prudence and interaction over rigidity and confrontation.” The statement was seen as an allusion to the different policy approaches of the Rouhani administration and the hardliners led by former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Asr'e Iran, another widely read Iranian news agency with moderate tendencies, compared Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif and his team's efforts to a jihad. The agency called on Rouhani to grant the team the Iranian medal of honour as a result of its bringing about one of the “greatest victories in Iran's contemporary diplomatic history.” While a complete analysis would be premature, conservative media outlets in Iran have thus far surprisingly chosen to stay relatively silent and have only presented the news of the deal without opinion or analysis. Among the very few who have taken up a position, Kayhan, the mouthpiece newspaper of the conservatives, called Rouhani's claims into question by comparing his statements with those of US President Barack Obama. There may be two reasons for their silence. The first could result from a meeting between the Rouhani administration and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader. According to several Iranian news agencies, Khamenei met with the administration and expressed his gratitude to the Iranian negotiating team for its efforts in the nuclear talks with the P5+1 group soon after the deal was announced. This at least temporarily shielded the negotiating team and Rouhani, and by association the deal itself, from the hardliners' assaults. The second reason for the hardliners' silence could be their complete confusion. The nuclear agreement has crossed several of the supreme leader's red lines, perhaps leaving the hardliners scratching their heads over his apparent approval of the deal. In his fiery remarks on 23 June, Khamenei issued several “red lines”, among them the denial of access for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to sites in Iran, especially those of a military nature, and the rejection of IAEA verification as a pre-condition for the suspension of the sanctions. The agreement clearly crosses both of these red lines. Under the agreement, the suspension of sanctions is conditional upon IAEA verification. But the inspection of military sites is subject to a different procedure. In the absence of an agreement between Iran and the IAEA, a joint commission must decide by at least five votes out of eight what measures should be taken, among them that Iran should accept inspection by the IAEA. The members of the commission are the representatives of six powers, including four Western countries, the EU and Iran. This means that the West always possesses five votes in any settlement process, including on disagreements about the inspection of military sites.
REACTION ON THE WAY: Undoubtedly, the hardliners' silence will shortly end as they prepare to begin their assaults on the negotiating team and the moderates as a whole. This divide is not just within the political establishment. In addition to the disagreements between the moderates and hardliners within the nezam, in other words the government, Iranian society is fragmented between modernists and religious traditionalists. The modernists view the nuclear agreement as a serious blow against the far right in Iran, something that was evident in a slogan chanted last week: “Kayhan [the far-right daily newspaper], Israel, condolences, condolences.” The battle between these two camps is over values and power. The backbone of the moderates' supporters is made up of either secularists or those who adhere to liberal Islam. Their worldview and values are in sharp contrast to those of the conservatives, who view the hijab (women's veil) as a symbol of the Islamic character of the state and consequently mandatory, for example, while their opponents, both liberal Muslims and secularists, oppose this strict code. A power struggle is another dimension of this conflict. The beginning of this was marked by the unexpected landslide victory of the reformist President Mohamed Khatami in 1997. But neither camp is interested in combating social and economic inequalities. After the first decade of the Revolution, the left died in Iran. Defending kookh'neshinan against kakh'neshinan — the former referring to those who live in very poor accommodation as opposed to the latter who live in palaces — was central to the discourse of the first decade of the Revolution, but is now dead in Iran. When Rouhani came to power, there were expectations that he would solve Iran's economic problems and provide his grassroots supporters with greater freedoms. Rouhani and his team view economic growth as a remedy for major social and economic issues in Iran, unemployment in particular. To further those goals, Rouhani sought to end the sanctions on the country, and in the wake of last week's deal domestic and foreign investors have already been preparing for an economic boom as the sanctions are lifted. Major Western companies are already fighting over the lucrative contracts that will be up for grabs. But for such rewards to trickle down, Rouhani will have to move fast. According to the World Bank in a report on Iran, “The incidence of underemployment has become highly prevalent. The weakness seen in the labour market comes within a context in which only 36.7 per cent of the population is economically active. “750,000 young people are estimated to enter the labour market every year, with a large portion becoming unemployed, abandoning their job search and joining the ranks of the economically inactive population.” Although it is simplistic to think that Iran's economic problems will be resolved once the sanctions are lifted, Rouhani himself deserves blame for raising expectations to the highest level by linking the solution to all economic and even noneconomic problems to the removal of the sanctions. “The oppressive sanctions must be removed so that investment can come and the problems of the environment, employment, industry and clean water are resolved,” Rouhani said in June. While Rouhani tries to bank on the nuclear deal and tighten his grip on power, the country's hardliners will counter by attempting to undermine him. Their goal is to prevent the emergence of a national hero from the moderate camp, and they will use every means at their disposal to harm him.
RED LINES CROSSED: There are clear examples of where the nuclear deal crosses Khamenei's red lines. The hardliners will magnify these in their media and gatherings, and they will perhaps even organise street protests by the Basij militia (a volunteer force made up of regime loyalists) and radical students against the nuclear deal. Since they have control over the police force and judiciary, they will likely tighten restrictions on social liberties to provoke disappointment among Rouhani's supporters, a scenario witnessed during the presidency of the reformist Mohamed Khatami a decade or so ago. This would put Khamenei in an awkward situation, and his silence about the nuclear deal crossing his own red lines is reminiscent of Ayatollah Khomeini's decision to end the war with Iraq in the 1980s, which he likened to “drinking poison.” Khamenei's silence shows how important the removal of sanctions is to the security of the regime. As such, it is unlikely that Khamenei will take up a position against Rouhani, the negotiating team or the deal. On the other hand, he cannot abandon his supporters and leave them confused about his determination and authority in fighting the “global arrogance” of the United States. It was only on 12 July that Khamenei slammed the US as the “true embodiment of arrogance” and stressed that the fight against “global arrogance” would never cease. It will be interesting to see how Khamenei now navigates the present perilous turn. His position will be decisive in determining the direction of developments over the coming months.
The writer is an Iranian political analyst and co-author of Iran and the United States: An Insider's View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace.
