Sanctions: Divine blessing for Iran hardliners

A Ramezani
12 December 2013

Thirty four years of political discord between Tehran and Washington appears to be fading if the moderate administration of President Hassan Rouhani would be able to overcome not the hawks in the United States or Israel, but the hardliners inside the country who have widely spread into the political structure.

Since his election, Mr Rouhani has kept his administration’s focus on two key issues: a lengthy nuclear dispute with the West, which has frustrated both the Iranian and foreign negotiators over years; and an ailing economy, which has already pressed millions of average and poor Iranians, with inflation skyrocketing to more than 40 per cent earlier this year and GDP plummeting to minus 5.8 per cent in the year ending to March 2013.

Despite all oppositions and outrages from radical conservatives in the parliament, judiciary, and military and security bodies, Rouhani’s diplomatic team reached an interim but landmark deal with the six world powers over the Iranian nuclear energy program, in just 100 days since 3 August when the president took office – an achievement that was hailed at home by all politicians and clergies but those having ties with security bodies.

On the economic side, too, the administration has had a relatively good improvement since August. It has restrained the inflation a bit and stabilized the deteriorating economy that was already affected by domestic mismanagement as well as sanctions imposed by the United Nations, United States, and European Union.

These relatively positive measures alone can boost popularity of President Rouhani in the country. That worries rival groups, who, at the same time, see their representativeness in the government decreasing.

In less than four months, Mr Rouhani brought down the number of governors affiliated to the IRGC, a military force parallel to the national Army, to 4 from 17 in former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s era. That’s a great loss of political power for security figures, who have gotten used to participating in the decision-making process actively.

Now, the moderate and pro-Reform individuals are taking back more key positions, not only in politics but in other fields like sports, which is widely believed in the country to be a potential rich source of income for those involved in management levels.

On 27 November, President Rouhani presented a report on his record in the first 100 days in office, praising recent sports achievements of Iranian champions in global competitions. To make that happen, “we were just trying to remove the shadow of politics from sports,” Mr Rouhani said, with a clear reference to security figures who had been allowed to control main federations.

Disappointed with Rouhani’s decisions, hardline conservatives have for several months started to resist. In September, they launched a nationwide campaign to turn a brief telephone conversation Mr Rouhani had with US President Barack Obama on the eve of his departure from New York City into a political crisis. The conversation was the first direct contact between presidents of Iran and the US since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But their efforts to create a crisis failed after Iran Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei cautiously backed the government and its tentative diplomatic moves during a speech in Tehran.

It was then the turn of Javad Zarif, the foreign minister and top nuclear negotiator, to come under fire. Zarif played a central role, on the Iranian’s behalf, in nuclear negotiations which resulted in the interim agreement. The attacks on the top diplomat started while the talks were underway and they still persist three weeks after the deal was reached in Geneva. Radical conservatives argue that it was a bad deal and have urged the foreign minister to avoid relations with the United States, a staunch “enemy” whose embassy (“the den of espionage”) in Tehran has been closed since more than three decades ago.

In one of the latest anti-Zarif comments, IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari criticized the top nuclear negotiator for the Geneva compromise, saying, “In the recent negotiations we gave up the maximum, and got minimum."

Despite the green light from Ayatollah Khamenei for direct negotiations with Washington, anti-US rhetoric has still been a serious domestic barrier to make a change in the Iranian foreign policy and, more importantly, to protect the fragile nuclear deal which was meant to pave the way for further talks between Tehran and world powers to eventually reach a comprehensive agreement in a year or so, ending years of hostility and misunderstandings.

In a recent attempt analysts see as a move by hardliners to get the administration engaged also in a domestic front, the conservative-led parliament questioned the minister of economy and finance on 8 December about his policies. At the end of the session, Ali Tayebnia was given a “yellow card” after he failed to give “convincing” answers to a question raised by lawmaker Qassem Jafari over a central bank’s monetary policy that had prevented the national currency from appreciating in recent months. In a remark Tayebnia made later he claimed that the question was not related to him, but to governor of the Central Bank of Iran. If a minister receives three yellow cards in the parliament, he will be impeached by lawmakers. That means hardliners in the parliament may have launched a project to target a key minister in the administration as the economy was a central issue in the 2013 presidential campaign, along with the sanctions that most economists believe have so far hit domestic industries and businesses hard.

Despite Rouhani’s efforts to minimize the influence of security figures in politics and economy, the president increased the budget of the parliament, IRGC, law enforcement, and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) by 30 per cent for the next fiscal year – a move interpreted by some analysts as a small concession to the most conservative bodies.

As Mr Rouhani is dealing with mounting pressure from the domestic side, foreign sanctions, if adopted by the US Congress, would be "a divine blessing" for religious Iranian hardliners seeking an opportunity to strike the final blow to diplomacy and the Geneva deal.

Two US senators, Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), are now proposing new anti-Iran legislation while President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, who had a crucial role in reaching the interim deal, have already urged them to give diplomacy a final chance.

Also, the Iranian foreign minister is already warning that further sanctions would kill the recent intense diplomatic efforts. Many experts in Iran believe that Tehran will probably have no option but withdrawing from talks under rising domestic pressure if legislation passes Congress.