After the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) in Moscow last June, dialogue at the senior political level was put on ice due to the American presidential vote. Eighty-five days have passed since the re-election of Barack Obama, and high-level talks [...]]]> via Lobe Log

After the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) in Moscow last June, dialogue at the senior political level was put on ice due to the American presidential vote. Eighty-five days have passed since the re-election of Barack Obama, and high-level talks between Iran and the P5+1 have yet to resume. There are many reasons for this.

On the Iranian side, there are four main, mutually reinforcing factors behind Tehran’s cautious approach to fresh talks. First, certain figures within the political system, the nezaam, are in favor of waiting for Obama to finalize changes to his cabinet, including his national security team. These figures are by no measure dominant. Indeed, the prevailing narrative in Tehran is that a change of personalities won’t make any difference and that the American nezaam has certain engrained interests and institutions as well — among them, enmity with the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, more influential Iranian figures are pushing for Western positions to be clarified in more detail before the resumption of talks. The reason behind this maneuver is to maximize readiness for potential damage control; Iran does not want to be blamed for any diplomatic failure.

Inherent in the latter aspect of the situation is an Iranian desire to not be seen as being dragged to the negotiating table by sanctions. While Iran does seek sanctions relief, it wants such measures to be put forward in a serious manner.

The majority of the most punishing Western oil and financial penalties were imposed after the beginning of Iranian enrichment of uranium to 19.75% purity in 2010. In exchange for movement on this level of enrichment, Tehran would need some removal of the post-2010 sanctions, which include the EU oil embargo, shipping & insurance penalties, as well as US sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran.

The most important factor affecting Iranian behavior, however, is how it has entered its election cycle. Tehran is filled with debate and rumors about likely presidential candidates and what they’ll be able to do after assuming office. Western policymakers would be wise to recognize that all politics is local and show an understanding for how the Iranian presidential elections may slow down dialogue. The Iranian leadership’s main preoccupation until June is to maintain maximum stability. In this context, a nuclear deal that cannot be sold at home is not necessarily better than no deal and more sanctions.

While the Supreme Leader has final say on the nuclear issue, the next president would at least initially be able to enter the scene with some fresh ideas — both his own and from higher circles — and have room for maneuvering. The exact amount of political space, of course, depends on which candidate will win.

There are two main reasons for this: first, a new president would be better suited to pursue an opening with blessing from above, as failure can easily be deflected on him before domestic public opinion. Second, whoever the next president will be, it is unlikely that he will at least initially be as divisive as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Less tension at home will give Iran a stronger negotiating stance, along with improved Western acceptance of an Iranian ability to deliver.

This line has been echoed by influential officials such as former envoy Sadeq Kharrazi, who has argued that “lively elections” will empower the government and bring “wise people to power” with a consequent greater Iranian capacity to extract concessions from the United States. Kharrazi also said that he didn’t believe relations between Iran and the US would be normalized during Obama’s second term prior to Obama’s re-election and has indicated that the real window for diplomacy on the nuclear issue will be after Iran’s presidential election. Kharrazi argues that this is because the Americans have never been and never will be willing to negotiate with Ahmadinejad’s government.

The writing between the lines is that many figures within Iran are not going to let any negotiations with the US be successful as long as Ahmadinejad is in power.

In sum, while Iran’s bottom line on the nuclear issue won’t change (i.e. enrichment on Iranian soil), the next Iranian president would at least initially be able to pursue an opening. Moreover, a new president would give the United States in particular a badly needed new “face” to deal with.

Ultimately, power to change the US-Iran relationship is equally in the hands of Barack Obama. A day after Obama’s first Nowruz message in 2009, at the end of a damning speech, Iran’s Supreme Leader responded that “if you change your attitude, we will change our attitude.” Most likely, that offer still stands.

Until then, a mutual desire to keep things from spiraling out of control will in all probability result in both sides kicking the can down the road until after this summer.

- Mohammad Ali Shabani is a doctoral researcher at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London and the Editor of Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs.

You will not hear me say this often, but Hossein Shariatmadari — Iran’s irascible and intractable editor of the hardline Kayhan daily — makes one important point in this editorial. Although a few months ago Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei referred in general terms to the fact that Iran had been [...]]]> via Lobe Log

You will not hear me say this often, but Hossein Shariatmadari — Iran’s irascible and intractable editor of the hardline Kayhan daily — makes one important point in this editorial. Although a few months ago Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei referred in general terms to the fact that Iran had been involved against Israel’s previous attacks against Lebanon (2006) and Gaza (2008), this is the first time that both the Iranian and Palestinian leaderships have officially and unabashedly acknowledged Iran’s military support.

Shariatmadari does not address the question of what has led to this new official posture since his piece is really not about what has brought about this change but a convoluted attack — based on fabricated quotes — on reformists who in his words have been directly or indirectly supported by the Israeli government in order to weaken the Islamic Republic’s support for the “resistance.” What else could the protestors’ chant — Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I give my life to Iran” — in the post-2009 election environment have meant but “playing in the wolves’ team,” Shariatmadari asserts. But what Shariatmadari takes for granted is that the hardline position on the need for Iran’s support for resistance in Palestine has not only been vindicated but become common sentiment as well.

This is a debatable assumption since one of the basic disagreements between those in Iran who have called for a less confrontationist foreign policy, and those who continue to push for an offensive or aggressive foreign policy (siast khareji-ye tahajomi), has been over Iran’s role beyond the Persian Gulf region. While the former does not see Iran’s involvement in broader regional issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as serving the long-term interests of the country, the latter argues that regional links will check Israeli threats and enhance Iran’s standing vis-à-vis the United States. While the former worries about the additional threats an offensive foreign policy — which it calls adventurist — will bring for Iran, the latter insists that the only deterrent to international “bullies” is a show of strength and resolve combined with just a pinch of Nixonian madman posture.

But the decision on the part of Iran to publicly own up to its military and financial support for Hamas does hint at the possibility that the hardline position may have become consensus at least for tactical purposes as Iran prepares to re-engage in nuclear talks with the United States within the 6-world power (p5+1) framework.

As I mentioned in a previous post on Iran and Gaza, Tehran’s initial response to the Israeli attack was rather cautious and conceding of Egyptian leadership. The chair of the Parliament’s National Security of Foreign Policy Committee, Alaeddin Borujerdi, went as far as to say that Iran had nothing to do with Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. But in the span of a couple of days — surely after a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) — a decision was made to not only announce Tehran’s financial and military support, but also state the country’s pride in doing so. Similar language used by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and IRGC commander Mohammad Jafari — both members of the SNSC — suggests prior coordination.

This was done despite at least one warning in the press that the Gaza attack was “an Israeli conspiracy to destroy the opportunity for talks between Iran and the West.” It was also done despite worries that the war was mostly about testing the Iron Dome and deterrence against Iranian missiles. I am unable to access the editorial in the daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami from a few days ago, but if I remember correctly, it said something like Israel now knows a lot more about Iran’s capabilities than the other way around.

Despite these concerns, Iran’s assertive posture is probably the result of the calculation laid out by Sadeq Kharrazi, deputy foreign minister in the reformist era and current publisher of “irdiplomacy”, a website dedicated to foreign policy. He suggests that Iran’s concrete support for Hamas essentially steers attention away from Iran’s conduct in Syria and towards the “paradoxical behavior” of the “traditional leaders of the Arab World and Turkey” which “do not take any measures to militarily support the Palestinians while they continue to send ships filled with ammunitions and arms to Syria’s opposition.”

But his hopes, which I think also underwrite Iran’s openly supportive posture towards Gaza, are as follows:

The complicated crises of the Middle East and its equations are becoming more complex day by day, and one cannot confront them with the policies of the past. The US and other world powers must know that the equation of the Middle East region will not be solved without the presence of all regional powers. Perhaps one of the objectives of the Zionist regime behind attacking Gaza was to weaken or delay the possibility of dialogue between Iran and the US—and to overshadow it—but it seems that the crisis in Gaza, more than ever before, proved to Obama that he needs to interact with Iran as the proponent of dialogue, revolutionary and Jihadist ideas in the region, so that part of the problems of the region, from Syria to Gaza, can be solved with Iran’s support.

Bottom line: the Islamic Republic is making a point that it is part of a variety of problems in the region; making it part of the solution to these problems will require a different US approach.

This is an argument that Kharrazi, proponent of a grand bargain with the US, has been making for a long time. The glitch in this argument is that US policy makers have remained unimpressed with Iran’s regional clout either because they do not find it impressive enough (despite trumpeting it for domestic purposes), or because they think Islamic Iran is structurally unable to be helpful in wielding its clout. They have instead opted for isolating Iran through a ferocious sanctions regime.

Now, with Gaza, the Islamic Republic is making the same argument in a more concrete fashion. The problem of course is that in the Middle East, playing hardline usually begets hardline.

Nevertheless, hardline is what Tehran has decided to play at this moment and public announcements about Iran’s military support for Hamas in spite of presumably crippling sanctions should be viewed as a statement — bluster or not — regarding the failure and even danger of policies that try to bring about regional security at the expense of Islamic Iran’s insecurity.

- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.